‘The party of grievance’: Could One Nation’s success be replicated in the west?

One Nation’s success in the federal seat of Farrer has the potential to change the political landscape in Western Australia, with one expert labelling the faction as the “party of grievance” at a time when voters are dissatisfied with the status quo.

One Nation recorded a resounding victory in the NSW seat of former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, with results showing a massive swing of more than 30 per cent on the first preference count towards the party’s candidate David Farley.

The Australian Electoral Commission has officially called the result for the party, with Farley securing more than 57 per cent of the vote on the two-party preferred system compared to just over 42 per cent of the votes to independent Michelle Milthorpe.

Following the victory, Notre Dame University politics expert and long-time WA political observer Professor Martin Drum said he expected the party to not only run in more WA regional seats, but believed it would also look to add more candidates in the greater Perth area.

“One Nation will certainly run in regional seats and if they think they have a reasonable chance of picking up seats in the WA metro area they will run there also,” he said.

“I’d suspect that they would poll reasonably well in outer metropolitan areas.”

Drum expected One Nation to have an increased presence in electorates where the party has previously had a smaller profile.

“We will see them run in states and seats where they haven’t previously,” he said.

“South Australia had been a poor state for them traditionally, yet they came second after Labor with 23 per cent of the vote.

“They will do exceptionally well in their strongest state of Queensland.”

Despite the fact there are currently no federal WA MPs from One Nation, and only two represented at a state level – WA leader Rod Caddies and Philip Scott, both in the Legislative Council – Drum predicted the major parties in WA would pay close attention to the result in Farrer.

“The result may be dismissed by the major parties here, but they will quietly be strategizing around this,” he said.

“The Liberal and National parties are very vulnerable in regional areas, but Labor holds seats outside the metro area also. Outer metro seats in WA may well be a target for One Nation.

“The strong focus on housing and cost of living from the WA government probably shows that this is already a consideration.”

Drum felt the result in Farrer was an example of voters expressing their views on the state of Australian politics, with the heavy swings moving towards One Nation and the major independent candidate, and against the traditional parties.

“One Nation has been mostly a party of grievance, and there are plenty of grievances which voters have currently,” he said.

“By-elections are traditionally effective means of airing grievances and therefore this result is not entirely surprising.

“The scale of the result has shocked many observers though.”

There were similarities between the recent rise of One Nation and the movement that saw a number of so-called Teal candidates elected at the 2022 federal election.

“There are some similarities in that both phenomena have occurred in the heartland of the Coalition,” Drum said.

“But there are differences. The National party is especially vulnerable to One Nation, whereas the Liberals need to win more seats in the city.

“The shock was around the complete collapse in the Liberal primary.

“In the Teal seats, the independents peeled off Labor, Green and moderate Liberal voters.

“In this instance, they mostly peeled off Liberal and National voters. The Coalition parties didn’t even finish second, which is extraordinary.”

Drum looked to the Victorian state election, set to take place at the end of November, as a “litmus test” of voters’ support for One Nation.

“There you have an unpopular Labor government and an opposition which has suffered all sorts of internal ructions,” he said.

“That would appear to offer a perfect storm for One Nation.”