Australia’s traditional political order is under its strongest pressure in decades, with One Nation reaching 30 per cent of the primary vote in a new national poll just days after converting its polling surge into a historic lower-house victory in Western Australia.
The latest News24/YouGov Pulse has Pauline Hanson’s party four percentage points ahead of Labor and 12 points ahead of the Coalition on primary support.
Conducted between September 1 and 8 among 1,510 voters, the poll puts One Nation on 30 per cent, Labor on 26 per cent, the Liberal-National Coalition on 18 per cent and the Greens on 12 per cent.
It is an extraordinary position for a party that spent much of its history operating on the margins of federal politics.
But the numbers do not mean Hanson would form government if an election were held tomorrow.
Labor still leads One Nation 53–47 after respondent-allocated preferences, while Anthony Albanese remains ahead of Hanson 51–40 as preferred prime minister.
The more important development is what has happened beneath those numbers.
One Nation is no longer simply taking a protest vote from one narrow section of the electorate.
Polling across different companies, demographic studies and now an actual by-election result suggests the party is drawing support from voters who previously belonged to both Labor and the Coalition.
One poll should not be mistaken for an election result
The 30 per cent figure is dramatic, but polling needs context.
A separate Roy Morgan poll conducted from August 31 to September 6 put Labor narrowly first on 27 per cent, One Nation on 26.5 per cent and the Coalition on 21.5 per cent.
On respondent preferences, Labor led One Nation 53.5–46.5.
The difference between the two surveys is a reminder that individual polls contain sampling variation, use different methodologies and can move rapidly.
One Nation’s support has already demonstrated considerable volatility during 2026.
What is harder to dismiss is that multiple pollsters have repeatedly found Hanson’s party at historically high levels and either leading or competing directly with Australia’s major parties.
DemosAU’s large MRP exercise using 9,343 respondents surveyed from May to July also put One Nation on 30 per cent nationally, compared with Labor on 26 per cent and the Coalition on 21 per cent.
Its model suggested One Nation was particularly strong across regional and rural Australia and increasingly competitive in the outer suburbs that frequently decide federal elections.
That is a much more consequential trend than one headline number.
The stereotype of a typical One Nation voter is becoming less useful
One Nation’s historical support has often been portrayed as concentrated among older, Australian-born, non-university educated voters living outside the major cities.
Those groups remain important to the party.
But recent research indicates the coalition of support has broadened.
A large RedBridge Group and Accent Research survey of 5,563 voters conducted in March showed One Nation gaining support across every age group it measured.
Among Australians born overseas, support for the party doubled from 13 per cent in its previous November survey to 26 per cent.
Among Millennials, it rose from 15 per cent to 26 per cent.
Gen Z support reached 33 per cent.
One Nation was particularly strong among Gen X men, where it recorded 35 per cent.
Those figures came from a different survey conducted months before the latest YouGov poll, so they should not be treated as demographic cross-tabs of the current 30 per cent result.
They nevertheless challenge the assumption that Hanson’s ceiling depends entirely on an ageing, Australian-born conservative electorate.
A party cannot reach around 30 per cent nationally by appealing to only one small demographic niche.
Regional Australia remains the foundation
The strongest evidence of One Nation’s electoral potential remains outside the inner metropolitan centres.
DemosAU’s May-to-July MRP put One Nation on 41 per cent of the primary vote across regional and rural electorates, ahead of the Liberals on 20 per cent and Labor on 18 per cent.
The model had One Nation notionally leading in 39 of 41 regional and rural seats.
That projection would represent a political earthquake if reproduced at an election.
It should not be read as a prediction that 39 regional seats are certain to elect One Nation MPs.
MRP models use national polling and demographic information to estimate individual electorates, and seat-level uncertainty can be substantial.
Candidate quality, campaigns, preference flows and local issues can all change outcomes.
But the geographic concentration matters because Australia does not elect a government from a national popular vote.
Parties need seats.
