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SBS acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia.
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From SBS Examines, I'm Olivia Di Iorio. Pauline Hanson's One Nation has been dominating not only the headlines lately, but also the polls. A recent Newspoll found One Nation now has the highest primary vote in Queensland at 30%, above Labor with
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27% and the Coalition at 23%. And in early February, a national Newspoll published by The Australian reported the party had a 27% primary vote, behind labour with 33%, but much higher than the Coalition's 18%. The party was founded by Hanson in the nineties and has right-wing, populist policies, often campaigning against multiculturalism and migration.
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It's always been a minor party with some loyal followers, but its recent surge in popularity is unprecedented. In this episode, we ask, why is support for this party rising so rapidly?
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Three weeks ago, South Australians took to the booths to vote for who will lead their state. It was a Labor landslide, but One Nation went from having no seats in the lower house to four.
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One Nation members and supporters we spoke to told SBS Examines their rising popularity comes down to a combination of pressures voters are facing. This includes the cost of living, the impact of international crises, a terror attack on our shores, and dysfunction among the Liberal-National Coalition.
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If we could have wrote a list down to say, "God, could you intervene and have these items happen to make us more politically popular." We couldn't have written a better list than what's happened since the election. And don't get me wrong, we don't want any of this to happen. It's not a good thing, but in my eyes it was completely predictable.
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Bonds ran unsuccessfully for One Nation in the seat of Hunter in New South Wales in the 2019 and 2025 federal elections. Planning to run again in the New South Wales state election next year, he says that the South
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Australian results for One Nation are a good sign for the party.
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There's no good news for these major parties on the horizon. Interest rate rises, housing prices are going to increase, they haven't got immigration under control. There's no good news on the fuel front. It's all bad news, and that's why people are looking to One Nation and going,
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"Help", basically, "please someone do
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something." Both major parties have policies around cost of living, housing, and immigration. Labor has delivered tax cuts and energy bill relief and says their Homes for Australia plan will help tackle the housing crisis. While in 2025 the Liberal Party campaigned on halving the
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fuel excise, lowering inflation and taxes and reducing our permanent migration intake. But over in Western Australia, One Nation state leader Rod Caddies says the party's supporters aren't satisfied with the major parties' offerings. It's like the perfect storm. He says it's not just Liberal-National voters who are turning to One Nation.
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And recent polls show that while many One Nation supporters are former Coalition voters, there are also people who previously voted for Labor, independents, and the Greens who now say they would vote for One Nation instead. I get contacted by many
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different people from different parties that have had enough. They just, whether that be Labor, Liberal... It's not just Liberal,
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this whole push of saying we're just getting that liberal is just not true.
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One nation has always campaigned for tightening immigration laws. Their policies include cutting immigration levels by over half a million, withdrawing from the UN refugee convention, and refusing entry to migrants from certain countries. The good
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that they are now Australians, we want to look after Australians first, and that's what One Nation are about. So we're actually defending migrants.
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A One Nation supporter who asked not to be named told SBS Examine she changed her vote because she feels major parties are prioritising migrants over Australians, citing concerns over public services such as the NDIS and social housing
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providers. At her request, we're not using her voice. A producer is repeating what she told
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us. Aussies are always waiting. I think the government is too soft. I think all my family and friends, when I said I like Pauline, everyone said yes, we like her, we support her, we're going
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to support her. A migrant herself, she moved to Australia from Jordan
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in the 1970s, she said she's concerned about migration.
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When I come to Australia, so beautiful, honest, everything going well. Some people do not appreciate this country. People from Europe are much better than Middle East. I am from Middle East, but I can't judge. There's lots of people who respect this country and love this country, do the right things.
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Dr Jordan McSwiney is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at the University of Canberra. He says the current political conditions are ripe for One Nation to perform well.
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Did I ever anticipate that the polling spike would be so big and so quick?
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No, not really. I don't think anyone really did. And you know, over a sort of three to four month period, yeah, One Nation rocketed ahead of the coalition, and that is really quite unprecedented.
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McSwiney said the biggest factor for the party's rise is the dysfunction within the coalition. Even Liberal opposition leader Angus Taylor said he understands people are disappointed with the party, but we
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respect the fact that those voters who might be thinking about One Nation.
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have reasons for wanting to do so, and we have to restore their confidence in us.
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You know, the two breakups, conservative voters' dissatisfaction with the former moderate Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley, I think that's played quite a
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big role. McSwinney also said the recent Bondi terror attack has seen voters turning to the party.
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Much like back in 2016 after the Lindt cafe siege when Hanson re-entered parliament. So again here,
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leveraging the Bondi discourse to talk about things like national security and immigration, which are obviously key issues that One Nation has quite a lot of, I guess, issue ownership over, and that's on
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things like the increased salience of immigration and immigration debates and One Nation and others linking that to things like the housing crisis and then internationally there's a lot happening. I mean there's very well documented mainstreaming of the far right globally. Both
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the Labor and Liberal parties have spoken on migration.
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In a recent press conference, Deputy Opposition Leader Senator Jane Hume said Australia's migrant story is a part of all our stories.
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I would lay you odds that most of the people in the room that are asking questions today are either 1st or 2nd generation migrants themselves or have 1st or 2nd generation
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migrants in their families.
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While in a recent interview with Sky News, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that he thinks One Nation doesn't have any positive solutions. Well, One
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Nation are a political movement that focus on dividing Australia and pitting Australian against Australian.
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So what does One Nation's rise in popularity mean for social cohesion?
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McSwiney said it's a cause for concern. Someone
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who says that there are no good Muslims in Australia, as Pauline Hanson did the other week, that obviously is not conducive to a pluralistic, tolerant, multicultural society that Australia aspires to be. So if you care about
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people having the freedom to practise their faith regardless of what it may be, um, without harassment, without being, you know, ridiculed and belittled by federal parliamentarians, then yeah, I think electing a party like One Nation does present a threat to those kind of multicultural, tolerant, pluralistic aspirations that that Australia wants to be.
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This episode was produced and presented by Olivia Di Iorio. To find out more, visit sbs.com.au/sbsexamines.
