Labor’s One Nation problem

This episode of New Politics was released on 4 September, 2026, and produced on the lands of the

Wongal and Gadigal people.

Is one nation's winning secret harbour just a protest vote? Or should it be seen as a warning for

the Labour Party? Anthony Albanese's slow and steady approach isn't working anymore,

and the government needs to confront the issues that are causing all of this anger.

I'm Eddie Jockovich. I'm David Lewis. All of this is coming up in this big episode of New

Politics. And if you're listening in and haven't subscribed to our website at New Politics,

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One nation eyeing off its new real estate.

And you can just stand there. I'll just do that.

And reveling in its bi-election victory.

I was feeling confident from the beginning. I mean the mood on the ground, the vibe was certainly there.

The night unfolded just as one nation hoped the mood on the ground showing up quickly in the tally.

They came with the big labour machine and we marched right through it.

At Labour's HQ the mood was somber.

People here are starting to acknowledge the real prospect that Labour might have lost this seat.

What started as a night of optimism and excitement has ended with a likely disappointing result.

In a seat that was once Labour Heartland it should have been a laydown mizair,

but voters had other ideas. The swing against Labour almost 19%.

One nation had a victory in the secret harbour by election in Western Australia on the weekend.

And I think this should be a worry to the Labour Party. Not so much for the state government,

but for the federal government.

Now the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he's been doing the rounds calling Paul Enhanced

and Dangerous and divisive. And that's a message that's been put out about her for about 30 years

or thereabouts and it just hasn't worked as far as I'm concerned.

Saying all of that, well it just won't explain why there was an 18% swing in a Labour Heartland

seat that the State Labour Party has held for 37 years.

The other factor is that the W.A. Labour government is actually doing pretty well politically.

Western Australia has got a strong economy and there's been a lot of substantial infrastructure

that's been built in Perth over the past nine years since they've been in office.

But this sort of stuff doesn't seem to matter anymore people.

Making judgments about governments through their own circumstances pretty much.

And they've probably always done this anyway.

But that's through the lens of unaffordable housing, high rents, stagnant wages and over-stretched

public services that are not really servicing the public that well.

And I think that this win in secret harbour doesn't necessarily mean that people do directly

support one nation policies because there's not much out there anyway.

But it is a reaction to the business as usual approach by the mainstream political parties

and a rejection of establishment politics.

And up to now it's been affecting the conservative side of politics and the liberal party.

But now one nation has taken a seat off the Labour Party and its first seat in Western Australia.

And I just think that it's time for Labour governments, especially the federal government,

to just start getting an understanding of what's really going on here.

You're right in that one nation has been labeled as divisive and all of that.

And of course the trouble with that is that even if you are decisive if your message is resonating,

it doesn't matter.

And the one nation message is resonating.

We have a government who is in a bit of a no-win situation when it comes to property.

In that housing prices dropped several thousand dollars over the last quarter.

Which is fine, but when you're talking at houses at millions of dollars,

or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's not that much of a drop.

But it's a drop. It should have been a win, except people are rightly complaining.

And of course we have a very unimaginative reserve bankboard whose sole response to anything

is to high grades.

They're talking about hiking rates again.

If the economy is so bad, that would seem to me to be not just counterintuitive,

but damaging. Surely they need to let money flow a bit.

But the government is in a difficult position.

If house prices go down, homeowners complain.

If house prices go up, buyers complain.

We've got the usual rent seekers, of course, who think that if you're into property,

you should be given free money anyway.

And that's not, of course, everyone with an investment property.

But there is that breed of property developer and investor,

who genuinely believes that they are entitled to free money.

And that the government should both make sure they get free money and stay out of their business.

Which again is an interesting proposition.

The secret harbour thing, labour mismanaged.

Apparently they are bought in a candidate from outside who had never lived in the seat.

Who wasn't terribly well-known and had to try and convince people

she was the best candidate, despite having no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Of course, a liberal party in Western Australia is dead.

And it's not really coming back.

So, it's not breaking a little bit though.

It is still breaking a little bit, but it wasn't ready to win a bi-election even.