A 30 per cent vote scattered evenly around the country could produce a very different parliament from a 30 per cent vote concentrated in winnable regional and outer-suburban electorates.
Secret Harbour showed the votes can turn into a seat
That is why the Secret Harbour by-election has had such an impact on the political conversation.
On August 29, voters in the outer southern suburbs of Perth elected One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen in territory that had previously been regarded as safe Labor ground.
The Western Australian Electoral Commission formally declared the result on September 9.
After the full distribution of preferences, Herdegen finished with 57.19 per cent against Labor candidate Georgia Tree on 42.81 per cent.
One Nation’s primary vote reached 39.1 per cent.
Labor fell to 24.1 per cent, a primary-vote swing against it of more than 22 percentage points.
The Liberals managed only 17.2 per cent.
It was One Nation’s first lower-house victory in Western Australia.
There were important local factors.
The seat became vacant after veteran Labor minister Paul Papalia left politics because of serious illness in his immediate family.
By-elections can produce much larger anti-government swings than general elections, and Labor’s local campaign experienced problems of its own.
But those qualifications cannot erase the result.
One Nation did not simply push Labor backwards.
It also finished comfortably ahead of the Liberals and then won the seat after preferences.
For a party attempting to demonstrate that it can graduate from protest politics to parliamentary representation, that distinction matters.
The Coalition faces the most immediate structural threat
Labor has obvious reasons to worry about One Nation’s rise.
Secret Harbour showed Hanson’s party can attract voters in working and middle-income outer suburbs that have historically supported Labor.
But the Coalition faces an even more fundamental problem.
Much of One Nation’s rise has come from voters who once viewed the Liberal or National parties as the natural home of the political right.
If those voters return before the next federal election, the Coalition can recover.
If they do not, Australia’s longstanding assumption that the main contest is automatically Labor versus Coalition becomes much harder to maintain.
The latest YouGov result puts the Coalition at only 18 per cent.
Even Roy Morgan’s comparatively stronger 21.5 per cent still leaves it behind One Nation.
DemosAU modelling has repeatedly suggested the Coalition would lose large numbers of regional and outer-metropolitan seats to Hanson’s party if current support were translated into an election.
That is why senior Liberals are increasingly attacking One Nation directly rather than treating it merely as a source of preferences on the right.
Immigration has become One Nation’s strongest issue
The latest YouGov poll provides one of the clearest explanations for why Hanson has been able to occupy so much political space.
Sixty-six per cent of voters said immigration should be reduced.
Forty-two per cent wanted a large reduction and another 24 per cent wanted a smaller one.
Only 7 per cent wanted migration increased.
The remaining 27 per cent wanted levels kept approximately where they are.
Those numbers do not establish what the optimal migration level should be.
Migration contributes workers, students, skills and population growth while also adding demand for housing, infrastructure and services.
But politically, the direction of voter opinion is unmistakable.
When respondents were asked which party was best placed to manage immigration, 36 per cent chose One Nation.
Labor and the Coalition each received 18 per cent.
That gives Hanson twice the issue support of either major party on one of the most politically sensitive subjects in the country.
Migration is increasingly being connected with living standards
One Nation has spent decades campaigning for lower immigration.
What has changed is the economic environment surrounding the issue.
The debate is now taking place during a housing shortage, falling housing affordability, elevated rents, pressure on infrastructure and continuing concern about wages and household living standards.
That allows migration to be framed less as an argument about national identity and more as an argument about economic capacity.
For voters struggling to buy a home, the relevant question can become whether housing supply is expanding fast enough to accommodate population growth.
For renters, it can be about competition for limited accommodation.
For governments, the challenge is that cutting migration also carries economic costs.
Australia relies heavily on overseas workers in health, aged care, agriculture, education, construction and other industries.
A dramatic reduction can therefore ease demand in some areas while intensifying labour shortages in others.
That complexity is why public support for lower migration does not automatically translate into support for every detail of One Nation’s migration policy.
