By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-06-07 04:18:26 | Updated at 2026-06-08 16:35:54
1 day ago
SYDNEY – Australia is starting to seriously contend with a question that for decades seemed absurd: Could right-wing anti-migrant firebrand Pauline Hanson become Prime Minister?
Hanson largely hovered on the margins of Australian politics since entering Parliament in 1996, but her popularity has surged since the last election in May 2025. Her One Nation party now leads in national opinion polls for the first time.
The party received just 6 per cent of the vote in 2025 but has since attracted support from voters who have shifted away from the centre-right Liberal-National Coalition, which has endured infighting and leadership battles after its landslide loss to Labor.
A Sky News Pulse/YouGov poll on June 3 found that One Nation is now backed by 29 per cent of voters, placing it slightly ahead of the ruling Labor party, which garnered 26 per cent. The Liberal-National Coalition and the Greens garnered 20 and 13 per cent, respectively.
A separate Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll on May 31 also found One Nation, ahead with 30 per cent support, and Labor, the Liberal-National Coalition and the Greens getting 28, 20 and 12 per cent respectively.
But One Nation is not just doing well in polling surveys. At an election in April in South Australia, it won 23 per cent of votes, second behind Labor, which received 37.5 per cent. At a federal by-election in May, One Nation won its first Lower House seat.
Hanson, leader of One Nation and a senator, responding to the growing commentary about the prospect of her becoming prime minister, told Sky News on May 31 that she believed she could take on the top job and that she was considering running for a seat in the Lower House at the next election. Australian prime ministers traditionally belong to the Lower House, though it is not a legal requirement.
“I’m not going to underestimate myself or say, ‘No, I can’t do it’, because you know, have a look at what we’ve got now,” she said.
One Nation’s brand of grievance-fuelled populism has tapped into, and stoked anxieties on issues such as cost of living, immigration and housing unaffordability.
But, amid growing dissatisfaction with the major parties, the party has started to attract Labor supporters and, for the first time, has more women supporters than men, according to analysis by Resolve Political Monitor.
Election analyst John Black, from demographics analysis firm Australian Development Strategies, told The Straits Times that One Nation’s ascent could continue, especially if migrant numbers rise fast or if Australia suffers another terrorist attack.
He said the Bondi Beach terror attack in December 2025, in which two Islamist gunmen – an Indian immigrant and his son – killed 15 people at a Jewish event had fuelled concerns about immigration.
With Hanson’s popularity yet to peak, Black said it “would be unwise to call it.”
Black said that although he believed One Nation will not win the next election, its prospects would depend on whether the Coalition and One Nation can work out a deal to swap preferences, meaning, they encourage their voters to list each other’s party as a second preference.
In Australia’s electoral system, voters list all candidates in order of preference and votes are counted until one candidate gets more than half of all the votes. This compares with the first-past-the-post system.
At the 2025 election, the Coalition reportedly made an unofficial deal to swap preferences with One Nation but may be reluctant to do so again if it ends up helping One Nation win its seats.
Despite the apparent momentum for One Nation in the opinion polls and in a few isolated elections, analysts believe that the party faces formidable barriers and is unlikely to form the government at the next election, due in 2028.
Rodney Smith, an Australian politics expert from Sydney University, told ST that One Nation will find it almost impossible to win a 76-seat majority in the Lower House. The party’s popularity is concentrated in regional and outer-urban areas, whereas most seats lie in densely populated inner-city areas.
“I find it very hard to imagine a scenario in which she would become prime minister,” he said on Hanson’s party’s surge in the polls.
Another barrier facing One Nation is that the party – including its policies and candidates – will face greater scrutiny during an election campaign, which could turn voters off.
One Nation has a track record of nominating odd or at times disreputable candidates.
Before a South Australian election in April 2026, for instance, the party dropped a candidate when it emerged he faced a criminal charge in Britain.
After the election, a newly elected One Nation MP revealed he had an Indonesian Muslim boyfriend and “loves migrants” – a revelation that seemed at odds with Hanson’s opposition to immigrants and gay marriage and her calls for restrictions on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia.
Another former MP Rod Culleton, quit the party in 2016 weeks before he was disqualified as a Senator after a court declared him bankrupt.
Smith said the party tends to be “top down” and does not give much say to its members, making it harder for it to attract and maintain campaign supporters and volunteers.
“One Nation has shown a spectacular ability to have members who leave the party or who are be booted out,” he added.
“During a campaign, it may become more obvious to One Nation supporters that it is not as viable a governing party as they thought,” said Smith.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears to be taking the political rise of Hanson and One Nation seriously.
Albanese has signalled that he is aware of the One Nation threat, admitting on June 5 that his recent budget – including his ambitious plan to remove tax breaks for property investors – are aimed at making the economy fairer and undercut the country’s populist surge.
“If people think the economy isn’t working for them and they are working their guts out and they’re not getting opportunity, they will turn to more simplistic, grievance-based politics,” he said.