And yeah, the liberal party could come back.

It did increase its seats by 50 percent or even 100 percent in the last election,

going from 2 to 7.

That's a 300 percent increase.

It's a massive success.

No, a near government, of course.

But that's okay.

That time will tell.

But so one nation becomes possibly the only alternative.

I think there were 16 candidates.

But how many of those were serious?

How many of them were credible?

And for those despairing that one nation is surging ahead.

One, it was a state election.

So not really indicative of what might happen at a federal,

although we'll be talking about that anyway at a federal level.

But two David Farley in New South Wales,

it looks like he's going to go independent,

joining 70 percent of these one nation colleagues who have done that.

One nation will end up when one nation ends up, of course.

Most likely, we can look at the fortunes of the reform party in the UK.

In the six months ago,

they were going to be forming government,

and they were going to be an effective opposition,

and they dropped a third place and are dropping.

Their leader had to somehow not be beaten by a man who called himself Count Binface.

Binface came in with a 27 percent of the vote,

which was far more than anyone was really expecting,

and far more than Binface had ever got.

I think he got 3 percent when he ran up against Boris Johnson,

who wasn't particularly popular.

Yeah, against Farage, he was the credible other candidate.

And one nation's big problem is that they have a competency issue.

Yes, they're divisive, yes, they're dangerous, all of that,

but they're not terribly competent.

But the point is that irrespective of all of that,

people are still voting for one nation,

and it's almost like, look, you can tell us that they're all divisive and they're incompetent,

and they're ineffective.

We do not care because look at the rest of you,

the rest of you who are a rabble, the liberal parties are rabble,

and even though the Labor Party is in government,

we're not actually doing that much for us.

And I think the economic dissatisfaction out there,

I think it is quite real.

It's not for everyone, of course,

but it seems that the strong economy in Western Australia,

that's not being shared around as much as it should be.

We've talked about housing,

and it's still unaffordable for many people.

Rents are still high, wages are struggling to keep up with consumer prices.

And it's a situation where the Labor government,

Fedreleads, announced programs,

and there's been targets and reviews over the past four years or so,

but for so many people,

these measures simply haven't translated into material improvements in their lives.

They're so small that in comparison with everything else that's going on,

it feels like they're going backwards.

And then politically, doing too little for too long,

or for far too long eventually,

it starts to look like you're not doing very much at all.

And during the week, we had the Communications Minister,

Annika Wells, trying to alleviate some of these big issues

by explaining the housing market with Ushis.

What did these guys and the Australian housing market have in common?

Both the Ushi market and the Australian housing market

are dictated by supply and demand.

The problem right now is that supply of Ushis and supply of housing

is not the keeping pace with demand.

How do we fix it?

To fix the Ushi crisis,

Louise has the ability to deliver Ushi equilibrium,

whereby Ushis supply meets the relentless demand of all the youths.

That's pretty easy.

Woolworths, the bull is in your court.

For the last 15 years,

housing demand at pace housing supply.

Or in other words, there's been a shortage of Ushis.

Compounding that problem,

Australia's tax system has benefited collectors

by new and second-hand Ushis over first-time Ushis buyers.

To fix that problem and increase supply,

at the last budget,

Labour told housing investors,

or Ushi collectors,

you can keep using the tax system to buy Ushis.

But only new ones.

In turn, that means more new Ushis to rent

and more existing Ushis for first-time buyers.

Now, David, there's a reason why a lot of people hate politics.

That was one of the reasons.

Now, there's some analysts out there

who are suggesting that this is excellent political marketing.

But as far as I'm concerned,

this is a gobb-shite crap

that shows how disconnected politicians are

from the seriousness of the problems

that they're trying to resolve.

And even if this is better political communication,

I don't think it actually is,

but putting out shite like this doesn't result

in better policy or resolve housing problems at all.

And I don't know if this is the labour government

trying to be populist with their messaging

in response to one nation.

I don't actually know what it is.

It's got that Scotty from marketing field

to work, but a lot of people would look at this and think,

wow, you're explaining the housing problem

to me using kids toys.