But the party currently owns the political advantage on the issue.
The surge is not entirely about immigration
It would be equally misleading to explain One Nation’s rise through immigration alone.
Cost of living has consistently ranked among Australians’ largest concerns.
Housing affordability has remained prominent.
Voters have also expressed dissatisfaction with political institutions, government spending and the performance of the major parties.
One Nation has increasingly presented itself as the vehicle for those grievances rather than simply an anti-immigration party.
Its recent proposals cover superannuation, housing, tobacco taxes, energy and other economic issues.
That policy expansion is strategically important because a party seeking to become more than a protest movement eventually has to answer questions outside its traditional strengths.
It also creates risk.
The larger One Nation becomes, the more closely its policies will be costed, modelled and tested.
Proposals that receive little scrutiny at 6 per cent support receive much more at 30 per cent.
Preferences remain Labor’s great protection
The strongest reason not to declare the old political system dead is Australia’s preferential voting system.
Thirty per cent of the primary vote is extraordinary for One Nation.
It is not 50 per cent.
In the YouGov poll, Labor still leads Hanson’s party 53–47 after respondents allocate preferences.
Roy Morgan produces almost the same result, with Labor ahead 53.5–46.5.
The reason is that some Coalition voters will preference One Nation, but not all of them will.
Some metropolitan Liberals who dislike Labor may still prefer it to Hanson’s party.
Greens preferences overwhelmingly favour Labor.
That means One Nation can lead on primary votes and still lose a final two-candidate contest.
Hanson also trails Albanese as preferred prime minister.
Those numbers expose the distinction between becoming the most popular first-choice party and assembling a majority coalition capable of governing.
The path to government is also geographic
Australia’s House of Representatives contains 150 electorates.
A party normally needs 76 seats for a majority.
National vote share does not determine those seats evenly.
One Nation’s strength is currently concentrated in regional Australia and outer suburbs, while Labor remains substantially stronger in inner metropolitan electorates.
The Greens and independents complicate the picture further.
DemosAU’s latest MRP therefore points not to an easy One Nation majority but to a possible hung parliament.
Its simulation placed Labor between 60 and 72 seats and One Nation between 53 and 66, with the Coalition between 11 and 22.
That is a model based on polling collected months before an election and should be treated with significant caution.
But it illustrates the type of realignment currently troubling Canberra.
The potential disruption is not necessarily Hanson winning 76 seats.
It is the possibility that neither Labor nor the Coalition can continue to assume the Coalition will automatically be the alternative government.
The two-party order has not collapsed, but it is being tested
Australia has experienced minor-party surges before.
Poll numbers can rise quickly and fall just as quickly.
Two years is an enormous amount of time in electoral politics.
One Nation must recruit credible candidates, avoid internal scandals, build campaign infrastructure and convert national popularity into local majorities.
Labor and the Coalition also have time to respond.
Economic conditions can change.
Interest rates can change.
Migration can fall.
Leaders can change.
Policies that look popular in opposition can become less attractive under scrutiny.
None of that diminishes what has already happened.
One Nation is polling around the same level as Labor in multiple national surveys.
It is consistently ahead of the Coalition.
Its support has broadened beyond its old demographic profile.
It has a commanding advantage on immigration.
And in Secret Harbour it demonstrated that a large polling number can become an actual seat.
That does not prove Australia’s two-party system is finished.
It does mean the old assumption that federal politics must inevitably resolve itself into a Labor-versus-Coalition contest is no longer as secure as it once appeared.
For Labor, the danger is losing economically frustrated outer-suburban and regional voters from one side.
For the Coalition, the danger is more existential: losing its claim to be the principal alternative to Labor.
For One Nation, the challenge has changed completely.
It no longer needs to prove Australians are angry enough to consider voting for it.
The polls and Secret Harbour have already demonstrated that.
It now has to prove that a party built around protest can turn that anger into the discipline, candidates, policies and preference flows required to govern.
