The Nationals are hopeful that billionaire Clive Palmer’s alleged dislike of Pauline Hanson will encourage him to pump millions into Coalition coffers to fend off the insurgency threatening to wipe out the country party.

Palmer, as first reported by this masthead on Monday, was a surprise guest at the party’s annual dinner in Canberra on Saturday where he spent about $25,000 in an auction to purchase country music star Lee Kernaghan’s guitar.

Sources in the party claimed the mining magnate and perennial political activist had started donating hundreds of thousands in addition to the auction purchase, but the party did not confirm this figure and Palmer’s staff did not return calls.

“From what I’ve heard, he has never liked her, full-stop,” Nationals president Andrew Fraser said of Palmer’s views of Hanson.

Coalition figures were surprised when Palmer was photographed meeting Hanson on May 27 when he brought a cake for the senator’s birthday. Two days earlier, Palmer registered “United Nation” with IP Australia, an apparent amalgam of United Australia Party and One Nation. In 2024, before Hanson’s popularity took off, Palmer offered $10 million to create a tie-up with One Nation. The deal went nowhere partly because Hanson demanded she be president for life.

Nationals in Canberra held the same view as Fraser and believed that Palmer was motivated by putting a roadblock on Hanson’s path to The Lodge.

“He’s not a fan and doesn’t believe in the hype,” one senior Nationals MPs said.

Palmer’s latest moves have buoyed new Nationals leader Matt Canavan and sets up a battle between Hanson, who is backed by Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart, and the Coalition, which hopes Palmer might put big money behind the ailing centre-right party before donations are limited by new laws starting next year.

“It would be nice if we could utilise him or his resources at the next election because things are pretty tight,” Fraser said, adding that Palmer, a long-time Nationals figure, had “come home”.

The Nationals were starved of funds under former leader David Littleproud, who did not attract conservative donors.

One Nation’s surge has made life even more difficult for the Liberal and National parties, who are on track to lose a swag of seats to One Nation.

Nationals defector Barnaby Joyce, a strong fundraiser, and Pauline Hanson have been hosting intimate dinners with wealthy Australians on Rinehart’s private jet, at Rinehart’s home, and at other locations such as Dubbo, NSW, where Joyce held a fundraiser at the weekend.

The Palmer move is key because a January 1, 2027 deadline for large donations is just over four months away. The government passed laws capping at $50,000 per year the amount any one donor can give to a party per year. The laws were designed in large part to prohibit a repeat of Palmer’s 2019 effort where he donated tens of millions to his United Australia Party to stop Bill Shorten being elected.

Despite millions being spent since 2019 on his famous yellow-coloured ads, Palmer has failed to turn the UAP into an influential political force. It only has one elected official: the Victorian senator Ralph Babet.

Fraser said he expected Hanson and Nationals defector Joyce would feud and that voters would shift away from Hanson over time as they realised she ran a “protest party”, not one that could govern.

Contrasting One Nation with the organic debate that occurred at the Nationals conference on the weekend, Fraser said: “Pauline’s party is not a party: it’s an autocratic organisation where she pulls all the strings.”

“They have not fixed a piece of road oe built one bridge, nothing. They’re a protest party and at the end of the day I think people will see through that.”