Why voters are turning to One Nation

0:00Ready and this is the daily off. This is the daily off. This is the daily off. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the daily off. It's Tuesday the 24th of March. I'm Emma Gillespie. I'm Billy Fitzsiamonds. Over the weekend, South Australians voted in a state election and Labor was returned to government with a decisive victory under Premier Peter Malinowski. Now that was to be expected but the bigger surprise that has come out of this poll is that the Liberals suffered another historic defeat and a party that barely existed in the state four years ago has now finished second one nation. Now this all comes ahead of another important poll a federal by-election in a historically safe liberal seat as attention turns to whether or not the Libs can hold on there. Today we are going to explore the rise of one nation and where Australian politics is headed.

1:05And I know we're going to focus on one nation but I think before we get to that we should look at the overall results of this state election in South Australia. You said that it was a landslide victory for pretty much Labor. Yeah exactly. I mean the short version is that Labor one, Labor one big Malinowski has been reelected to a second term as Premier and at the time of recording counting is still continuing it should be noted but at this point Labor is on track to win 33 of the 47 lower house seats in South Australian Parliament. Now the headline really though is what happened to the Liberals and one nation. So the Libs finished third on a primary vote. That is the first time in South Australian history that the Liberal Party has not been in the top to on primary vote and it's the first time that one nation has surged to second. I think this is important to understand the primary vote because it's how the Australian system is designed that just because you win 20% of votes for example that doesn't mean that you

2:08win 20% of seats in Parliament. Yes. And that can be confusing because even though one nation won more votes on primary they actually ended up with less seats in Parliament than the Liberal Party. All that to say I think we should explain what the primary vote is. Yes. So you know when you vote in an election you get a ballot and you will number on that ballot you know let's say from one to five if there are five candidates listed on that ballot and you will write in order of one your preference vote basically. So one being the party that you most want to win five in this instance being the least. So primary vote is basically the number of people that listed that party as number one. So the number of people who put your party first. Now in the South Australian state election one nation picked up around 22% of that primary vote. So more than one in five voters in South Australia put a one next to one nation on their voting

3:08ballot. And that's massive because they are a minor party so to have one in five people saying they're my first preference. Yep. That hasn't happened before not just in South Australia but in any other state election in Australia. That's for sure and the Liberal Party meanwhile picked up about 19 percent of the primary vote which is underperforming for a major party in a two party system. Yes. South Australia doesn't have a Liberal National Coalition. There is a National Party in South Australia but it's not a formalised coalition as in other states and territories and indeed in Canberra but the Nationals did also slump at this election in SA so they slumped 0.3% to 0.1% of the primary so a really really tiny vote there for the Nationals. Sorry so the Nationals picked up 0.1% of the primary vote in South Australia. Yep compared to 0.4% at the last election. I didn't realise they had such a small presence in South Australia. Yeah the Liberal Party in South Australia really is it when it comes to the Opposition or Force against Labour. Super interesting

4:13when you look elsewhere in the country it's really not like that but in terms of this big loss for the Liberal Party they have four seats that's looking like it will be six that's down from 16 at the last election so the last time they were in opposition they had significantly more seats but I did just want to flag it's not just one Nation who has benefited from a swing away from the Liberal Party. The Labour Party picked up a lot of previously or traditionally Liberal held seats some independence also gained there at least one independent so there's been a bit of a mixture in terms of where voters have gone to when they've gone away from the Liberal Party. Okay so that's the Liberal Party's loss the Labour Party's win but for this podcast we're going to focus on one Nation. Before we go on do you want to just explain who one Nation is or what it is I should say. So this is I think it's fair to say a fairly controversial party in the Australian political landscape Paul Enhance and founded one Nation in 1997 she was originally elected as an

5:18independent in 96 then she founded one Nation. In essence this is a right wing populist party on the more conservative spectrum of conservative politics here in Australia. One Nation I'd say is best known for its anti-immigration policy. Paul Enhance has always led one Nation with a very strong anti-immigration stance and that has continued over the past 30 odd years. It's also a party that stands on what it describes as protecting free speech so you probably will have heard a lot of one Nation politicians or candidates discussing free speech particularly in recent years as that's become a more kind of high profile political issue but in terms of its actual presence in the federal parliament one Nation currently holds four Senate seats in the upper house in Canberra. It doesn't have any representation in the lower house at this point. Except for Barnaby Joyce. Oh yeah because I forgot. Yes because he was elected as a national so easy to figure it but he has since

