One Nation’s warning shot for the major parties
The party’s result in South Australia has turned a long-theorised threat into a real one, leaving Labor and the Coalition with nowhere to hide.
For the major political parties, an electoral challenge from One Nation is no longer hypothetical. It is very real.
There’s no point pretending otherwise or obfuscating. The polls are right. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, with its straight-talking, tacked-on recruit Barnaby Joyce, is back in town.
It is a grievance-driven party that, across several federal elections, has secured about 10% to 12% of the national vote — enough to win a Senate seat here and there and, to paraphrase Hanson, throw a few landmines in front of governments.
But in South Australia on Saturday, One Nation delivered what polls have been telling the major parties for months — a far more potent 22%. While it could win five of the state’s 47 lower house seats, party sources predicted three was the more likely outcome.
