How One Nation Became a Major Force in Australian Politics

Pauline Hanson's One Nation party has hit a significant milestone. A Capital Brief/DemosAU poll conducted in mid-February 2025 placed One Nation at 28% primary support — just one point behind Labor at 29%. A few months later, a Newspoll in May showed Labor at 31% and One Nation at 27%. The Coalition, Australia's traditional second major party, sat at 20%.

The story these numbers tell is straightforward: a party once dismissed as a fringe protest vote has moved into the same polling territory as the established parties that have dominated Australian politics for decades.

Why Primary Vote Matters (But Isn't Everything)

Here's where Australian electoral mechanics matter. Australia uses preferential voting — if your first-choice candidate doesn't win, your vote goes to your second choice, and so on. This system means a party can poll high in primary votes but win fewer seats than the numbers suggest.

One Nation's vote is spread thinly across the country rather than concentrated in specific electorates where it could win seats. That's a real structural weakness. But here's what makes the polling shift significant anyway: when a party consistently polls in the high 20s across multiple different polls and polling organisations, it signals a real change in how voters see themselves, not just a temporary protest moment. The fact that both the February Capital Brief/DemosAU poll and the May Newspoll — conducted by different organisations using different methods — placed One Nation in the high 20s strengthens that signal.

The Budget Changed the Map

The timing is telling. Three different polls conducted after the 2025 federal budget all showed One Nation gaining ground. The same Newspoll that recorded One Nation rising also showed both the Coalition and Greens losing a point each. This wasn't voters simply switching from Labor to One Nation. Instead, it looks like voters who felt disappointed by the budget moved in multiple directions — some toward One Nation, others elsewhere outside the major parties.

Budgets are how governments lay out their priorities on issues like cost-of-living support and spending. When a budget gets a poor public reaction, voters who feel economically stressed or culturally left behind by mainstream parties often shift toward alternative options. One Nation has historically been where that kind of voter goes. But the simultaneous decline of the Coalition suggests the party is attracting voters from multiple sources — not just disaffected Labor supporters, but also some conservative voters looking for alternatives.

The Prime Minister Question Tells a Different Story

This is where the picture gets more complex. Preferred Prime Minister polling — which asks "who would you prefer as PM?" — pulls in a different direction than primary vote.

The Capital Brief/DemosAU poll showed Anthony Albanese preferred as PM by 37% of voters, compared to Pauline Hanson at 25% and Coalition leader Angus Taylor at 19%. Hanson scoring higher than Taylor is noteworthy. Taylor is leading a party with 20% primary support — a figure that would have seemed like a disaster for the Coalition a decade ago. Yet he trails Hanson in the Prime Minister preference metric even though the Coalition has more primary support than One Nation.

This reveals something real about how Australian voters think: they can believe one party "speaks for me" while still not seeing another party as ready to govern. Hanson's preferred PM score is strong enough to be taken seriously, but not high enough to suggest voters see One Nation as a government-in-waiting. Albanese, meanwhile, maintains a double-digit lead over both challengers in this metric — a cushion that gives Labor political flexibility even as One Nation nips at its primary vote heels.

How This Echoes Australian History

One Nation had a significant moment in the late 1990s, peaking at about 9% in the 1998 federal election. The preferential voting system compressed that support into a small Senate presence and almost no lower-house seats. The electoral mechanics haven't changed. What has is the scale. A party polling in the high 20s operates in a completely different political league than one at 9%, regardless of ultimate seat count.

A more useful comparison might be what has happened to minor parties across other Westminster democracies since 2010 — the rise of the UK Independence Party before Brexit, or the fragmentation of Canadian politics. In each case, the headline polling numbers overstated the eventual seat wins, but the underlying voter shift was real and forced major parties to respond with new policies. The question Australian political strategists are wrestling with now is whether One Nation's current polling represents a temporary peak or a new floor.

The Coalition's Problem Gets Sharper

The numbers are becoming uncomfortable for the Liberal-National Coalition. At 20% primary support, the Coalition is polling below the threshold where its campaign machinery, candidate networks, and preference flows work smoothly. One Nation at 27–28% has now surpassed the Coalition in primary terms — something that has never happened at the federal level before.

Here's the catch: how One Nation voters rank the Coalition as their second choice will determine whether the Coalition can pick up votes it needs to win. Historically, One Nation preferences have split between the Coalition and Labor, with a meaningful chunk going to Labor. If that pattern continues at these higher One Nation vote levels, it could seriously hurt Coalition candidates in regional and outer-suburban seats.

What Happens From Here

The Senate is probably One Nation's clearest path to real power. Senate elections use a proportional system that is friendlier to geographically dispersed votes. A sustained primary vote in the high 20s could translate into multiple Senate seats per state — enough to become a negotiating force on budget and legislation votes.

For Labor, the immediate challenge is whether its budget decisions can keep its own primary support stable while stemming the flow of working-class and regional voters toward One Nation. The Coalition faces a deeper problem: recovering primary support from a party that is now operating as its near-equal on the right side of Australian politics.

Whether this polling moment marks a lasting realignment or a mid-term correction will become clear in the next federal election. But the consistency across different polls and methodologies through early to mid-2025 suggests this shift shouldn't be dismissed as noise.