Katherine Deves is the latest conservative political figure to join One Nation. Photo: Pryor, Tzannes & Wallis.
Former Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Warringah Katherine Deves has become the latest conservative politician to join Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party.
Covering Sydney’s affluent Lower North Shore and southern part of the Northern Beaches, Warringah was previously held by former prime minister Tony Abbot, and was considered a safe Liberal blue-ribbon seat since Fraser Government minister Michael MacKellar won it in 1969.
But with Abbott’s retirement following his defeat by independent Zali Stegall in 2019, the Liberal Party sought to endorse a new candidate for the seat, eventually settling on Sydney solicitor Katherine Deves.
Ms Deves was installed as the Liberal candidate for the 2022 election after months of turmoil due to factional infighting, with a three-person committee eventually appointing her as candidate just six weeks before the election.
During the campaign, Ms Deves had caused controversy due to her stance on transgender issues, specifically false claims she had made that gender reassignment surgery was available to teenagers, and equating her own anti-transgender activism to standing up against the Jewish holocaust.
Many Liberals objected to her anti-trans views and pushed back against her endorsement, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, former member for the neighbouring seat of North Sydney Trent Zimmerman, and former South Australian senator Simon Birmingham. Conversely, then prime minister Scott Morrison praised Ms Deves for standing up for her beliefs.
It’s now history that Ms Deves lost out to Ms Steggall, with a further six-point swing going against the Liberal candidate.
After her loss, Ms Deves founded the Australian chapter of Save Women’s Sport, an organisation ostensibly dedicated to keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sport.
In 2023 she announced her intention to stand for the NSW Senate seat that had been held by Jim Molan, before withdrawing her candidacy to defend the owner of a ‘women-only’ app against a transgender woman who had sued for not allowing her to join the app’s membership.
She also briefly considered running again in Warringah in the 2025 election, before Jaimee Rogers was endorsed as the Liberal candidate.
In late 2025 Ms Deves was the keynote speaker at a Family First event in Sydney where she spoke of her disillusionment with the feminist dream and of discovering the deeper freedom found in marriage, motherhood, and family.
But on 1 September, the Daily Telegraph reported that Ms Deves had joined One Nation, saying she had described Pauline Hanson as “the nation’s grandmother, and that she and Ms Hanson are “of the same mind”.
It’s currently unclear whether Ms Deves will be offered a Senate seat or whether she will run in the House of Representatives.
In a brief social media post of a photo of her posing with two other One Nation candidates, Ms Deves said she is “not joining any revolution, just the rescue and recovery of our state and nation”.
