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With Farrer Win, One Nation Emerges as Major Threat to the Liberal Party

The Liberal-National Coalition directed their preferences to a party that could ultimately replace them.

In late February, Sussan Ley, the then-leader of the Liberal Party and opposition leader, succumbed to internal and media pressure and resigned her position. Rather than retreat to the backbench, she also decided to resign from Parliament itself. In doing so she left a little present for those in the party who had undermined her leadership – a by-election the Liberals were almost certain to lose. Over the weekend that loss came in a dramatic fashion that created an enormous shift in the Australian political landscape. 

The seat of Farrer sits in southern New South Wales, along the Murray River which forms the border with Victoria. It contains the small city of Albury (population: 60,000) but is otherwise mostly farming communities reliant on irrigation from the Murray – a highly contentious issue given that three states share the river. Since the seat’s formation, it has only ever been held by the Liberal Party or its coalition partner the National Party. Ley herself had held the seat since 2001. 

Yet when the by-election results concluded both parties had been decimated. The Liberals managed to secure just over 12 percent of the vote and the Nationals even less. What bested them is a dual assault on both parties, but especially the Liberals – the rise of the nationalist-populist One Nation party, and the Community Independents Project, a loose collection of independent candidates who share a mode of political organization, but are heavily focused on local issues. 

One Nation won the seat, their first elected seat in the House of Representatives. The party won just short of 40 percent of the vote, but both the Liberals and Nationals directed their preferences toward the party over an independent candidate, allowing it to secure a comfortable victory. It may seem odd for these parties to direct their preference to the party that is now their biggest threat. But their calculation was that once an independent wins a seat they are incredibly difficult to remove and given One Nation’s internal chaos and authoritarian leadership, they presumed that the party is likely to implode by the next federal election in 2028. 

That was a risky bet to make. Instead of protecting themselves from an independent, it now looks like the Coalition are legitimizing the party intent on replacing them. Through this greater legitimacy, One Nation has a far greater incentive to professionalize itself and prevent the internal division that has previously been a major weakness.

This could prove to be a major restructuring of Australia’s party system, although it has its limits. It is unlikely that One Nation could make inroads into urban Australia, where most seats are. However, there now looks to be enough........

© The Diplomat