6:19left the nationals and he's now part of one Nation. Yes a very prominent defector. Yes so it's right to say at the last federal election which was last year one Nation won no seats so it didn't win any seats. Yep in the lower house. Yep but since then Barnaby Joyce has changed which party he is part of. And I think that speaks to an important political trend with one Nation's popularity is that we have seen a lot of high profile politicians historically aligned with the Liberal and Labor parties who defect to one Nation so we've got Barnaby Joyce as a perfect example there. There's a high profile example in South Australia. Historically New South Wales had Mark Latham who was even Labor leader at one point so it does seem to exist as this kind of outlier almost an anti-establishment party where sometimes high profile politicians who you could argue have become disgruntled for whatever reason have found that one Nation is the right place for them to continue their political careers. Yes okay so that's the federal level and the representation of

7:21one Nation at the federal level. Yep but we're talking about the state level here so we now know what that will look like in South Australia but what about the other states prior to this election? Well I wanted to talk about South Australia prior to this election because I think it speaks to what we're seeing nationally. Before this election over the weekend one Nation essentially had no presence in South Australia. They were barely a party in South Australia but this year they ran in all 47 lower house seats so there was a massive election blitz they put a candidate forward in every possible seat and that eventually waited in them securing 22% of the primary vote. That's a near 20% swing on the last election so 2.6% of the primary went to one Nation in 2022 in South Australia. Now we're talking 22% that is a huge jump massive swing and Billy you mentioned other states. Now we haven't seen a result like that for one Nation anywhere except for Queensland

8:23and not for nearly 30 years so in 1998 at the Queensland election one Nation 111 of 89 lower house seats. Things have shifted there now one Nation does not have a representative in Queensland but that was its biggest moment and that was some decades ago elsewhere around the country though one Nation has two elected officials in WA in the upper house they won those seats just last year one Nation has one MP in Victoria also in the upper house that was their first ever win in Victoria in 2022. Now there is a Victorian state election coming up in a few months one Nation has flagged the Victorian Parliament is a major target. In other states and territories there is not currently one Nation representation in Parliament but polling does suggest a national swing towards one Nation or that their popularity has certainly shifted in the last 12 months or so. Yeah and the polling is interesting because I think if we look at the past decade let's say I think there have been so

9:27many elections not just in Australia but around the world where polling has been wrong and I will put my hand up and say that when all of this polling has come out about one Nation's rise in Australia I think it's been really in the last six months or so that polling has suggested that Australians are more so than ever leaning towards one Nation. I have been a bit skeptical just because of the polling results of the last decade and how many times they have been wrong. I think that's completely fair to be skeptical and it's also to be skeptical of those results but what we've seen I suppose with the South Australian election is the first time that that popularity has really been put to the test in the public domain that the electorate has been able to kind of declare this mandate that goes beyond you know newspaper polling and really that's the evidence we have that things have dramatically changed for one Nation. And they're showing that the polling is right yeah it's interesting how big the shift has been because if we look at the last federal election like we said they didn't win a single seat at that election but now we have

10:32the South Australian election to actually show that the polls are right that since the federal election there has been somewhat of a shift towards one Nation. And the conversation keeps coming back to what that reaction means and what it says about the coalition or how voters feel about the coalition just for a really quick refresher if you're not super familiar with the latest polling data February news poll data put one Nation at 27% of the primary vote the coalition at 18% this is at the federal level yes at the federal level that was the highest recorded figure for one Nation in news polls history and the lowest for the coalition if you're interested labor sits at about 29% Roy Morgan did the most recent polling last week that has the coalition on 24% of the primary one Nation on 22 and a half percent of the primary so a little bit softer there for one Nation but still as you can see very competitive and close to the coalition which tells us a story I think nationally about how voters feel about not just one Nation but the opposition the capital O

11:38opposition that's in government in parliament right now. Okay so that has cemented the evidence that there has been a rise in support for one Nation I want to get to what's behind that rise but first here is a quick message from today's sponsor. And like I said before the break I want to look at what exactly is behind the rise of one Nation. There are a few really key issues here I suppose that can be attributed to this shift cost of living pressures are a massive one and with cost of living pressures we've seen I suppose a growing frustration that has particularly been noted in the outer suburbs and in regional areas so parts of the country where voters have said they feel that they have been ignored or left behind by the traditional two party system that major parties aren't doing enough for them or anything for them so there's that growing frustration I think an Americanization of Australian politics where we see more and more individual politicians emerge

12:39as characters or leaders rather than traditional parties and how we feel about parties versus how we feel about people and politicians. There is of course the immigration conversation politics has really become divided between you know the housing crisis and laying blame on immigration and whether there is an overrepresentation of migrants in the housing crisis a lot of data to debunk that a lot of data that suggests otherwise but I think it is really important to separate one Nation's rise from the liberal parties collapse you know there is this federal and state movement happening where the voter base is clearly telling the coalition that they are not satisfied with the status and many of those voters it could be argued have been one over by one Nation or have gone to one nation some of them gone to independence many of them have gone to the Labour Party as well but I don't think you can talk about one nation's success without acknowledging what's going on at the heart of the liberal and national parties everywhere and it's just dawned on me that we

