Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is showing signs of developing something Australian politics has rarely associated with the party: a large and increasingly loyal voter base that does not regard supporting it as a temporary protest.
New research examining more than 1,000 intending One Nation voters suggests a substantial portion have made up their minds and are unlikely to be easily won back by either Labor or the Coalition.
The findings add another dimension to one of the most dramatic shifts in Australian politics since the 2025 federal election.
One Nation has moved from being a minor party commonly treated as a destination for disaffected protest voters to regularly competing with, and at times overtaking, both Labor and the Coalition on the national primary vote.
The new study suggests that rise may be becoming more entrenched.
The research was conducted by veteran pollster John Utting and political strategist Bruce Hawker and surveyed 1,014 people intending to vote One Nation. It followed weeks of focus-group research and was conducted in August.
About 52 per cent of those surveyed were classified as effectively locked into their One Nation vote.
That is particularly significant because a large part of the party’s current support is relatively new.
Four in 10 One Nation voters surveyed said they had come to support the party only within the past year, meaning Hanson appears to have converted at least part of a rapid influx of dissatisfied voters into committed supporters in a relatively short period.
The report’s conclusion was blunt: One Nation’s support was no longer best understood as a conventional protest vote and had become considerably more entrenched.
Some media coverage has compared the loyalty of Hanson’s strongest supporters with the commitment Donald Trump enjoys among his MAGA base in the United States.
The comparison is useful as a description of political loyalty, but it should not be interpreted as proof that the two movements are identical or that the Australian survey conducted a like-for-like statistical comparison with American Trump voters.
What the Australian research does establish is that a sizeable group of Hanson supporters now see One Nation as their political home rather than merely a vehicle for punishing the major parties.
That presents a much more difficult problem for both Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.
If One Nation’s support were entirely based on anger with the government of the day, Labor could hope that improving economic conditions would bring those voters back. If it were simply a protest against a weakened Liberal Party, the Coalition could expect some to return once it rebuilt its leadership and policy credibility.
The survey suggests neither assumption is safe.
Almost half of respondents, 45 per cent, said they supported One Nation mainly because of what the party stood for.
About 34 per cent said their support was driven mainly by the belief that other parties had let them down, while about one in five identified Hanson herself as the main reason they backed the party.
That mix matters.
It shows grievance remains an important part of One Nation’s rise, but it is increasingly sitting alongside positive identification with the party’s policies and leader.
The demographic picture also challenges the old idea that One Nation is confined to a narrow fringe.
The research found its supporters were more likely to be men, older than the national average and living outside capital cities.
More than three-quarters owned their homes, either outright or with a mortgage, and about six in 10 were still working.
Tradespeople were particularly prominent.
Household incomes were spread through the middle of the income distribution rather than being concentrated solely among the poorest Australians, with many respondents falling between roughly $60,000 and $195,000 in household income.
It is a group that recalls voter blocs once described as “Howard’s battlers” and later “Tony’s tradies”: Australians with jobs, homes and established lives who nevertheless believe their standard of living and political influence are going backwards.
That sense of decline was overwhelming in the survey.
Ninety-one per cent of One Nation voters said Australia was heading in the wrong direction.
By comparison, surveys of the general electorate have also shown widespread pessimism, but nowhere near the level recorded among Hanson supporters.
Two-thirds of those surveyed, 67 per cent, said their household was worse off than it had been three or four years earlier.
Another 71 per cent agreed that most politicians looked after themselves rather than the country.
Those numbers help explain why attacks from established political leaders may struggle to move this group.
A voter who already believes mainstream politicians primarily serve themselves is unlikely to be persuaded simply because those politicians tell them One Nation is unfit to govern.
For some, such attacks may even reinforce the party’s anti-establishment appeal.
Immigration emerged as one of the clearest dividing lines.
Among respondents concerned about immigration, 42 per cent pointed first to the number of people entering Australia, while 28 per cent cited pressure on housing and services and 17 per cent nominated crime and safety.
When specifically asked why they wanted immigration reduced, 57 per cent said they believed migration was changing Australia’s culture and identity too much.
The study is notable for what did not dominate the open-ended responses as well.
Only a small proportion specifically mentioned Muslims or Islam when initially asked about their immigration concerns, suggesting the issue for many supporters is being understood through population levels, housing, services and national identity rather than a single religious focus.
Cost of living is the other major driver.
Households dealing with mortgage repayments, rent, power bills, groceries and fuel have become a political battleground across the country, but the research suggests One Nation voters combine economic frustration with a deeper belief that the political system has stopped working for people like them.