What good is that?

We want you to solve the housing problem,

not waste your time making a stupid video.

Yeah, people know what the problem is.

I think that the policy of the negative gearing

where they stopped it was ultimately a good policy

because it will hopefully lead to a correction in land prices

so that it's easier to get into land or into property.

The government has to learn to ignore the

rantings of sky news and the daily telegraph

and the herald sun and the Korean mail

and the Adelaide advertiser.

That they don't represent the average Australian

and haven't for 20 years.

The average Australian isn't reading them.

The government also needs to stop being in crementalist.

When you look at the most successful labour governments

and we can use success in many terms here,

but, literally, Bob Hawke, he was a populist.

Sure he brought in the accords,

but the accords were aimed, whether they did or not

as a whole other debate for a whole other day,

but they were aimed at improving things for everybody.

Not just his side, not just the unions,

but business as well, making it easier for business

to be able to deal with unions and know that

they weren't going to be here with a snap strike

that they could continue being productive.

The unions knew that we've got a pretty good deal here.

We don't have to strike because

and we know that the Prime Minister will support us.

How true any of this was again.

I know that some of you are saying this was what happened,

but that was the rhetoric that landed.

Another successful Prime Minister,

at least initially, was Kevin Wright.

Kevin O7, a very populist approach.

Now, behind closed doors, he was micromanaging.

He was not liked by his colleagues,

but out in the open, he attracted strangely too,

because he wasn't a Bob Hawke with that weed

but compelling aura about him.

But he was able to take people,

poor-keyting, less electrically successful,

but fondly remembered.

And not a populist in the sense of he had the rhetoric

of a populist, but as Don Watson said,

they were a little bit not unlucky precisely,

but a lot of, he was able to frame the nation

through World War II because a lot of the big

anniversaries happened 50 years since this battle

of that battle or the end of the war

or what have you during Keating's term of office.

But Keating was able to convince people at least

for one election that his policies benefited everyone

and especially everyone who needed benefiting.

Whitlam, not so much electrically successful,

though he wins the 74 election and the 72 election.

And populist in, if I can have the good life,

why can't everybody have the good life?

And he fixes Suri, so suddenly places become a lot healthier.

And a lot cleaner, he fixes transport,

he tries to fix infrastructure,

he tries to get control of the mining,

which constitutionally was his right.

Of course he oversteeps, he crashes through, but crashes.

But again, these are what happen.

The interesting thing is when you go to state governments,

we have Rand, we have Dunston,

we have Peter Beatty, Dan Andrews, Mark McGowan, Jeff Gallup,

yep, Bob Carr, all able to be populist leaders

without being demagogues to demonstrate

that they were governing for the whole of the people.

So at a state level, it's a bit easier

because you have infrastructure.

You can say we built this bridge,

we set up this railway, whatever, we fixed the road,

which is a bit harder at a federal level.

And still go, but I think that whether it's state or federal,

like ultimately politics is about solving problems for people.

Whether it's housing, whether it's education,

whether it's health, whatever it is,

that's what the process is.

And you can be populist and be part of that process,

solving problems, but you got to do both.

And if you're not doing one of those,

that's when you start getting political problems.

But I think the generally, well, federally at least,

the Labor government can't allow Paul Enhancin

to set the political agenda,

which is what she's been doing for most of this year, essentially.

And the government just seems to be reacting to this,

rather than leading the way with what government should be doing

and providing the public with what they need and what they want.

And I think just this process of following the agenda of one nation,

I think that plays into the hands of one nation,

and they've already done it on immigration.

And it makes people think, well, you're only doing this

because you're following one nation.

And if you're doing that, well, it must be a problem,

because now you're trying to fix it,

even if it's not a problem.

And that then legitimators one nation even further

and gives them even more room to push further on other issues.

So I think with these election results,

we can see that the electorate is quite volatile.

And they have been for some time.

We're not saying anything new there,

but Labor's primary vote has dropped off.

Anthony Albanese's approval ratings have tanked,

but they've been pretty low for most of his leadership anyway.

