Protesters seek to scupper One Nation's rise as candidates board harbour cruise

One Nation supporters were ushered through a gauntlet of student protesters at Queens Wharf on Sunday as two of the party's leaders, with Hunter candidate Stuart Bonds, set sail on the cruise of Newcastle Harbour.

Mr Bonds, who has been tapped to lead One Nation's NSW Upper House contest alongside NSW investment commissioner and investment banker Mike Newman as the party's Cessnock challenger, arrived on Sunday with Mr Newman, carrying a large Australian flag on his shoulder filming as the protesters jeered.

"There were a lot of cheers from one side and a lot of boos from the other," Mr Bonds told the Newcastle Herald, after the party fundraiser.

"It is their right to protest and I encourage people to get involved in the political system."

Before disembarking, Mr Bonds had shared an image on social media depicting a flyer apparently in preparation of a protest against the cruise event. "Our advertising team is hard at work", he wrote.

"I call them our advertising arm," he said. "Every time they show up, my social media seems to do a little bit better."

Senator Malcolm Roberts, Mr Newman and Mr Bonds were among dozens of supporters to tour the harbour for a fundraiser Mr Bonds had arranged.

He said the event had been to support those who had backed the party.

As demonstrators chanted their dissent and derided those who attended, some of the voyagers confronted the group of about 20 dissenters.

One woman threw a middle finger at the demonstrators as she passed, while another began shouting and gesturing to the group as they chanted before she was ushered towards the vessel by party supporters.

In a muted comparison to Mr Bond's entrance, Senator Malcolm Roberts slipped silently past protesters towards the cruise's berthing, hailed with jeers from the crowd.

The group of mostly young people and students chanted slogans decrying the party as racist and unwelcome in Newcastle and the Hunter.

The demonstration was organised by the same opponents to One Nation that staged similar protests in Civic Park recently.

Jack Munafo, a speaker for the protesters, said One Nation was "a party of racists for racists".

"They blame migrants, and they blame Indigenous people," he said.

"Any of the so-called populist policies of One Nation would be better served by liquidating the wealth of these people, and the wealth of their billionaire donors like Gina Rinehart and investing them in public services that would actually support working class people in Australia."

As the cruise disembarked just after 11am, and the demonstrators dispersed, Mr Munafo said the rise of One Nation in recent months had been born from long-simmering dissatisfaction with centre-aligned politics from the major parties.

"There has been a polarisation," he said.

"I think more people are fed up with the Labor party, in my opinion. They have overseen quite a large degree of regression for ordinary people's living standards, and the right can tap into that discontent."

He rejected the populism of Pauline Hanson's politics, labelling the party as representing the interests of rich donors rather than the working class it has professed to support.

"They don't appeal on the basis of working class issues," he said. "Like, cost of living - One Nation's cost of living relief is withdrawing from people's retirement funds."

"That is a strategy that appeals to bosses, not workers. It means that people who own wealth don't have to make any sacrifices. This is a set of policies that are organised around transferring wealth from the working class to the ruling class."

Mr Munafo said his purpose in joining the rally, and opposing One Nation's resurgence in public profile from the political fringes, was not aimed at toppling the party but at organising those for whom Senator Hanson's views were antithetical to their values.

"I see the state of Australian politics now as there might be variously 20-to-30 per cent of the population who support One Nation," he said. "But that means there is between 70-and-80 per cent of the population who don't."

"Those are the people I want to appeal to with this, rather than One Nation's supporters trying to convince them to be less racist."

Mr Bonds, who rose to public profile after garnering One Nation's best lower-house performance in a federal election when he took 21.6 per cent of the Hunter electorate vote to run third behind former Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon in the 2019 election, had previously told the Newcastle Herald the party was "definitely in the driver's seat at the moment".

The once fringe party has seen a groundswell of public support, and renewed revile, in recent months which Mr Bonds and his colleagues have translated into cut through in the state's coal and farming belt.

In response to the weekend's reception, Mr Bonds said the differences he had with the demonstrators was a question of "how to fix" the issues they agreed were hurting.

"That is always the argument," he said. "I guess we have different ideas on how to go forward."

Polling has recently suggested the state seats of Cessnock and Upper Hunter were within One Nation's grasp and more could follow.

Labor holds the seat of Cessnock with a 23 per cent margin.

One Nation was polling at 25 per cent in NSW in July, according to a Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll, ahead of the Coalition on 23 per cent with Labor in front at 29 per cent.