13:44have spoken about the primary vote but we haven't actually said how many seats one nation actually won yeah in the South Australia election at this stage it's only one but a second one is looking very likely well counting is continuing but right now one nation has at least one lower house seat they could win up to four so as we speak Billy eight seats are still in doubt one nation is ahead in three of them the remaining ones in doubt there are two that the liberal party are ahead in one independent is ahead in another but in the upper house one nation is also on track to pick up around three seats now that includes Corey Bernardi if he rings a bell for you he's a former liberal senator he put his hand up for the one nation ticket in South Australia and he is ahead of the liberal party in the seat that he has run in so there is a projected four five six seven all up across both houses that is short of where the liberal party is projected to sit there are about six seats that we're thinking the lives will win in the lower house only two in the upper house but

14:49that still will mean that they have a bigger representation they will form the formal opposition okay so to sum that up there will probably be more liberals in the lower house but likely more one nation politicians in the upper house yeah that's correct yeah and that's kind of in line with one nation's trend across the country they've typically only had success in the upper house yes yes because it's more likely for minor parties to have success in the upper house yep a conversation for another day and what has Pauline Hanson who is the leader of one nation at the federal level and the founder of one nation yeah what has she said about this result i imagine she's quite happy yep she's been pretty upbeat i think it's absolutely fair to say that she's also said that these results prove that there is this undercurrent of voters who have quote had a gutful to use her words that really speaks to that frustration that we touched on that voters are looking for something else or something outside of the status quo she said that one nation will go hard at the Victorian election that's coming up in November so a lot of momentum on her side

15:54at the moment and she is understandably pleased about it and what about premier Peter Melon ASKIS who did actually win the the limelight has kind of been taken away from him because of one well i mean he has a massive majority yes but he did stay cautious he said that the idea of safe seats is over and that log standing intergenerational party loyalty is out the window he went on insiders on the abc and basically said the moment you assume an upper limit on any political opponent you know if you dismiss one nation as not being a fierce potential opposition is the moment your primary vote starts going down so perhaps a little bit of a dig there at the liberal party Albanese also kind of weighed in on all of this he didn't directly address the election results but during a speech in Melbourne on Sunday he said there are some in political life who want to turn back the clock to an Australia that is no longer who we are he basically said that it's up to the government to continue to call that out and to cherish what makes Australia great diversity the multicultural country that we live in and that that is a strength of who we are

16:58as a nation very busy time in politics as ever it really does feel like the political landscape in Australia is shifting away from this two-party system that we've always known the political landscape to be yeah i know the next time one nation will be tested in an election sense is when we have a federal by-election coming up that's because the former leader of the liberal party at the federal level season Lee has dropped out of politics yep so that will be the Farrah by-election you're absolutely right that's a huge rural electorate in southern New South Wales it's been held by either the Liberals or the Nationals since 1949 season Lee herself held that seat for 25 years but yep the leadership spill triggered by Angus Taylor means that season Lee has stepped down she's resigned we have that by-election coming on the ninth of May Angus Taylor himself has called the contest very very tough at the moment it's being described as a four-way race between the Libs Nuts one nation and an independent this will really be the first big test of Taylor's leadership

18:00many have said and in terms of what we know about the polling data for the Farrah by-election one nation is ahead just on primary votes at around 29 percent the independent interestingly is on 23 percent the Liberals on 19 so it will be a big uphill push for the liberal party if they want to hold on there and a massive symbol of I think the shift away from traditional parties if one nation ends up winning so one nation is ahead in polling in Farrah yes but I did want to note that there was a poll by the Australia Institute that found that voters listed one nation at the top of a list of who they wanted to win the least so 37 percent of people in Farrah said they wanted one nation to win the least and yet 29 percent of the primary in Farrah according to this poll is one nation and that just tells you everything you need to know about how divisive politics is now exactly there is an implication here though legislatively if one nation has more

19:00of a presence in the lower house that means that they will have more influence over legislation that they can table legislation themselves one nation has never really been responsible for putting forward its own pieces of legislation we hear a lot about their policies but we've never seen their policies on paper now that we have Barnaby Joyce and depending on what happens in Farrah that might change we might be here in a couple of months talking about one nation legislation yeah although we should say they would still not be able to pass up because they don't have they're very far from a majority yes but that doesn't stop them from bringing a bill yes and hey pigs might fly and the coalition might love their bill and the labor party might love their bill and things get passed in the world turns and that's politics just all of the surprises Emma thank you for taking us through that thanks Billy and thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Oz we'll be back later today with the evening headlines but until then we hope you have a lovely day my name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arranda Bunjelang

20:07Calcadune woman from Gadigal country the Daily Oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations we pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries both past and present