And it hasn't stopped him from winning two elections in a row,

but having said all of that,

I just think that the Labor government needs a different strategy

for all of this.

And it's almost like they have to tap into that dissatisfaction

themselves.

You mentioned Peter Beatty before,

but it's almost like when Peter Beatty became Premier in Queensland

or when Scott Morrison became Prime Minister in 2018,

they berated and made fun of the leadership

that they just replaced.

And they've made fun of the government

that they were actually a part of.

Scott Morrison called it the Muppet Show

or whatever it was in the Canberra bubble

and all that sort of stuff.

And then he went to join the side of the people

who were pissed off about absolutely everything in politics,

but that actually worked for Peter Beatty and for Scott Morrison.

And I don't know if the Labor Party should do that,

but you need a change of leader to pull that one off

and Anthony Albanese isn't going to change

the attack and start calling himself the Muppet Show,

but something that they need to tap into that dissatisfaction.

And I'm not exactly sure how they will do that

apart from what I've just stated.

It's a weird situation we find ourselves in.

We have a Labor government who, they're not timid precisely,

but they are more interested in ticking the boxes

and making sure that the bureaucracy is working properly.

And was it all well or all marks who basically said

the sole aim of bureaucracy is to sustain itself?

And it gets to a point in bureaucracy

where it's not actually producing anything

but it's sustaining itself.

And a Labor government should be using

that the massive mechanism that is the Australian public service

to make good and fundamental changes.

Now some of these could be quick and overnight,

some of them might take a few years.

And as long as you're explaining properly,

not with the use of all she's,

but through the use of reason and impassioned talk,

yes, we are expanding the welfare system in this way.

They dodged a bullet kind of the other week

when Tony Burke was meant to give his address

at the National Press conference,

pulled out at the last minute for whatever reason.

And the speech was leaked and it turned out he was going to suggest

that they were going to cut the family reunion visas,

which to me is the wrong end to start

of immigration policy.

Should we discuss how many people

and what's sustainable and sure?

Australia doesn't have infinite resources,

but any new policy should acknowledge

that we got rid of the wider Australia policy 55 years ago

or whatever it was.

And it's no longer part of our thinking.

To stop the family reunion visa from Tony Burke's seat,

which has a very high percentage of people

who've needed the family reunion visa

to get their families out of difficult situations overseas.

Now, it's wasn't announced

and it may be that they changed their mind

and he was going to do it, had a look at it,

had to pull out of it for some other reason

and realized, yeah, we're not going to do this.

Whether it's been put on the back burner until

there's a better time to announce it, I don't know.

But Tony Burke was very brave.

If it had been, I don't know, the member in Morrison's old seat,

it was maybe a more or comprehensible policy

position to take, but yeah, it was weird.

But we need a government that is prepared to use

its very good administration skills.

Let's be fair, political skills

and the administration skills are very good.

What they are lacking in is the reforming skills,

the ability to change things.

Now, they might argue that we had 10 years of reform

under the liberal government and people of secure reform.

And I think you could argue back,

they seek those reforms, change them back,

get rid of Orcas.

Listen the whole idea of how you collect debts,

make sure that people have access

and start building things, start building an Australia

that we all want to live in.

Not one that we thought we wanted to live in 1950

because you worried about Pauline Hanson,

who you know will stumble and fall before the next election.

This is New Politics,

Independent Analysis of Australian and International Politics.

For more free articles and analysis,

join us at newpolitics.com.au.

I guess that's one other problem for the Labour Party,

is that the one nation policies,

they'll always collapse when they're scrutinised.

And so that, and it's always another problem.

But by the time you've explained all the contradictions

and how their policies don't work,

the caravan's already moved on.

And you've already lost the argument

or you've already lost your audience.

And that's the beauty of populism.

But it's the saying that the light travels halfway

around the world before the truth gets out of bed

and puts his underpants on.

And putting it shoes on.

Yeah.

Sorry, sorry for being so close.

Or underpants, putting things.

Or underpants, shoes, whatever it is.

