Australia's One Nation Party Leads National Poll for First Time

For nearly three decades, Pauline Hanson's One Nation has occupied the margins of Australian politics — a protest vehicle that flared, faded, and occasionally resurfaced. That era appears to be over. In the week of June 1–7, 2026, a Roy Morgan federal poll placed One Nation's primary vote at 29.5%, ahead of Labor at 26% and the Liberal-National Coalition at 17.5% [1]. A separate Newspoll published in The Australian found One Nation at 31%, Labor at 30%, and the Coalition at 18% among 1,240 voters surveyed June 1–4 [2]. Both results are without precedent: no third party has ever led both major parties simultaneously in a national Australian poll.

Source: Roy Morgan Research

Data as of Jun 9, 2026CSV

The Numbers in Context

The scale of One Nation's ascent is difficult to overstate. At the May 2025 federal election, the party won 6.4% of the national primary vote — itself a high-water mark since 1998 [3]. In January 2026, a DemosAU survey recorded One Nation at 23% [4]. By mid-May, following Treasurer Jim Chalmers' budget on May 12, the party had risen to 28% [4]. Two weeks later, it breached 30%.

Source: Roy Morgan Research / Newspoll / AEC

Data as of Jun 9, 2026CSV

Compare this to One Nation's previous peak: at the 1998 federal election, the party polled 8.4% of the national primary vote and 22.7% in the Queensland state election that same year [3]. Those numbers were considered seismic at the time. The current figures represent a different order of magnitude.

On a two-party-preferred basis — the measure that accounts for Australia's preferential voting system — Labor still leads. Roy Morgan estimates ALP 53.5% to One Nation's 46.5% when preferences are distributed between the two [1]. The Newspoll also showed Labor ahead on two-party-preferred, though within the poll's 3.2-point margin of error [2]. This gap matters: it is the two-party-preferred count, not the primary vote, that determines who forms government.

What Triggered the Surge

The immediate catalyst is the 2026 federal budget. Chalmers' proposed changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts, and immigration intake levels generated backlash across voter demographics [5]. A Roy Morgan snap poll conducted immediately after the budget found the contest narrowing to ALP 51% versus One Nation 49% on two-party-preferred — the closest any third party has come to a sitting government [6].

But the budget landed on soil already prepared by deeper grievances. Australia's consumer price inflation hit 6.6% in 2022 and remained elevated at 3.2% in 2024 [7]. Reports indicate inflation is projected to reach 5–6% by the end of 2026, driven partly by global energy disruptions, while wages have failed to keep pace [8]. Housing affordability has become a defining issue: a Macquarie University survey found widespread dissatisfaction across age groups and housing tenures, with only 37% of Labor's own voters expressing satisfaction with the government's housing agenda [9].

Source: World Bank Open Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2024CSV

The Coalition's collapse has compounded the dynamic. The Liberal-National Coalition's primary vote has cratered to 17.5% nationally — its worst recorded figure — after losing 79 of 88 metropolitan seats at the 2025 election [8]. Approximately 35% of 2025 Coalition voters have shifted to One Nation, according to polling analysis [8]. In the Farrer by-election on May 9, 2026 — triggered by the resignation of former Liberal leader Sussan Ley — One Nation candidate David Farley won the seat, becoming the first One Nation candidate elected to the House of Representatives through an actual election rather than a party-room defection [10]. The Liberals and Nationals combined polled just 20% in a seat they had held for decades [10].

Who Is Voting One Nation

The demographic profile of One Nation's new coalition is broader than the party's traditional base, though still defined by clear fault lines.

Age: Among millennials (30–45), One Nation leads all parties at 30%, ahead of Labor at 28% [11]. Among Gen Z voters (18–29), support is lower at 10%, with Labor (35%) and the Greens (27%) still dominant [11]. One Nation retains strong support among the 55+ cohort.

Education: One Nation is the top choice for 34% of voters without tertiary education and 30% of those with TAFE or trade qualifications [8]. Among university-educated voters, Labor leads at 36%, with One Nation at 17% [8]. Political scientist Ian McAllister of the Australian National University noted that "the younger people who are going to One Nation tend not to have educational qualifications, and the younger people going to the Greens do tend to have educational qualifications" [11].

