The Liberal Party disendorsed Liberal candidate Pauline Hanson in 1996 for her views on the abolition of special aid to Indigenous Australians.
In 1997 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party launched. One Nation won around 8% of the vote at the federal election of 1998, and elected only a single Senator. Hanson herself lost her seat in parliament, and it seemed for a time the party was over.
After a period in prison, and time in and out of One Nation, Hanson was elected to the Senate in 2016 along with three other One Nation candidates. Hanson’s party switch, albeit one imposed on her, turned out to be the best move of her career.
Jacqui Lambie 2014-15
Another former independent, Jacqui Lambie’s career was aided twice by a switch to a different party colour. A former Australian Army corporal, Lambie was a member of the Labor and Liberal parties in Tasmania before deciding to enter politics as an independent. Choosing to seek a position in the Senate, Lambie had to sell her house to raise the money to run, but found an unlikely savior in businessman Clive Palmer.
Palmer had launched his new Palmer United Party and was looking for candidates, an offer Lambie willingly accepted. She was elected to the Senate at the election of 2013, joining three other PUP senators, along with Palmer himself in the Lower House.
Initially part of a crossbench holding the balance of power, clashes between the PUP members led to its disintegration. Lambie was the first to leave, resigning on 24 November 2014, less than a year into her term. She continued in the Senate as an independent, but in April the following year registered her own party, the Jacqui Lambie Network. Her former PUP colleague Glenn Lazarus took a similar tack when he resigned from the party in March 2015, forming the Glenn Lazarus Team.
Under her party’s banner, Lambie was re-elected in the double dissolution of 2016 (Lazarus was not) with 8% of the vote. Unfortunately for Lambie, she was found to be ineligible for office in 2017, being a dual British/Australian citizen. After a year out of politics, Lambie returned to the Senate in 2019, again under the JLN flag.