So in this sort of situation, one nation can promise these dramatic migration cuts,

even though we're not exactly sure what they're cutting.

It's not they're actually adding to their migration numbers.

But they can send out the message about all that,

without explaining what that means for regional industries

or for the construction industry in the cities,

or for health care, or for agricultural,

or aged care workers as well.

And we've said this many times before.

I think we just spent the past 20 minutes about talking about it,

but the Labor government needs big visible reforms

that demonstrate that government can deliver affordable housing,

secure work, higher wages and reliable services.

And just going on to call Pauline Hans

and dangerous or divisive,

that's not going to be good enough.

And obviously it didn't work in the secret harbor violation.

And David, you also mentioned...

51% of people didn't find a dangerous or divisive.

Yeah, so that's the point.

But the secret harbor itself,

the region which is in the Rockingham region,

well that's an interesting example.

It's so because both the West Australian and federal governments,

there's sprued that idea of 10,000 jobs

being created through Orcas at Garden Island, which is nearby.

But that promise or spruing the idea of all these jobs

that are coming your way,

that didn't seem to make any difference.

And maybe it's because people don't think it will ever happen.

You know, maybe that's one consideration

that the government has just been pushing Orcas so much.

And in a state where there was going to be a direct benefit

to all of these Orcas jobs,

they're probably never going to happen,

just like the submarines, didn't make any difference.

Yeah, and it shows that Orcas should have been

the physical manifestation of Scott Morrison

and consigned to the dustbin of history

as whoever coined that, Mankin and coined that phrase.

And we move on from it.

I know that one of the ministers was on claiming

that the French submarines were actually insufficient

for Australian use and Malcolm Turnbull.

I came back with an argument saying,

in fact, they were better,

and that the misconceptions about the type of uranium used

was wrong, that the French submarines

were a much better deal and a much more credible deal

than Orcas.

And it's bizarre that a Labour government,

one, they didn't dump it as soon as they were in office,

and two, that they're defending it like they set it up themselves.

And I know that they're worried about treaties and all of that,

but a bad deal is a bad deal.

Britain, who benefited far more than Australia overdid,

is now looking at changing it profoundly.

So if Britain can, I think Australia should have a look to

what is this deal?

Put everything on pause, have a proper independent commission

look into it.

And as they will almost inevitably find it's a bad deal,

scrap it and say to the Americans,

come back and talk to us when you have a real president.

But I think we do need to be aware of what's happening politically

with one nation, but the result in secret harbour,

I think that has to be put into perspective as well.

So we've got to do both.

Understand what's happening here,

but also put it in perspective.

So one nation did win this seat,

and they won it very well,

but they've only got one seat in Parliament.

In a Parliament of 59 seats,

and the WA Labour government over there has got

45 seats.

This was also a bi-election that was triggered by the resignation

of a minister,

and bi-elections do give the public in that one particular seat,

gives them the chance to register a protest vote against the government

of the day, whether that's state, federal or combination of both,

and gives them that chance when there's relatively little

estate.

So that's one issue.

Politics is all about timing as well.

And the next WA election is in until 2029.

And if it was being held now,

well, there might be a different story for one nation.

The next federal election is in until 2028.

So there's a lot of things that happen in that time.

One week is a long time in politics.

Two, three years is a very, very long time.

That's like going to the back of Jupiter and back.

But right at this moment,

the trends in opinion polls are starting to catch up

or match up with actual election results.

And that's what the most important thing in politics is.

So one nation did win seats in the South Australian election

earlier this year.

They also won the seat of fairer off the Liberal Party

in New South Wales.

And now they've won the seat of Secret Harbour

off the Labor Party in Western Australia.

So none of this shows how one nation would perform in government.

Because you've got to be in government to show people what you

actually be like.

And because they're just so far away from that moment

at this point of time, but it does show that they've

got a capacity to win seats.

And I think that does present the Labor Party with a problem.

Now, this has been the theme of today's episode.

But the Labor Party in government in federally,

at least it's had four years of slow and incremental change.

And I think they genuinely expected that the contest

was always going to be with the Liberal Party.