Geography: One Nation's support is concentrated in regional, rural, and outer-suburban electorates, with Queensland as the epicentre. The party's primary vote in Queensland stands at 30%, leading both Labor (27%) and the LNP (23%) [8]. Support is described as "quite geographically-defined," tracking areas with lower university attainment rates [11].

Trust deficit: Among One Nation voters, 74% believe politicians "usually look after themselves" [11]. McAllister observed that millennials' low institutional trust correlates with housing market exclusion, creating receptivity to a party that positions itself as "an authentic vehicle for that anger, that frustration" [11].

The Policy Platform: Grievance and Specifics

One Nation's platform mixes specific policy proposals with broad anti-establishment positioning.

On immigration, the party calls for capping annual visas at 130,000 — a reduction of more than 570,000 from current levels — arguing this would "ease pressure on housing, wages, and infrastructure" [12]. It proposes an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare, deportation of 75,000 undocumented migrants, and withdrawal from the UN Refugee Convention [12]. Since 2017, Hanson has pursued what commentators describe as a "Trump-style immigration ban" targeting Muslim-majority nations [12].

On economic policy, One Nation has proposed $90 billion in spending cuts, including abolishing agencies such as the National Indigenous Australians Agency and the Therapeutic Goods Administration [12]. Other proposals include a 50% fuel excise cut for three years, a 20% reduction in electricity bills, flat income taxes, and allowing superannuation withdrawal for home purchases — though implementation details remain sparse [12].

On climate and energy, One Nation rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, calls for withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and advocates new coal-fired power stations [12]. The party consistently opposes measures addressing Indigenous disadvantage, including the Voice to Parliament referendum of 2023 [12].

Academic analysis has characterised One Nation as a "grievance-driven" party where "strong views" coexist with minimal policy detail [12]. The question is whether this matters to voters whose primary motivation is dissatisfaction with major-party alternatives.

The Steelman Case: Legitimate Grievances

A body of evidence supports the view that One Nation's surge reflects substantive policy failure by the major parties, not merely protest sentiment.

A 2025 study published in the Australian Economic Review found that voters with negative economic expectations are "significantly more likely to support minor parties or independents" and that "this association has strengthened since the mid-2010s" [13]. The Macquarie University Housing and Urban Research Centre documented that public dissatisfaction with housing affordability cuts across demographics, with "a clear absence of enthusiasm or conviction that current policies are effectively addressing the housing crisis" [9].

Real wage growth has stagnated across multiple government terms. Australia's inflation trajectory — from 0.8% in 2020 to 6.6% in 2022 before settling at 3.2% in 2024 — eroded purchasing power faster than wages adjusted [7]. The housing affordability gap between median incomes and median house prices has widened to historic levels in Sydney and Melbourne, pricing out a generation of would-be homeowners.

On immigration, both major parties oversaw a post-COVID migration surge that strained housing supply and infrastructure in ways that are measurable and documented. The argument that reducing immigration intake would ease housing pressure is supported by basic supply-demand economics, even if experts disagree on the magnitude of the effect.

None of this validates One Nation's entire platform. But dismissing the party's support as pure protest ignores the material conditions that created the opening.

The Preferential Voting Wall

Translating primary votes into House of Representatives seats remains One Nation's central structural challenge. Australia's preferential (ranked-choice) voting system means that a party can win 30% of first-preference votes and still lose every seat if it is not most voters' second or third choice.

Historically, this system has been devastating for One Nation. At the 1998 federal election, the party won 8.4% of the national primary vote but secured zero House seats — Hanson herself lost her seat of Blair on preferences to a Liberal candidate [3]. At the 1998 Queensland state election, 22.7% of the vote translated into only 11 of 89 seats [14]. In both cases, Labor, the Liberals, and the Nationals preferenced against One Nation by agreement, effectively creating a cordon sanitaire.

That cordon has weakened. Electoral analyst Antony Green has documented that Coalition-to-One-Nation preference flows jumped from approximately 30% in 2022 to 60–70% by 2025 [14]. In New South Wales, the flow surged from 30.5% to 65.6% [14]. One Nation's doubled Senate representation after 2025 was achieved "through improved preference flows rather than increased primary support" [14].

The Farrer by-election confirmed the shift: One Nation won a House seat for the first time, in a four-way contest where the Coalition's combined vote collapsed [10]. Whether this can be replicated across dozens of seats at a general election is uncertain. One Nation would likely need primary votes above 25–30% in individual electorates, combined with favourable preference flows, to have a realistic path to double-digit House representation.

