One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce predicts party will 'poll number one' in many seats at SA election

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce is talking up his party's chances of winning a sizeable share of the primary vote at the upcoming South Australian election, but is cautious about whether it will win lower house seats.

One Nation's performance in recent polling has been one of the prominent themes of the campaign, and the SA election has been widely interpreted as a litmus test for the party as it seeks to broaden its appeal across the country.

Party leader Pauline Hanson and lead upper house candidate Cory Bernardi will this week continue their whistle-stop tour across the state after yesterday meeting with voters in Mount Gambier in the south-east and Maitland on Yorke Peninsula.

Mr Bernardi said while there had been a "groundswell" of support for his party ahead of this Saturday's state poll, seats were the yardstick of political success.

"A good result is representation in the parliament — that's my benchmark," Mr Bernardi said.

"Whether we have one voice or two voices or five voices, we want to make sure it is the strongest voice for South Australians."

Mr Bernardi would not be drawn on exactly how many lower house seats he expected the party to win, saying he made "no predictions about that".

He said preferencing from Labor and the Liberals — whom he has consistently referred to, collectively, as the "uni party" — would largely determine One Nation's performance.

"We can still do very, very well and poll very highly, but if the uni party decide they don't want One Nation representatives — and they direct their people to preference against it — that can work against us too.

Speaking to the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday morning, Mr Joyce — who last year defected from the Nationals to One Nation — was upbeat about grassroots support for his party in SA.

But he was cautious about whether that would translate into political gains.

The federal MP for New England expected there to be seats in South Australia where "where One Nation comes first" in terms of primary votes but does not necessarily win on preferences.

"I will absolutely assure you that One Nation will poll number one in many seats," Mr Joyce said.

Mr Bernardi said, if elected, his first act in the upper house would be to introduce a bill to repeal the state Voice to Parliament.

The party's campaign has not been without controversy, with Mr Bernardi saying he "100 per cent" stood by comments he made almost 14 years ago linking gay marriage to the social acceptance of bestiality.

At the time, then-prime minister Tony Abbott described the remarks as "repugnant", while the Australian Marriage Equality advocacy group labelled them offensive.

On Saturday, Mr Bernardi said while he did not regret standing by the remarks it would have been better if he had avoided being drawn on them.

'Only the paranoid survive', premier says

One Nation supporters who gathered in Mount Gambier for a campaign event on Sunday morning said they were attracted to the party for a number of reasons.

"Immigration, that's the main one, we've got to sort that out, and housing for a start," one said.

Another voter, who described herself as a long-time supporter, said she liked "the truth that Pauline talks".

"Things are no good in Australia the way things are at the moment," she said.

Senator Hanson declined to speculate on how many seats she hoped the party would potentially secure, but said she was meeting first-time One Nation voters "all the time".

"I'm getting it all over the country — it doesn't matter where I'm going," Ms Hanson said.

"Staunch Liberal [voters], but not only that, even staunch Labor Party [voters] have said, 'No, we're voting One Nation now.'"

Asked on Sunday about whether he thought Labor was likely to lose votes to One Nation, Premier Peter Malinauskas replied, "I don't know," but added he was "leaving nothing to chance".

"The beautiful thing about our democratic process is no-one knows how anyone else votes," Mr Malinauskas said.

"If you look for One Nation's health policy you'll find nothing, housing policy virtually nothing, economic policy not anything — just a lot of videos complaining about culture war issues."

Liberal leader Ashton Hurn acknowledged One Nation appeared to be resonating in parts of the electorate.

But she said polls had been wrong in the past.

"Other parties can row their own canoe. I'm focused on what the Liberal Party can do," she said.