Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers have dramatically escalated Labor’s attack on One Nation, warning of dangerous and divisive politics and declaring the party must be defeated just a day after Pauline Hanson’s movement captured its first lower-house seat in Western Australia.
The coordinated offensive at Queensland Labor’s state conference in Brisbane reflects how quickly the political landscape has changed.
For years, One Nation was frequently treated by Labor as primarily a problem for the Coalition — a party capable of stripping conservative votes from the Liberals and Nationals without necessarily threatening Labor’s own heartland.
Secret Harbour has made that assumption much harder to sustain.
One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen has taken the former safe Labor electorate south of Perth after lifting his party’s primary vote from just 8.4 per cent at the 2025 state election to about 39 per cent.
Labor’s primary vote collapsed to about 24 per cent and the Liberals finished a distant third.
After preferences, Herdegen was leading Labor candidate Georgia Tree by approximately 57 per cent to 43 per cent.
The result gave One Nation its first seat in Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly and ensured the party’s national rise could no longer be explained only through opinion polls.
It had converted momentum into an actual lower-house victory.
Albanese declares Labor ‘must defeat’ populist right
Albanese used his keynote address to Queensland Labor delegates to place One Nation within a broader argument about the rise of populist movements internationally.
“Across the world hard right populists are on the march,” he said.
He described their politics as “dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest”.
Then came the strongest line.
“We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history,” Albanese told the conference.
The Prime Minister accused populist parties of bending facts, spreading misinformation and turning Australians against one another before naming One Nation directly.
He argued that Hanson’s party did not have serious solutions to the problems confronting Australians and attacked positions or comments associated with the party on working from home, wages, domestic violence and multiculturalism.
Albanese also strongly defended multicultural Australia.
He said Labor unequivocally supported multiculturalism because it was part of the country’s strength and because Australians should be treated equally regardless of whether they were citizens “by birth or by choice”.
The speech therefore went beyond a tactical argument about preference votes or marginal seats.
Albanese was attempting to construct an ideological dividing line between Labor and One Nation.
Chalmers broadens the warning to a possible conservative alliance
Chalmers reinforced that message but framed his warning somewhat differently.
The Treasurer’s argument was directed not simply at One Nation in isolation but at the possibility that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation could eventually form some type of governing arrangement or parliamentary alliance.
He described that prospect as a “dangerous and divisive coalition of chaos” and argued it would threaten Australia’s social cohesion, workers and economy.
Labor has increasingly used this argument as One Nation’s support has risen.
The strategy attempts to put pressure on the Coalition from two directions.
If Liberal and National leaders distance themselves from Hanson, Labor can argue that conservative voters considering One Nation risk weakening the Coalition.
If they cooperate with One Nation, Labor can portray the Coalition as being pulled further to the right.
Chalmers has also repeatedly focused on workplace relations and superannuation, accusing One Nation and Coalition figures of sharing policies that would leave workers worse off.
That line is especially significant in Queensland, where Labor fears One Nation could appeal not only to conservative regional voters but also to working-class communities traditionally central to Labor’s electoral coalition.
Secret Harbour has made the threat tangible
The reason Labor’s language has sharpened is visible in the numbers from Western Australia.
Secret Harbour had been held by Labor with an 11.5 per cent margin after the 2025 state election.
Its predecessor electorates had remained in Labor hands for decades, and veteran minister Paul Papalia had represented the area continuously from 2007 until his retirement triggered the by-election.
One Nation was a minor player there only last year.
Herdegen changed that dramatically.
His first-preference vote jumped by more than 30 percentage points to 39.1 per cent.
Tree recorded just 24.4 per cent, down more than 22 points for Labor.
Liberal candidate Ryan Robertson received about 17.3 per cent, meaning the traditional opposition did not become the main beneficiary of Labor’s collapse.
Instead, voters who wanted an alternative overwhelmingly moved towards One Nation.
That is what makes Secret Harbour especially uncomfortable for both major parties.
For Labor, it demonstrates that disaffected outer-suburban voters can move directly to Hanson’s party.
For the Liberals, it shows that an anti-Labor swing no longer guarantees support will flow to them first.
One Nation is now polling at major-party levels
The Western Australian result is occurring against an extraordinary national polling backdrop.
A Newspoll published this weekend put One Nation on 30 per cent of the primary vote, narrowly ahead of Labor on 29 per cent and well above the Coalition on 19 per cent.
A separate RedBridge Group and Accent Research survey had Labor on 29 per cent, One Nation on 28 per cent and the Coalition on 22 per cent.
The precise figures differ, as polls inevitably do.
The common signal is more important: One Nation is currently attracting primary support comparable with parties that have governed Australia for generations.
That does not mean Hanson is on the verge of becoming prime minister.
Australia’s preferential voting system, the geographic distribution of support and the difficulty of winning individual House of Representatives seats make national primary-vote figures an imperfect guide to parliamentary outcomes.
Minor parties can accumulate substantial nationwide support without winning a proportionate number of lower-house seats.
But Secret Harbour matters precisely because it demonstrates that One Nation can overcome that barrier where its vote becomes concentrated enough.