Major Party Responses

The surge has already altered the behaviour of both major parties.

Reports indicate talk of formal Liberal–One Nation preference deals has intensified, heightening the prospect of a hung parliament [5]. This echoes the 1998 dynamic, when the Queensland Liberals briefly preferenced One Nation before reversing course under public pressure. The Coalition faces a dilemma: preferencing One Nation risks alienating moderate suburban voters, but refusing to deal cedes regional seats entirely.

Labor's response has centred on tightening immigration rhetoric. The 2026 budget itself included immigration intake reductions — a move critics described as an attempt to neutralise One Nation's signature issue [5]. Whether this strategy of partial co-option succeeds or merely validates One Nation's framing remains to be seen.

The Greens, polling at 15.5% nationally, have positioned themselves as the anti-One Nation alternative among progressive voters, particularly university-educated Gen Z [1][11].

International Parallels

One Nation's trajectory has notable parallels with right-wing populist movements in Europe, though structural differences in electoral systems limit direct comparison.

Reform UK offers the closest analogue. At the 2024 UK general election, Reform won 14.3% of the vote but only 5 of 650 seats under first-past-the-post [15]. By June 2026, Reform leads UK polls at approximately 28%, with projections suggesting it could win 335 seats — a potential outright majority — at the next election [15]. The lesson: a populist party can surge rapidly once it crosses a viability threshold in voters' minds.

The Sweden Democrats took a slower path, rising from 5.7% in 2010 to 20.5% in 2022, becoming Sweden's second-largest party and a coalition support partner [16]. Their current polling sits at 18.3% [16]. Sweden's proportional representation system allowed a more linear translation of votes to seats than Australia's system permits.

Rassemblement National in France won the popular vote by over 10 points in the 2024 snap legislative election, yet finished third in seats due to France's two-round system, where opponents consolidated in the second round [16] — a dynamic directly analogous to Australia's preferential voting.

The common thread: populist parties face a gap between polling strength and seat conversion in any system that is not purely proportional. One Nation's challenge is that Australia's preferential system is specifically designed to disadvantage parties that are many voters' first choice but few voters' second.

Organisational and Transparency Questions

One Nation's capacity to field credible candidates across hundreds of electorates is an open question.

The party's track record on governance has drawn scrutiny. In 2019, an Al Jazeera undercover investigation revealed One Nation's chief of staff James Ashby and Queensland leader Steve Dickson seeking up to US$20 million from the US National Rifle Association, with discussions about softening gun control policies in exchange [17]. Hanson dismissed the footage as "cut and spliced" [17]. In February 2026, Hanson faced criticism for not declaring a flight on mining magnate Gina Rinehart's private jet [18].

Candidate vetting has been a persistent vulnerability. One Nation's rapid 1998 expansion was followed by a wave of candidate scandals and internal splits that contributed to the party's near-collapse. Whether the party's current organisational infrastructure can sustain a national campaign at 30% support — requiring viable candidates in most of Australia's 151 electorates — has not been tested.

The Australian Electoral Commission's Transparency Register tracks political donations above reporting thresholds, but critics argue that Australia's relatively high disclosure thresholds and delayed reporting timelines create gaps in public visibility over donor influence [18].

What Happens Next

The gap between One Nation's polling and its likely seat count at an election is the central tension in Australian politics. A party at 29.5% primary support that wins fewer than 10 House seats would represent a crisis of democratic legitimacy for the electoral system itself. A party that translates those polls into significant representation would reshape the parliament.

Three scenarios are plausible. First, the polls narrow as an election approaches and the "protest" component dissipates — the historical pattern for One Nation. Second, the numbers hold but preferential voting limits One Nation to a handful of House seats plus an expanded Senate presence, forcing a hung parliament and crossbench negotiations. Third, the Coalition's collapse is so complete that One Nation replaces it as the primary alternative to Labor in regional and outer-suburban Australia, fundamentally realigning the party system.

The Farrer by-election suggests the third scenario is no longer hypothetical. Whether it becomes the norm depends on factors that polls cannot measure: candidate quality, organisational capacity, preference flows at scale, and whether the economic conditions driving voter anger persist through to the next election.

Australia's preferential voting system was designed in 1918 to manage exactly this kind of three-party fragmentation [19]. A century later, it faces its most serious stress test.