'Brokeback' Barnaby knows One Nation needs the pink vote

analysis One Nation chasing the pink vote as Barnaby Joyce supports gay people When a former WA One Nation candidate was revealed to have described homosexuality as a mental illness last week, the lightning-speed rebuke from the party was akin to whiplash. Within half an hour of the ABC making inquiries to Pauline Hanson's office about former Western Australian candidate Parminder Singh's inflammatory views, his candidate page had been stripped from the party's website. Taking him off the website sent a pretty clear message. The problem is that Singh could still be eligible to nominate for a casual vacancy if one of One Nation's WA upper house members left parliament. Deleting his webpage does not entirely erase the problem for One Nation. By 4pm on Afternoon Briefing on the day the story broke, One Nation recruit Barnaby Joyce was not only distancing himself from Singh and his views but also breaking the internet by declaring his party "one of the gayest parties in Australia". Joyce claimed the party included a large proportion of gay people, describing a comment like Singh's as highly offensive. "I don't want to say it, but I think we're one of the gayest parties in Australia," he said. "We have quite a large proportion of gay people, and they're all the same. They don't want to be glorified. They don't want to be vilified. They just want people to accept, and they go on and do a very good job." He did not confirm if Singh had been disendorsed from One Nation but did confirm his profile had been removed from the One Nation website on Wednesday. "It is not a good sign to be pulled off the website … if you pull someone off a website, it is a pretty strong statement," he said. By the next day, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson had rebuked the former candidate's views and said they did not align with hers. One Nation's WA leader, Rod Caddies, also said Singh's comments did not reflect the party. One Nation's views on gay issues By the end of the week in parliament, Joyce was being described as "Brokeback Barnaby" by Coalition MPs, in reference to the 2005 movie about a relationship between two cowboys. MPs were amused by the sight of a party not historically seen as the champion of the rainbow flag suddenly boasting about just how gay it was. The memes were in overdrive. Social media was having a field day. The Betoota Advocate was beaten to the punch by reality, with Joyce providing the set-up and punchline. Many have spent the days since pointing out past homophobic comments by One Nation candidates, as well as Pauline Hanson's own record on the subject. In her 1996 60 Minutes interview, Pauline Hanson stated that a person's homosexuality was their own business, but famously remarked "I don't like it" regarding the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras because she believed it promoted something "not natural". Hanson was asked yesterday about her 1996 comments she told News24's Sunday Agenda program she still does not like the gay pride festival, but it was her personal opinion. "No, I still don't like the gay mardi gras," she said. "That's my opinion. I think your own personal sexuality should be kept behind closed doors. It's no one's business to do it out there with the gay mardi gras. "I know it brings a lot of tourists to the country, I know it brings a lot of money. I know all this, but that's my personal opinion." Hanson and the party have been on quite a political journey on gay issues. But it is far from a settled position. The party still attracts people with very different views on gay rights, including among its own MPs. The culture wars have moved on, too. For mainstream politics, the debate over same-sex marriage feels like another era. The new culture-war battlefront is gender and trans issues. That does not mean homophobia has disappeared. It clearly has not. But attacking gay and lesbian Australians is simply not where mainstream Australian politics is anymore. Cory Bernardi, a former Liberal senator who now leads One Nation in South Australia, is widely known for controversial remarks he made in the federal Senate in 2012 linking same-sex marriage to polygamy and bestiality. This year, Bernardi said he stood by those comments. He told ABC Stateline he was "not fussed" if people found his comments offensive. But in that very same SA election, the party also elected an openly gay MP, Jason Virgo, who subsequently delivered an emotional speech in parliament, breaking down in tears when speaking about his sexuality and his boyfriend of 11 years. He told parliament his boyfriend was "born in Indonesia, a Muslim, and is now a proud Australian." "Our closest friendship circle was made largely of immigrants from China, India, and the Philippines," he said. "I am deeply thankful for their support, including my partner. "I love migrants. The overwhelming majority are simply searching for a better life." Virgo added that "two things can be true at once", arguing migration levels have become too high. The gay vote has a political price Bernardi and Virgo say a lot about the One Nation of 2026. One stands by comments linking same-sex marriage to polygamy and bestiality. The other is an openly gay One Nation MP who stood up in parliament and spoke through tears about his Muslim migrant partner. Try finding a slogan to capture that for an election poster. As One Nation grows, so do the contradictions inside it. Immigration remains central to One Nation, but on gay rights, the differences inside the party are even starker. For all Joyce's hyperbole, he is onto something. Marriage equality has been legal in Australia for over eight years, and like many predicted at the time, the sky has not fallen in and the issue has become settled policy. Of course there is no single "gay vote". Gay and lesbian Australians are politically diverse, just like the rest of the population. But being openly hostile to these voters comes with a political price today that simply was not there when Hanson first arrived in parliament. The 2026 Census will also give us something we have never properly had before, our clearest picture of how many gay, lesbian and bisexual Australians there are and where they live. The results will not tell us how they vote. The gay vote is no more uniform than the straight vote. But political parties will next year have a much clearer idea of just how many of these voters are in their electorates. And nothing focuses a politician's mind like a constituency they can see in the numbers. LoadingOne Nation is broadening its base Joyce has been around long enough to know how much attention a line like "one of the gayest parties" will get, especially live on ABC television. And whether it was carefully planned or vintage Barnaby, the message to gay voters was pretty clear: do not assume One Nation is not for you. If One Nation genuinely wants to replace the Liberals and Nationals as the dominant force on the right, it needs a much broader base of voters. It needs voters who may agree with the party on immigration, energy policy or the cost of living but do not want to be tied to some of the more extreme social views associated with the party. That includes gay voters. Liberal Senator and moderate Dave Sharma told me this week that he had never seen One Nation in the Mardi Gras parade. A One Nation float making its way down Oxford Street, with Hanson beside it, is still hard to imagine. And the real test is not whether Hanson goes to Mardi Gras. If One Nation really wants to siphon votes from the Liberals and Nationals, it cannot afford to keep picking candidates with views that insult the voters it is trying to woo. Joyce can keep calling One Nation one of the gayest parties in Australia, but if he wants the line to be more than a meme, the party will have to prove it in who it preselects. Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.