Anthony Albanese has launched one of his most forceful attacks yet on One Nation, declaring Labor has a responsibility to defeat the rise of hard-right populism as Pauline Hanson’s party celebrates a historic electoral breakthrough in Western Australia.
Addressing the Queensland Labor State Conference in Brisbane, the Prime Minister warned his party that Australia was entering a “crucial time” as populist political movements gained strength around the world.
His language was unusually direct.
“Across the world hard right populists are on the march,” Albanese told delegates.
He accused them of “peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest”.
Then came his rallying cry to the Labor faithful.
“We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history.”
“And we will defeat them.”
The speech signals a significant shift in the way Labor is confronting Pauline Hanson and One Nation.
Rather than treating the party primarily as a problem for the Liberals and Nationals, Albanese is acknowledging it as a direct competitor for voters Labor itself needs — particularly in working-class and outer-suburban electorates.
And the timing was impossible to separate from the political shock that had arrived from Western Australia only hours earlier.
One Nation had just taken a Labor seat
One Nation’s Luke Herdegen secured the Secret Harbour by-election in Perth’s outer south, delivering the party its first lower-house seat in Western Australian history.
The result was particularly damaging for Labor because of where it happened.
Secret Harbour in its current form was created for the 2025 Western Australian election, largely from the abolished electorate of Warnbro.
The broader area had been held by Labor under different electoral boundaries and names since 1989.
Former Labor minister Paul Papalia represented the seat and its predecessors from 2007 until his retirement triggered the by-election.
Labor went into the contest defending an 11.5 per cent margin.
One Nation overturned it.
The Liberals failed to capitalise on Labor’s collapse and finished third, making the result far more significant than a conventional government-to-opposition swing.
It provided tangible evidence that One Nation could draw support from voters on both sides of Australia’s traditional political divide.
Albanese accuses populists of exploiting grievances
The Prime Minister’s response was to challenge the credibility of the political movement behind that surge.
Albanese told Labor delegates that populists were willing to exploit dissatisfaction rather than provide serious answers to the problems confronting Australians.
“They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes,” he said.
He accused them of bending facts, spreading misinformation and disinformation and attempting to turn “Australian against Australian”.
He then identified One Nation directly.
“Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems,” Albanese said.
He argued that the party’s internal disagreements were already becoming more visible as its political profile increased.
The strategy is clear.
Labor does not merely want to attack One Nation’s rhetoric. It wants voters who are considering Hanson as an alternative to examine whether her party can turn anger with the political establishment into workable policy.
Working voters become the central battleground
Albanese devoted a substantial part of his argument to workplace issues.
He accused One Nation of holding positions that were contrary to the interests of Australian workers.
“They think Australians are lazy and overpaid,” he said.
“That people working from home are bludging.”
He also attacked the party over penalty rates and questioned how reducing them would help workers in communities such as Logan, Gladstone, Strathpine, Ipswich and Mount Isa.
The geography was politically significant.
These are the types of working and outer-suburban communities where dissatisfaction with the traditional parties can produce large electoral movements.
Secret Harbour has just demonstrated the potential consequences.
The Perth electorate contains large numbers of young working families and mortgage holders, with vocational qualifications particularly common compared with university degrees.
Housing pressures, household bills, infrastructure and the cost of living can therefore carry enormous political weight.
Labor wants those voters to see One Nation’s economic policies as a threat to their employment conditions.
Hanson’s party, by contrast, argues that Australians are turning towards it precisely because Labor and the Coalition have failed to address their concerns.
Multiculturalism becomes another dividing line
The Prime Minister also drew a sharp distinction between Labor and One Nation over Australia’s national identity.
Albanese accused his opponents of believing Australia should “somehow” become a monoculture.
Hanson has argued that Australia can remain multiracial while becoming monocultural, presenting that approach as a way of reinforcing a common Australian identity.
Labor rejects that proposition.
Albanese told the conference his party “unequivocally” supported multiculturalism because it was part of Australia’s strength.
He said Labor believed every Australian was equal, whether Australian “by birth” or “by choice”.
The argument illustrates how the emerging contest between Labor and One Nation extends well beyond immigration numbers.
It increasingly encompasses competing visions of Australian identity, workplace policy and the role of government.
Labor reaches back to One Nation’s 1998 breakthrough
Albanese also attempted to use One Nation’s own history against it.
The party famously won 11 seats at Queensland’s 1998 state election, an extraordinary breakthrough that shook Australia’s political establishment.
But its parliamentary representation subsequently fractured.
The Prime Minister invoked that episode to argue that electoral success had historically produced instability inside One Nation.
It is an obvious vulnerability for Labor to target.
Hanson’s party can no longer simply ask Australians to register dissatisfaction with the political establishment.
As its support grows, voters will increasingly ask whether it possesses the candidates, organisation and policy depth required to function as a durable parliamentary force.
