View from The Hill: Fresh from its WA triumph, how will One Nation do in the eastern trenches?

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Neither Labor nor the Liberals needed the bruising Secret Harbour byelection to tell them One Nation had become a major player. But Saturday’s result in the Western Australian state seat will raise a couple of notches in the major parties’ perception of the political threat level it represents.

In particular, it will remove any Labor complacency that One Nation is just a problem for the conservatives – not that the more astute in Labor’s ranks believed this.

And the WA result increases further the stakes in the Victorian state election in November.

That nearly four in ten Secret Harbour voters gave the insurgent party its first preference vote, in a field of 16, is extraordinary in itself. A primary vote of almost 40% is nostalgia territory for the big parties these days. Labor attracted just under one in four primary votes in this previously solid ALP seat. The Liberals fell well short of winning one in five of the primary votes.

Sure, it was a state byelection, and had a mix of issues – state and local, as well as federal.

But the national messages are clear. One Nation is on its way potentially to becoming the unofficial opposition. And, having cut a swathe through the conservative side of politics, the party is – again, potentially – a serious worry in Labor’s outer suburban seats.

Secret Harbour is the first seat One Nation has won from Labor since the 1998 Queensland state election.

It’s notable that a vulnerability in Labor heartland seats was picked up in the party’s review of the 2022 federal election campaign, when it won government. The review, chaired by former minister Greg Combet and a former party official in Western Australia, Lenda Oshalem, warned “the loss of support for Labor in heartland areas, as evidenced once again in the recent Victorian state election, is cause for significant concern”.

Those chickens may be roosting, as was seen in the swings against Labor in the northern suburbs of Adelaide at the South Australian election.

One Nation currently wins the two-party preferred vote with a commanding 57% to Labor’s 43%.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Queensland Labor conference on Sunday: “This is a crucial time for our movement”.

Across the world hard right populists are on the march.

Peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest.

We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history. And we will defeat them.

They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts. Peddle misinformation and disinformation. Turn Australian against Australian.

Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems.

However true the last point may be, One Nation is tapping into the grievance vibe of the moment. The carefully calibrated professionalised politics of the major parties has reached some tipping point – people see it as contrived. The messiness of Pauline Hanson’s outfit looks more like real life, more “authentic”.

The fundamental issue now is that for many people their material circumstances (represented by real wages) have been going backwards, their aspirations (buying a house) have been thwarted, and much of life in general has become more difficult.

The more the politicians talk about “listening”, the more many jaded, cynical voters feel they are just talking among themselves. They believe the “system”, the political status quo with its two blocks, doesn’t work for them, so they want someone to change it. They haven’t necessarily moved on to the question of whether that change, in its entirety, would make things better or worse.

In the run-up to the Secret Harbour byelection, we saw again the confusion within the Liberals about how to deal with One Nation. Federal Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, whose seat of Canning takes in most of Secret Harbour, was highly critical of state Liberal leader Basil Zempilas for being too accommodating of One Nation. Hastie thought the state Liberals were running dead, which they denied.

One Nation is pursuing Hastie’s seat, especially because he gave evidence against Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith in the former soldier’s failed defamation case. Hastie wrote in a weekend post: “In my own seat of Canning, there’s a real risk Labor could win because the support we always counted on is now divided”.

Hanson, because of a prior commitment, watched the WA result from Victoria, the next battleground, where One Nation is set to announce more candidates for the state election.

Meanwhile, as it slogs on in Victoria, the party has recruited an unexpected brand of leader for the New South Wales election next March.

Mike Newman, 54, from the finance sector and a former trade official, has been living in Japan for 25 years (and has a Japanese wife). At his news conference with Hanson last week, he addressed a questioner in Japanese (Hanson quickly jumped in wanting a translation).

Newman is the son of businessman Maurice Newman, a prominent figure on the right and a former chair of the ABC. He will stand for the safe Labor seat of Cessnock, where One Nation polled more than 15% at the last state election.

For One Nation, NSW is probably more important than Victoria, but a good Victorian result for the party is critical to keep strong that sense of momentum on which One Nation rides.

Of course, the big question outstanding is whether Hanson, whose confidence seems to grow by the day, is going to make that anticipated jump to contest a lower house seat in 2028.

WA Premier Roger Cook had declared it would “break my heart” for Labor to lose Secret Harbour. On the evidence, One Nation is likely to bring a lot more heartbreak to the major parties before it is done.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.