It took Pauline Hanson 30 years, and she’s only just getting started |
It took Pauline Hanson 30 years, and she’s only just getting started
May 10, 2026 — 2:48pm
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
Thirty years after Pauline Hanson first exploded onto the national stage railing against immigration, globalisation and a political class she said had abandoned ordinary Australians, her party has finally broken through. It forces a sharper question inside the Coalition about whether Farrer is simply a protest vote or the start of something more enduring in regional Australia.
In a once-safe Coalition stronghold in the southern Riverina, the result has exposed unease about whether conservative voters are simply venting in a byelection or steadily shifting allegiance in places that were long considered political bedrock.
Internally, Coalition figures are urging caution. Byelections are volatile contests where voters can express frustration without changing government. Some also point to Sussan Ley’s departure as a local destabiliser that amplified the swing.
But others are less convinced it can be contained.
Since Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan stepped into senior leadership roles, much of their focus has been on trying to win back conservative voters drifting to Hanson. On the evidence from Farrer, that effort has not stopped the leakage.
The Liberal and National parties that had held the seat since 1949 were reduced to just over 20 per cent of the primary vote combined. The question is whether this is isolated or already moving through regional Australia.
In Oaklands, a tiny grain town with a population of barely 300 that’s 105 km north-west of Albury, Hanson’s political breakthrough was measured almost vote by vote. But the shift was not sudden, it had built slowly.
The full results from Farrer –........