And they pretty much demolish the Liberal Party, maybe forever.

And now they've set up all of that.

They thought, well, mission accomplished.

We're in government for the next 10, 15, 20 years,

maybe forever.

But now they've got this radical force that doesn't know in one

nation.

They've got this radical force that doesn't really know what it's

doing and just wants to blow everything up.

But it's still there.

And the Labor government just hasn't got answers to all of this.

And we've always suggested that it should have been the Labor

Party as the radical force back in 2022 when they first

got into government.

But four years later, that slow and steady approach,

now that one nation is on the scene, has become its Achilles

heel.

You've got to kill this stuff quickly, otherwise it grows.

And we have the precedent of the rise of the right around the

world.

And we also seen the collapse of the right around the world.

It's gone in France.

It's going in Britain.

It's going in America.

If reports of Trump's health and all other kinds of things

are true, mega won't survive the loss of Trump.

We've seen that the mega faction hate each other more than

they hate.

The people they claim to hate.

Laura Luma was the one who apparently reported Milo

Yiannopoulos and got him detained by ICE agents at the airport,

for example.

And now he's changed his view on immigration.

I'm an 80 degrees.

Having had a taste of it, realized it was wrong.

OK, good on him.

He might have listened to other people beforehand.

But it will happen here, too.

And we can see the cracks.

David Farley has specifically stated that he's

struggling to work with Barnaby Joyce

according to the room as allegedly.

And so we'll leave one nation allegedly, apparently,

according to reports and insiders, all of the caveats apply.

You have an aging Pauline Hanson, who I don't know how much

long this she can go on.

She might go on for another 10 years, which

would put her in her 80s, I think.

She might not have the energy to go much past the next election.

Again, I don't know.

I am just looking at the vast wealth of human experience

and how age can affect people.

And of course, when she's gone, that's one nation.

The whole constitution is set up around that she

can't be removed.

And on her leaving of the position for whatever reason, that's it.

But this is why it happens when you set up a party

based around the personality.

Once that personality leaves for whatever reason, as you suggested,

well, that's the end of the party.

It becomes something else.

The name must have been there, but it becomes something

completely different.

And of course, labor and liberal survived

men'sies leaving.

And how it's stepping down, liberal survived for a time anyway,

or at least how it's leaving wasn't the cause

of the liberal party collapse.

Not really anyway.

Labor survived hawk, leaving, Keating leaving,

Rud leaving, Chiffley leaving, Curtin leaving,

for whatever reasons they left.

Yet Pauline Hansen's one nation party

won't survive Pauline leaving.

There's also cracks in the party.

As a whole, Ben Robert Smith thing will make it very hard

for them to form coalitions with a depleted liberal party

in that one nation is supporting Ben Robert Smith.

Now, after his trial, will they be justified in that or not

without claiming any inside knowledge it doesn't look good for him?

The evidence is pretty clear that he committed a war crime,

but it needs to be tested in court and all of that.

We know this, but where it stands at the moment,

there's support of him maybe vaguely admirable

because it's loyal, but it's not where the smart money lies.

I think that's fair to say.

And of course, one nation's economic policies demonstrate

that they know nothing about economics.

Their immigration policies demonstrate

that they know nothing about how population works.

It's incredible, Eddie, that we've allowed them

to become, however, briefly, a credible force.

It's partly a global thing, but it's also partly Australia's own

reticence to stand up and look for reform,

Labor's scared of reform because it's reformist governments get hammered.

I think I think Anthony Albanese, let's give credit where it's to.

He's pretty safe in his position.

There's no real threat to him.

There's not a big chance that they're going to lose the next election.

They might lose a lot of seats, but they'll still be in government

mathematically.

They're way to ahead to lose government based on past performance,

which of course is no indication of future performance,

but he's safe for at least another term.

And that's stability in Labor is a good thing.

It really gets it.

So credit where it's to.

But now's the time to stop burning that political capital.

That's it for this episode of New Politics.

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I'm Eddie Jockovich.

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I'm David Lewis.

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