One Nation’s challenge is to convince them the modern party has learned from its turbulent history.
For Hanson, the Western Australian result provides an immediate response to claims that her party remains primarily a protest movement.
Herdegen did not merely lift One Nation’s primary vote.
He won a seat.
After victory became clear, he declared there were “no safe Labor seats” left in Western Australia or the country.
He described the result as a message capable of sending “shock waves” across Australia and warned MPs about an “orange tsunami”.
Those claims should be treated cautiously.
A single by-election cannot demonstrate that every Labor electorate is vulnerable to One Nation.
By-elections frequently produce larger protest swings because voters can punish a government without determining who will govern the state.
But the circumstances of Secret Harbour make the result difficult to dismiss.
One Nation took a seat in territory Labor had dominated for decades.
And the Liberal Party did not emerge as the natural beneficiary of the government’s collapse.
The Liberals have their own One Nation problem
ABC analysis following the by-election highlighted the uncomfortable implications for the Coalition.
The Liberals went backwards and finished third, recording about 17.3 per cent of the primary vote in the published count.
That is particularly notable because Secret Harbour sits largely inside the federal electorate of Canning, held by senior Liberal MP Andrew Hastie.
Hastie retained Canning with a 6.6 per cent margin at the last federal election.
One Nation is now openly targeting the electorate.
The WA result therefore challenges any Liberal assumption that Hanson’s rise is primarily Labor’s problem.
When a government loses support, those voters do not automatically transfer to the traditional opposition.
One Nation is attempting to position itself as an alternative to both.
Labor’s real strategy goes beyond attacking Hanson
The most provocative lines from Albanese’s speech attracted the headlines, but another section may reveal more about Labor’s long-term strategy.
After warning delegates about One Nation, the Prime Minister said the best way to defeat what he called a “coalition of chaos” was to give Australians “real hope of a better future”.
That qualification matters.
Albanese appears to recognise that denunciations alone are unlikely to reverse One Nation’s rise.
If voters are turning towards minor parties because they are frustrated by housing costs, rents, household bills, infrastructure pressures or the performance of the major parties, simply telling them One Nation is dangerous may not be enough.
Labor must also demonstrate that mainstream government can materially improve their lives.
The Prime Minister used the remainder of his conference speech to promote Labor’s economic, housing and social agenda.
That creates a two-part political strategy.
First, Labor will scrutinise One Nation’s policies and warn voters about the consequences of giving the party greater power.
Second, it will attempt to reduce the grievances creating fertile ground for Hanson’s message in the first place.
The danger of attacking a populist opponent
There is an obvious strategic risk for Albanese.
Populist movements frequently benefit from attacks by political establishments because those attacks can reinforce their central argument: that traditional institutions are threatened by outsiders who challenge them.
Hanson can therefore use Labor’s increasingly forceful rhetoric as evidence that One Nation has become powerful enough to frighten its opponents.
The more attention the Prime Minister gives the party, the easier it becomes for Hanson to portray herself as Albanese’s principal challenger.
But ignoring One Nation carries its own risks.
Secret Harbour demonstrates that the party’s support can no longer be regarded only as an opinion-poll phenomenon.
It can translate into parliamentary representation.
The difficult question for Labor is therefore not whether to confront One Nation, but how.
One Nation must now prove it can handle success
Hanson faces an equally difficult transition.
Political protest and parliamentary power require different capabilities.
A party seeking a much larger role in Australian politics must develop credible positions across the full responsibilities of government — from health and defence to taxation, housing, energy, workplace law and economic management.
It must recruit candidates capable of surviving intense scrutiny.
It must maintain organisational discipline.
And elected representatives must demonstrate they can work together after entering parliament.
Those requirements become more demanding with every electoral breakthrough.
Secret Harbour gives One Nation an opportunity to prove that it can do more than capture dissatisfaction.
Herdegen will now be judged on how effectively he represents his electorate.
A contest that can no longer be ignored
Albanese’s Brisbane speech is significant because it reveals how seriously Labor now takes the challenge.
The Prime Minister did not treat One Nation as a temporary curiosity.
He framed defeating hard-right populism as a responsibility of the Labor movement and told party members they “owe it to history”.
That is powerful language from a sitting prime minister.
It also reflects a changing Australian political landscape.
One Nation has just demonstrated it can take previously safe Labor territory.
The Liberals have demonstrated that they cannot automatically capture voters who abandon Labor.
And Labor is openly preparing to fight Hanson for working and outer-suburban Australians who once formed a much more predictable part of the major-party electorate.
One by-election does not establish a national realignment.
Nor does a forceful conference speech provide a strategy capable of reversing one.
The real test will come when Australians next vote in large numbers.
But one thing has already changed.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is no longer being treated as a party the political establishment can simply wait out.
Anthony Albanese has decided to take it on directly.
