The unexpected move by former LNP member for Dawson George Christensen to jump from his home base to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is a real spanner in the works for his old party.

While everyone thought he would throw his extra large trucker’s cap into the ring for his Dawson bailiwick, he turned heads for the second time in a day by joining Hanson and announcing he’d run for the Senate aiming for the party’s number three spot on the ticket.

This suggests he’s not that serious about getting into the Senate – to get three Senate candidates up, One Nation would have to poll more than 30 per cent (in 2019 the LNP had 38 per cent to get three spots). That isn’t going to happen.

The gambit is all about ensuring Hanson gets re-elected to her Senate seat. She is in a battle for the last of the six to be elected with her main competition coming from the LNP’s Amanda Stoker and the Greens’ Penny Allman-Payne. Two of the three will be elected – one will miss out.

LNP Senator Amanda Stoker may be the big loser from George Christensen’s defection to One Nation. (Image: Facebook)

The calculation is that Hanson, supported by the popularity and name recognition of Christensen, will have enough primary vote support and attract sufficient preferences to make the 14.3 per cent of the vote quota needed for one successful candidate.

On the centre left side of the equation Labor is almost certain to get two quotas (they only got one Queensland spot in 2019 in a stunning embarrassment) and the Greens are favoured to rustle up enough to get over the line.

In 2019 One Nation managed just over one quote with 10 per cent of the vote (Malcolm Roberts was re-elected) and the Greens scored just under 10 per cent, putting Larissa Waters over the line.

However, the LNP out performed their traditional average and ended up with 3.6 quotas sending three senators to Canberra. That’s not going to happen again.

With all published polls showing a drop of primary support for the LNP in Queensland of between 4 and 8 per cent, Stoker has always been in the hot seat. It’s why the contest for the number one spot on the Senate ticket – grabbed by James McGrath – was a no holds barred affair.

It would be a major setback for Hanson to lose her spot in the Senate which is why the party is rolling the dice on this whatever-it-takes manoeuvre.

It’s a serious slap in the LNP’s face from Christensen who has been protected and nurtured by his party through times of great controversy and uncertainty.

He was considered a possible casualty in the lead up to the 2019 poll after controversy over his infatuation with the Philippines capital Manila – he took at least 28 trips to the city, covering 500 days from 2014 to 2018. He says he was getting to know and courting his now wife.

The LNP stuck with him through this and he returned the favour by surviving against the odds in 2019. His primary vote was unchanged and after a big boost from One Nation preferences he managed an overall swing of 11 percent.

They also backed him throughout a series of fringe calls supporting Trumpian conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine positions.

Whether the LNP regards this as treachery and takes on Christiansen and Hanson in the Senate battle remains to be seen but it again highlights one of the asymmetrical problems Scott Morrison is facing – he has to guard his right and left flanks in a complicated electoral equation.

Ahead of Christensen on the One Nation senate ticket is Ray Guruswamy, a one time Adani executive.

Election 2022 is just four days in and it just keeps giving.