Paterson’s video stunt the Coalition’s One Nation crisis writ small

Australians can trust that spats outside polling booths and fights over political posters will signal when election day is around the corner.

Usually, these disputes involve volunteers. Sometimes local candidates. They don’t usually implicate senior politicians (although it has happened before).

Wednesday’s addition to the genre was a rare example of the latter, as Liberal Senator James Paterson – one of Angus Taylor’s senior shadow ministers and a party powerbroker – filmed his clash with a One Nation volunteer outside a booth in Albury just days before the Farrer byelection.

Unlike most viral moments that emerge from the silliness and thick emotion of pre-poll booths, this three-minute snippet was telling of the dynamics at play ahead of polling day.

The substance of the two men’s disagreement, according to the video footage, was whether it mattered that One Nation candidate David Farley previously tried to stand for Labor.

It is unclear how the interaction began, but Paterson filmed their verbal sparring for two minutes, including some colourful name-calling from the One Nation volunteer. The man, who seemed unaware he was being recorded, turned away from the conversation at several points. When he eventually realised Paterson’s phone was filming, he was affronted and grabbed the device. Paterson claimed assault.

Paterson was right to say that voters deserve to know the political history of the aspiring One Nation candidate. The man was wrong to grab his phone. Both Farley and Pauline Hanson condemned the incident. Was it the right move for Paterson to keep engaging in the argument and film it, however, rather than walk away?

It’s unlikely this viral moment will do the Liberals many favours in Farrer – particularly when the characters in this contest have already been cast as disgruntled country folk who are fighting back against a political establishment in the cities that has ignored them.

This framing is only reinforced by the optics of Paterson (a pedigree politician from Melbourne who came through a think-tank before landing in parliament) having a spat with a local volunteer over the specifics of defamation law.

Hanson’s chief-of-staff James Ashby jumped on that view, despite his boss’ apology. Claiming Paterson “went looking for a blue”, he told Sky News: “You’ve got a bloke who’s on $300,000 a year deliberately going out there, rage baiting a pensioner who God only knows what he’s having to live off.”

The evidence is already sitting in Farley’s social media comments. Underneath the candidate’s Facebook post condemning the incident – which contains the raw footage – there are hundreds complaining that the volunteer was goaded into the altercation.

It also shows how difficult it has been for the Coalition to land the right attack lines against One Nation. There is a tension in keeping would-be Liberals and Nationals voters onside without disparaging or condescending them, while laying blows powerful enough to make a dent on the party’s surging popularity.

Voters jumping the fence from the Coalition to One Nation don’t paint all Liberal and National MPs with the same brush, but they do want to send a message. Indeed, the One Nation volunteer praised Paterson and Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie as two of the good ones, before the interaction soured. It is, evidently, a delicate relationship to be managed.

Taylor’s tactic has been to call prospective One Nation voters his friends and avoid going too hard, while Nationals leader Matt Canavan is more forthright. Paterson has been one of the Liberals’ most strident critics of the rival party, leading the charge against Hanson’s hiring of convicted sex offender Sean Black, whom she was then forced to sack. He’s done more than most colleagues to portray One Nation as incompetent and unserious.

Yet these messages are again muddled by the Liberals’ and Nationals’ decision to preference One Nation above Farley’s main contender, independent Michelle Milthorpe, on Saturday – a move that could hand Hanson’s party the seat.

Finally, it is telling that Farley’s Labor ties have become such a lightning rod in this byelection. Not because they’re unworthy of scrutiny, but because they seem to be the best blow the Coalition can land – hence the corflutes photoshopping Farley in Labor red that spurred Wednesday’s conflict.

It’s a smart move from the Coalition to seize on voters’ deep scepticism of Labor. But the reality is also that the Coalition has little else to sell voters who feel their living standards have declined despite electing either the Nationals or Liberals in every vote since the seat was created.

While contempt for Labor runs through the electorate, many now hold the same feelings for the Liberals and Nationals who have spent much of the last year infighting, and before that were in government for years delivering controversial water policies or insufficient improvements to regional services.

And so the One Nation volunteer’s response to Paterson’s argument about Farley – that painting him in Labor red is just a desperate attempt to distract from how scared the Liberals and Nationals are of Saturday’s result – might well indicate how thousands of other voters are thinking.

The Coalition will keep trying to persuade them otherwise, but as Paterson can now attest, it won’t be easy.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.