One Nation is enjoying a never before seen windfall at the polls as more and more disgruntled voters turn their backs on the Liberals, Nationals and Labor.
The most recent Newspoll had Pauline Hanson’s party, which attracted just 6.4 per cent of the vote in last year’s federal election less than a year ago, now commanding 24.5 per cent of the national primary vote. While, Demos and Sky News polls over the past week had the party level with Labor on 26 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.
Analysts have attributed the party’s improved performance with the public feeling disenfranchised by mainstream politics, the cost of living and other affordability issues. While One Nation party sources claim the surge has not been unexpected.
“Well, look it’s fair to say now that this increase in polling has been happening for some months now,” a One Nation insider told Central News. “We began to see signs of this in the federal election last year.”
In March, One Nation overtook the Coalition in federal polling for the first time in the party’s 29-year history. The trend has also been evident at a state and territory level, as seen at the recent South Australian election where One Nation outpolled the Liberals by 4 per cent.
“The [South Australian] election was quite a wipe-out for the Liberal Party,” the ABC’s former chief election analyst, Antony Green, said.
Photo: Former ABC Chief Election Analyst Antony Green.
“The interesting thing in Adelaide was the geography of who finished second. There’s a band of seats in the central parts of Adelaide where the Liberals still finish second. But in the outer southern suburbs and the outer northern suburbs, One Nation finished second in every seat.”
One Nation’s insider said winning a record-breaking four lower house seats in South Australia had proven Australians had woken up to the limitations of the two-party system.
“We are doing what the Australian people want. There are now more and more Australians waking up to it,” the insider said, adding that the election was the first real test of the party’s policies.
“It didn’t translate to as many seats as that higher primary vote might suggest because we don’t have proportional representation in the South Australian electoral system.”
Green described One Nation’s South Australian triumph as “the cannibalisation of the Liberal vote,” adding while One Nation did not damage Labor, it “had done serious damage to the Liberal Party in South Australia”.
Who are One Nation voters?
Rural and regional Australia is the party’s heartland, according to the insider, who added: “Even in outer city areas we do better than inner city.”
Rising costs of living, the push towards net zero carbon emissions and ever increasing energy costs in particular are key issues for farmers and rural workers.
“Just think how much electricity it takes to pump and pressurise irrigation water on a district level? Millions of dollars a year. That all gets passed on to the growers too,” the insider said.
National voting demographic data supports this shift, showing a significant chunk of support for One Nation in country areas with a creep upwards in the outer ring of major cities.
“Whilst classically One Nation always does better in regional areas, they have also done well in metropolitan Adelaide,” Green said. “They have done well in a lot of seats where the Labor party holds, including some safe Labor seats.
“So, it’s the first time we’ve seen such an extraordinary result for One Nation in a metropolitan area since their first election in Queensland in 1998.”
Green’s election analysis reveals One Nation voters tend to be tradies, who are older and traditional white Australians.
It’s quite a disparate collection of groups who feel alienated and feel disenfranchised from the mainstream.
“Less well paid workers, less likely to be university educated, more likely to be working in trades and manual occupations,” Greed added. “Even in urban areas, One Nation does well amongst tradesmen.
“It’s quite a disparate collection of groups who feel alienated and feel disenfranchised from the mainstream.”
But the One Nation insider said the party is also enjoying increased interest from younger voters.
“When you actually look at younger demographics, the cost of living crunch bites them harder,” he added. “They’re looking at older generations owning their own homes and wonder if they’re ever going to be able to do the same.”
The rise of independent politicians has been a slow growing trend in Australian politics since the mid 1940s.
Australian voting trends for Labor, Coalition and independents (including One Nation).
As the above graph shows, while the faith Australians have in independent candidates has grown there has been a converse downward trend for the two major parties. In more recent times, voters have also bet on a wave of teal and other independent candidates, over the Coalition or Labor.
“They are well and truly done – even Labor, with a big majority at a federal level,” said Dr Matthew Ryan, commenting on Australia’s two party system.
“That’s off the back of one of their lowest primary votes ever.
“So I think we can say that the two-party system that we saw in the second half of the 20th century seems well and truly done.”
The Chancellor’s research fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at University of Technology Sydney added there was a growing trend towards “individualism” and with standards of living dipping and the cost of living rising, Australian voters are looking for change.
“A lot of people are feeling the pinch and they recognise that a lot of the time when governments change, sometimes the big things stay the same,” he said.
“I think the main thing that One Nation offers is a rejection of the status quo.”
What you’re seeing with their arrival is a protest about the state of politics by many, but by some a more general opposition to where politics has gone.
One Nation’s insider said by outrightly disagreeing with the core policy decisions of both Labor and the Coalition, One Nation had put itself in clear and stark opposition, with net zero, renewable energy prices and immigration as clear points of difference.
“They’re ignoring Australians on these issues,” he said.
Green has a different view. He sees the rise of One Nation as a protest by many voters.
“One Nation has not shown much ability to be consistent or have policy positions,” he said. “So, I think what you’re seeing with their arrival is a protest about the state of politics by many, but by some a more general opposition to where politics has gone.”
Dr Ryan warned we are now in an era of politics where “there is no such thing as a safe seat”.
One Nation will soon have more opportunities to test this theory out with the by-election for former Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley’s seat of Farrer in May, and the Victorian state election in November.
