Farrer byelection results as it happened: Wilson refuses to rule out One Nation coalition after historic byelection win

Thank you for joining us for our live coverage today. We’ll be back tomorrow on the eve of the budget that Treasurer Jim Chalmers has labelled his most ambitious yet.

Here’s what you need to know.

• One Nation leader Pauline Hanson celebrated electing her first MP to the House of Representatives, dismissing critics who had for decades said it was impossible. She said “now my work really starts” on developing policy alternatives to the major parties.
• Chalmers announced $2 billion in funding for infrastructure to help boost housing supply, while pitching the reforms in Tuesday’s budget as an antidote to rising populism.
• Chalmers labelled the Farrer byelection, where Labor chose not to run, as a “bloodbath” for the Coalition. He predicted the opposition’s dismal result would doom Angus Taylor’s leadership and lead to One Nation joining the Coalition.
• Liberal frontbenchers refused to rule out the move, with shadow treasurer Tim Wilson saying “we traditionally form a coalition with the National Party, but it’s up to the Australian people to decide who they want to vote for”.
• The results from Farrer’s polling booths revealed the scale of One Nation’s win across the electorate.
• And finally, a reminder of the results in last night’s byelection. One Nation seized the seat of Farrer from the Coalition, which had held the seat for 77 years, in a decisive victory.

One Nation’s new federal MP, David Farley, has greeted parishioners this morning following his decisive win in the Farrer byelection last night.

Farley, rugged up on the brisk Albury morning, was seen shaking peoples’ hands as they left St Matthew’s church.

A senior NSW Labor government minister has used the outcome of the Farrer byelection to pressure the state opposition to rule out preferencing One Nation in the NSW election next March.

Describing the byelection results as a watershed moment in Australian politics, Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said she did not dismiss the concerns of those who supported One Nation but was “very concerned” that the party’s candidate had been elected with the help of NSW Liberals’ preferences.

“Labor has been very clear when it comes to One Nation. We will put them last every time,” said Sharpe, who is the Minns government’s leader in the NSW upper house.

“We’re disappointed to see that it appears that the NSW Liberal Party are willing to not just consider preferencing One Nation at the [state] election next year, but also are not prepared to rule out a coalition with them.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has pitched Labor’s budget as an antidote to rising populism and discontent with the major parties as evidenced in One Nation’s historic Farrer byelection victory.

“We do understand that people have very real, very genuine concerns about their role in the economy and their role in our society more broadly, and we don’t for one second deny or dismiss the very real concerns that people have,” Chalmers told reporters in Canberra.

Now, the budget on Tuesday night is not a political document ... It’s an economic plan, but at the same time, it will respond to these very genuine pressures and concerns and anxieties that people feel, including in the housing market.

People aren’t wrong to look at our housing market and think that something is broken. There’s not enough homes. Too many people are locked out of housing, particularly younger people.

And so these are legitimate concerns that pushes people to consider alternatives to the mainstream parties.

Labor is now the last party standing in the sensible centre of Australian politics, but we’re not standing still. And this budget is going to be a very ambitious budget, a very responsible budget, and it will deal with some of these very real concerns that people have, which we see play out in our politics.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced $2 billion in federal funding for local infrastructure to boost housing supply.

The $2 billion, to be spent over four years, will be spread among local councils and utility providers to fund roads, water, power and sewerage – so-called “enabling infrastructure” necessary for housing to be built.

Chalmers said the funding would help build 65,000 new homes around the country, and was part of a $47 billion investment in boosting housing supply.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil said the funding would be distributed to states and territories on “roughly on a per capita basis” and $500 million would be carved out exclusively for regional Australia.

“As housing minister, I have local councils constantly coming through my office, especially from the regions, saying we would really like to help you with the housing challenge confronting this country, but we just do not have the money to pay for this kind of boring but important part of the problem, which is funding housing infrastructure,” she told a press conference in Canberra.

Read more about the announcement from senior economics correspondent Shane Wright here.

The polling booth results across Farrer are in, and they strongly reflect One Nation’s landslide win.

From Wentworth Public School in the west, to Holbrook Public School in the east, and from Moama Public School on the southern border with Victoria, to Hilston Central School in the north-east, it’s a very, very good story for Pauline Hanson and David Farley.

Take a look at the full results across Farrer, an electorate the size of Greece.

The voters of Farrer emphatically elected David Farley, a 69-year-old irrigation specialist and former chief executive, as their new member in the federal parliament last night.

A grandfather of seven and holder of a certificate in agribusiness operations from Harvard University, Farley used his victory speech to thank the party and volunteers, and lay out his policy platform for his time in parliament.

“We’ve got to address immigration. It’s as simple as that,” Farley told One Nation supporters. “We will not have housing supply, we will not get education right, and we will not get health right until we address the demand side.”

Farley has had a patchy campaign since he won preselection, with the biggest scandal coming after this masthead revealed he had attempted to run for Labor in Farrer at the 2022 election, and that he was a former member of the National Party.

Farley also endorsed his primary contender, independent Michelle Milthorpe, as a “straight shooter” when she made her first run for the seat in the 2025 election.

Farley also reposted three videos by a 22-year-old Madrid-based OnlyFans model last year, as reported by The Daily Telegraph, a move he said was “inadvertent”. Farley claimed at the time he had “no idea what OnlyFans is”.

Take a look inside One Nation’s celebrations in Albury last night, courtesy of our national correspondent, Rob Harris:

Upstairs at One Nation’s new HQ, the Bended Elbow, security set the tone early.

Names were checked against lists, invitations matched to ID — a reminder this was no ordinary campaign gathering, and no ordinary political moment, marking the 125th anniversary of Australia’s federal parliament in its own way, from the margins rather than the chamber floor.

Inside, it felt closer to a country footy crowd than a political function. A sea of orange T-shirts filled the room, beer flowed steadily, the Hoodoo Gurus blared over the speakers.

Read the full story here.