Anthony Albanese has finally taken off the gloves in his fight against the resurgent One Nation, openly questioning the honesty of leader Pauline Hanson and savaging her party as an enemy of the battlers and working people it claims to represent.
After weeks of focusing exclusively on promoting housing reforms in the 2026 budget, the prime minister has pivoted to sterner political engagement with One Nation which, according to numerous polls, looms as the biggest threat to his government.
Since the Capital Brief/DemosAU poll was the first to identify the rise of One Nation in January, the party has largely flown under the radar while continuing to pick off supporters from the major parties.
As we wrote in Political Capital earlier this month, Labor’s need to sell its budget and the Coalition’s need to look like a genuine alternative government have held back the major party pushback on One Nation. This has allowed One Nation to lift its primary vote in Capital Brief/DemosAU polling even further from 24% in January — six percentage points behind Labor — to 28% in May, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition.
