One Nation is officially the most successful conservative minor party following the recent election. For the first time, One Nation has senators in Western Australia and New South Wales. Today I spoke with Tyron Whitten, the first One Nation senator to be elected outside of Queensland, and asked him a few questions.

Michael de Percy: What would you like to say to the people of Western Australia who voted for you?

Tyron Whitten: Well, I wouldn’t be here without them, but even more so all the other candidates and their friends and families and volunteers.

There’s so much work that goes on behind the scenes that people don’t see. And without the efforts of those people, I wouldn’t be where I’m sitting today. It’s just fantastic how hard and how passionate these people are, how hard they work. It’s really inspiring.

Michael de Percy: Were you surprised by the result?

Tyron Whitten: I am not going to say I was confident, that’s for sure. You’re always hopeful, but you never, and sitting behind for three and a half weeks, not knowing how the preferences were going to go was pretty nerve-wracking.

Michael de Percy: How significant is it that you’ve been elected as the first One Nation senator outside of Queensland?

Tyron Whiten: Oh, look, I guess it’s significant in some regard. For me, it’s not a title that I’m ever going to pull out and say, oh, I was the first. That doesn’t inspire me at all. I mean, what I do think is, this is a history-defining moment.

I think the tide for the conservative side of politics might have turned the corner, hopefully, with some leadership that will bring all the minor parties together somehow. That could be the future for us.

Michael de Percy: You mentioned that your grandfather served in the second world war. Can you tell us a bit more about that, and how does that influence your approach to representing Australians?

Tyron Whitten: My grandfather fought in the jungles of New Guinea. He did his training as a tank driver, but the story he told me when I was a young fellow was his tank went on a ship and ended up over in the Middle East, and he ended up on another ship and landed in New Guinea for whatever reason. He was a great man, and I lost him way too young to a brain tumour, but he never once told me he fired a gun.

He only ever said that he threw custard tarts over there. So when I was young, I’ve always wondered, why didn’t you tell me, or why won’t you tell me? And now I’m older, I appreciate that he didn’t. I mean, he had real bullets going at him.

If I can do this and have some words coming at me, it’s the least I can do to fight for the country.

Michael de Percy: Do you support overturning the nuclear prohibition in Australia? And can you tell me a bit more about how you see our national energy policy functioning or what we ought to be doing.

Tyron Whitten: As much as I loved Midnight Oil growing up, I think Peter Garrett’s got a lot to answer for. I never understood it back then. Growing up, nuclear was this big boogeyman that everyone was scared of, but other countries were doing it, and I thought, something doesn’t make sense. What are we scared of? I think there’s plenty of nuclear reactors being built around the world at the moment, plenty being operated.

So it would make sense to at least have the discussion, to shut the discussion down is just ludicrous on anything, on any policy or topic.

Michael de Percy: It’s funny you said Midnight Oil, because I had the same experience growing up, and that, song Harrisburg: ‘Once the stuff gets in, you cannot get it out.’ And you’re right, it was the boogeyman. It’s ironic that Microsoft has reopened the Three Mile Island plant, and they’re using it.

Tyron Whitten: Look, someone’s not telling the truth, and it’s like I said, we need to be able to talk about everything, not just shut topics down on any policy, because that’s not good for Australia or Australians.

Michael de Percy: Finally, you said that you want to reclaim our nation’s future, and now you’ve actually got real skin in the game. So this is not just something that worries you at night. Now you can actually participate in it. How do you see yourself balancing the role between representing Western Australians with that passion to make a difference, but then also the passion to make a difference nationally?

I’m asking this in the context of some of the Greens senators, they don’t represent their own people, and the Teals, similarly, they don’t represent the people they’re meant to look after. They represent these high ideals that they really can’t influence unless they’re David Pocock on a particular Senate question or whatever.

But how do you see yourself balancing the role to represent Western Australians and to actually do something in ‘reclaiming our nation’s future’?

Tyron Whitten: Well, I’m here representing Western Australia and Western Australians, so that will always be first. But it has to be viewed through the lens of Australia also. I can’t just say only Western Australia matters.

That’d be silly. So I have to always look at it. How does this benefit Western Australia first? But also, is there any detriment to the rest of Australia? But these Greens and Teals live in the concrete jungles of the city and dictate so much that happens in so much of the country that they don’t know or care about.

It drives me absolutely wild. They’re happy to have all this green energy, but not in their backyard. You know, it doesn’t impact their lives, but let’s cut down some rainforest somewhere in someone else’s backyard.

Michael de Percy: Congratulations and thank you for your time today.

The unexpected election of three One Nation senators is good news for conservatives, especially with the Coalition abandoning its base to chase left-wing unicorns. It will be interesting to see what happens at the next half-senate election with the Greens vote collapsing and the fractured conservative vote eliminating most of the conservative minor parties.