Labor’s challenge is not simply defeating Hanson’s rhetoric
The danger for Labor is assuming that aggressive attacks on One Nation are themselves an answer to One Nation’s rise.
There are legitimate grounds for scrutinising the party.
As One Nation expands, its policies on migration, taxation, superannuation, workplace relations, energy and government spending deserve the same detailed examination applied to Labor and the Coalition.
Recent confusion within One Nation over what its proposed 130,000 migration figure actually represents has already shown how difficult it can be to transform broad political slogans into administratively coherent policy.
But voters can simultaneously recognise those weaknesses and remain deeply dissatisfied with the government.
That is the problem Labor must solve.
One Nation’s growth has coincided with intense anxiety over housing affordability, migration, household bills, mortgage costs and confidence in political institutions.
Not every One Nation voter shares the same motivation.
Some are longstanding Hanson supporters. Others are former Coalition voters. Some come from working-class Labor backgrounds. Others may simply be using an insurgent party to punish both sides of conventional politics.
Treating all of those voters as a single ideological bloc would risk misunderstanding the movement that produced the Secret Harbour result.
Albanese says Labor’s answer is material improvement
Importantly, Albanese’s Brisbane speech did not consist solely of attacks on One Nation.
Much of it was devoted to Labor’s argument that governments defeat political anger by improving people’s lives.
The Prime Minister promoted cheaper medicines, higher bulk-billing rates, Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, Free TAFE, student-debt reductions, higher minimum and award wages and assistance for first-home buyers.
He told delegates that Australians were under financial pressure and said government needed to demonstrate that it could ease that pressure while lowering the temperature of political debate.
That may prove more consequential than the rhetoric about defeating One Nation.
If voters experience improvements in their household circumstances, Labor has a stronger argument for retaining their support.
If they continue to believe housing is slipping out of reach and essential costs are rising faster than their sense of financial security, One Nation will retain fertile territory regardless of how forcefully ministers condemn it.
The tension is particularly acute in outer-suburban communities such as Secret Harbour, where young families can face substantial mortgages while simultaneously feeling that population growth is placing pressure on roads, schools, healthcare and housing.
One Nation now faces a different test as well
Greater success brings greater scrutiny.
Hanson’s party has long benefited from being able to attack decisions made by governments without having to administer large departments, balance state or federal budgets or reconcile competing demands across a comprehensive policy program.
Winning more lower-house seats changes that.
Voters will increasingly expect detailed answers about how One Nation would implement its migration limits, fund public services, manage energy policy, protect retirement incomes and handle the fiscal consequences of its tax proposals.
Candidate quality will matter more as the party fields larger teams.
Internal discipline will matter more if it develops bigger parliamentary caucuses.
And statements that once circulated primarily among a dedicated supporter base will receive national examination.
Albanese invoked One Nation’s earlier Queensland history for precisely this reason.
The party won 11 seats at the 1998 Queensland election before internal conflict and defections contributed to a rapid collapse in its parliamentary representation.
Labor hopes history will demonstrate that protest movements struggle when electoral success forces them to become functioning political organisations.
But assuming the 1998 experience will automatically repeat would be a serious strategic mistake.
The One Nation of 2026 operates in a different media environment, has a more experienced leader and is drawing support during a period of intense dissatisfaction with both major-party blocs.
The political contest has fundamentally changed
For years, Australian politics largely revolved around which of two blocs would govern: Labor or the Coalition.
The rise of One Nation is challenging that structure.
Labor now has to defend voters on its traditional working-class flank while the Coalition fights to prevent conservative voters abandoning it for Hanson.
That creates unusual incentives.
Labor wants to portray One Nation and the Coalition as effectively part of one right-wing political project.
The Coalition needs to recover One Nation voters without appearing subordinate to Hanson.
One Nation benefits from depicting both established sides as an interchangeable political class that has failed ordinary Australians.
Every participant therefore has an interest in framing the contest differently.
The ballot box will eventually determine which explanation voters accept.
Attacking One Nation also raises the stakes for Labor
Albanese and Chalmers have now made their position unmistakable.
They are not treating One Nation’s rise as temporary noise.
They intend to confront it.
That carries political risk.
If Labor attacks Hanson without addressing the frustrations pushing voters towards her, One Nation can portray every ministerial denunciation as evidence that the political establishment fears ordinary voters.
If Labor avoids confrontation entirely, it allows One Nation’s arguments and policy claims to circulate without serious challenge.
The more effective strategy will require both scrutiny and understanding.
Labor must challenge claims it believes are false, examine One Nation’s policies in detail and defend its own values.
At the same time, it must recognise that voters who support One Nation are exercising a legitimate democratic choice and may have grievances that cannot simply be dismissed as extremism or misinformation.
Secret Harbour has made that distinction impossible to ignore.
Albanese says Labor owes it to history to defeat the populist right, while Chalmers warns of the danger posed by a future conservative alliance involving One Nation. But history will not decide the next election. Voters will — and after a 30-point One Nation primary swing in a former Labor stronghold and national polls placing Hanson alongside the major parties, Labor’s challenge is no longer merely to explain why One Nation is dangerous. It must explain, convincingly, why Australians considering One Nation should come back.
