One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has told Rebel News reporter Avi Yemini, in an exclusive interview, that she backs jailing former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan by Christmas, and that the party has to win the state before it can lock them up. The comments, first made by a One Nation candidate, have since gone viral.

One Nation’s slogan for the Victorian election is “Take Victoria Back”. Asked whether “lock them up” would do better with the Victorian public, and guarantee a win, Hanson said people wanted both, and that the order mattered. “I think people want both. But if we take Victoria back, then we can lock them up. So you’ve got to do it in sequence.”

The question followed remarks from candidate Mark Nicholson at the party’s campaign launch at Crown Melbourne on Saturday. Nicholson who was MC at the event said to the audience that if he had his way, Andrews and Allan would be in prison by Christmas. Both are former premiers. Allan resigned in July after losing her party’s support. Hanson did not walk the line back. “Oh yeah, of course,” she said, arguing they should be held to account for the state of Victoria, and that One Nation could do a better job of it if it won control here.

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Critics have long argued both former leaders presided over a run of scandals, pointing to dodgy union deals and the Big Build, where allegations of corruption, bikie infiltration and cost blowouts on major projects are now before a royal commission. Andrews was also premier when the hotel quarantine program failed and seeded the state’s deadly second wave. Counsel assisting the Coate inquiry said that failure was responsible for the deaths of 768 people. Asked who decided to use private security, he said he did not recall.

Neither former premier is facing any current criminal charges.