Mark Latham, a self-confessed “old fading rocker and Elvis fan” with a political career full of hits and misses, rocked into Orange on Friday.
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Mr Latham, now the NSW leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, is standing for the upper house in the March state election.
He was on his way to Parkes for the Elvis festival where he said he would be shopping for an Elvis cape to wear rather than the full body suit.
“I thought about this but then I realised a couple of years ago the last politician to go full Elvis kit, the full body suit and wig at Parkes, was [former senator] Sam Dastyari. I’m afraid that didn’t end very well, so based on the Dastyari curse I might limit myself to an Elvis cape,” he said.
Mr Latham said One Nation would not field a candidate in Orange against sitting member Phil Donato.
“Out of respect for the achievement of the Shooters in winning this seat we won’t be fielding a candidate in the lower house,” he said.
“So Phil Donato hopefully can be re-elected having won that by-election in such spectacular style. I wish him every success.
“I’ve spoken to the Shooters and we’ve both said these lower house seats are so hard to win to disrupt the major parties, why cut each others throat by running against each other.
“If we won a seat in this election in the lower house in the future they wouldn’t run against us.”
We’ll field some federal candidates and hopefully we’ll have someone for Calare.
- Mark Latham, One Nation candidate
However, Mr Latham, said One Nation was keen to field a candidate in Calare against sitting federal Nationals member Andrew Gee.
“We’ll be looking for federal candidates as soon as the state poll ends,” he said.
“We’ll field some federal candidates and hopefully we’ll have someone for Calare.”
Mr Latham said the Nationals’ policies were a factor in his return to politics.
“In large part what has motivated me to take a renewed interest in politics and run for parliament was the atrocious greyhound ban. To try to close that industry down based on a faulty report and a knee-jerk decision was a disgrace,” he said.
Mr Latham also called for policy changes on overseas immigration to rural areas.
“You can’t have migration just for the sake of it. There has to be a business case.
“If you can find migrants that accept the Australian way and want to invest in the community, build a business, employ people and fully integrate with the country way of life then, yeah sure.”
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