Source : Perth Now news
State and federal leaders have rung in the Lunar New Year in Melbourne, as the major parties prepare for voters to return to the polls in Victoria, faced with an insurgent One Nation.
New federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor joined his Victorian counterpart Jess Wilson, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong at the Chinese New Year Festival in Box Hill on Saturday.
The cross-party occasion comes only days after new polling put One Nation ahead of both the incumbent Victorian Labor Party and Liberals just nine months out from the state election.
Pauline Hanson’s populist party nabbed a whopping 26.5 per cent of the primary vote, followed by Labor at 25.5 and 21.5 per cent, though Labor narrowly lead both on two-party preferred.
Ms Allan, who took over from controversial premier Dan Andrews, secured only 30 per cent approval, according to the Roy Morgan poll, with 51 per cent of respondents preferring Ms Wilson.
Box Hill is a major epicentre of Melbourne’s Chinese community, with more than 45 per cent of residents claiming Chinese ancestry, according to the 2021 census.
Last year, both Anthony Albanese and then-Opposition Leader Peter Dutton attended Chinese New Year festivities there only months out from polls that would see the Coalition trounced by Labor.
The atmosphere was decidedly different this year, with the Coalition less than a week free from its most-recent leadership spill, installing Angus Taylor over Sussan Ley, and One Nation seemingly capitalising on disenfranchisement among the right-wing base, smashing the Coalition in successive polls.