That helps explain why the Coalition has suffered particularly badly from Hanson’s rise.
The largest single source of current One Nation supporters in the survey was former Coalition voters.
Thirty-eight per cent had previously backed the Coalition, while only 17 per cent came from Labor.
Overall, seven in 10 current One Nation supporters had voted for another party at the 2025 federal election or had not voted.
For Taylor and the Liberal and National parties, those figures point to an existential challenge rather than merely an inconvenient minor-party surge.
The Coalition cannot automatically assume voters who have moved to One Nation will return at election time.
The survey nevertheless found an opening.
More than a quarter said they could consider returning to the Liberals under the right circumstances, with a credible party and a tougher approach to immigration among the factors capable of changing their minds.
Labor faces a narrower route.
The One Nation voters surveyed were overwhelmingly hostile to Albanese and his government, and more than seven in 10 agreed with the proposition that the Prime Minister said one thing and did another.
Asked what Labor could do to regain their interest, about two-thirds nominated reducing immigration.
The major parties therefore face a strategic dilemma.
They can adopt parts of the policy agenda motivating One Nation voters, but doing so risks appearing to validate Hanson while alienating other sections of their own electoral coalitions.
Alternatively, they can confront One Nation directly, but repeated attacks may have diminishing effect on voters who already distrust the people making them.
The scale of the challenge is becoming visible beyond the research itself.
A national Newspoll conducted from August 24 to 28 put One Nation on 30 per cent of the primary vote, narrowly ahead of Labor on 29 per cent and well ahead of the Coalition on 19 per cent.
Polling should never be treated as an election result, particularly with the next federal election still well away, and other polls have produced somewhat different numbers.
But One Nation is no longer recording its current strength in a single isolated survey.
Earlier polling from Roy Morgan, Essential, Resolve, DemosAU and others has repeatedly put the party at levels far above its historical national vote.
Election results have also begun to provide real-world evidence that some of that support can survive the transition from opinion polling to the ballot box.
In May, David Farley won the federal by-election in Farrer for One Nation, taking a seat that had been represented by the Liberal Party for decades.
Then, at the end of August, Luke Herdegen won the Western Australian state seat of Secret Harbour.
One Nation secured about 39.1 per cent of the primary vote there, a rise of more than 30 percentage points, before defeating Labor after preferences.
That was One Nation’s first lower-house victory in Western Australia.
Those results do not mean the party is on an inevitable path to government.
By-elections produce unusual swings, individual seats have distinct demographics and Australia’s preferential voting system makes converting a large national primary vote into a House of Representatives majority exceptionally difficult.
One Nation also remains highly dependent on Hanson personally and faces the organisational challenge of finding credible candidates, building local branches and surviving intense scrutiny across a much larger number of electorates.
The same new research contains another reason for caution.
While 52 per cent of supporters appear firmly committed, that also means a substantial minority are not.
Many are relatively recent converts and some openly say they could be persuaded back to the Coalition if it convinces them it has changed.
Political allegiance can harden quickly, but it can also weaken quickly when economic conditions, leadership, candidates or policy priorities change.
The study itself should also be read in context.
It was commissioned by the TJ Ryan Foundation, which is aligned with Labor, and was conducted by researchers with long histories in Labor politics, including former Labor pollster Utting and former Labor strategist Hawker.
That does not make its findings invalid, and its central conclusions broadly fit patterns seen in independent public polling.
But transparency about who commissioned and conducted political research is particularly important when its findings are being used to make claims about the future of the party system.
For the major parties, the most uncomfortable finding may not be One Nation’s current polling number at all.
Polls rise and fall.
The more consequential development is that many Hanson voters appear to have developed a positive reason to remain with her party.
They believe One Nation reflects their priorities. They rate Hanson highly. They believe the party has workable plans, with 87 per cent of respondents saying One Nation had clear proposals capable of delivering what it promised.
Half even believed the party could win government in its own right.
Whether that belief is electorally realistic is another question entirely.
But politically, it matters that One Nation supporters increasingly see their vote not as wasted, symbolic or temporary, but as part of a plausible challenge to the existing order.
For three decades, Australia’s major parties could often wait for a One Nation surge to fade, fracture or collapse under its own internal problems.
The latest research suggests waiting may no longer be a strategy.
If half of Hanson’s present electorate really is locked in, Labor and the Coalition are not simply competing to retrieve a protest vote.
They are confronting a new body of voters who increasingly believe they have already found their alternative.
