One Nation’s rapid rise has left political science and orthodox analysis struggling to explain why a chaotic party with little policy depth and a dismal parliamentary record has suddenly become a major force in Australian politics.
The five-fold surge in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, from about six per cent to about 30 per cent since the 3 May, 2025, federal election, is confounding orthodox political science. Traditional political science does not have adequate tools. Political analysts are struggling to catch up, just as political science has, by and large, been confounded by the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, Nigel Farage in the UK, and equivalent European developments.
This is not to say that political science doesn’t have some useful tools. These tools can address conventional political questions about party structure, policies, fundraising, parliamentary performance, candidate selection, social media strategy, and so on. They can examine preference distribution in recent elections. They can conclude that Australian party politics is now a three-cornered contest between Labor, the Coalition, and One Nation, or a five-cornered contest if the Greens and independents are included. They can also point to instructive international parallels. All that is helpful.
But, faced with trying to explain the dramatic surge in voter support, political science is much less useful. Political scientists look at One Nation and see a party with a leader who has a truly unimpressive parliamentary record, no experience of government other than recent Nationals recruit Barnaby Joyce, precious little policy development or practical solutions, and a chaotic party organisation. Over many years, One Nation has been either publicly shamed or ridiculed. Pauline Hanson herself has long been condemned as racist.
On the plus side of the ledger, the conservative side of the party system has done One Nation plenty of favours. The Liberal Party has disintegrated. The National Party has fractured. Both have new leaders. The Coalition has broken down. The Labor government has struggled to cope with international and domestic issues: housing shortages, immigration debates, rising costs of living, fuel shortages and high prices, the Bondi terrorism attack, and, most recently, contentious Budget decisions. Some of these issues were around in May 2025, when the government was returned with 94 seats. Others are new, following the Middle East war, but not earth-shattering enough to produce a new political movement.
All this is happening in a climate of cynicism about, and lack of trust in, government, and after decades of drift from the major parties. Now, ‘It’s time for a change’ has morphed from a call to give the other side a chance into a determination to strike out on an entirely new path by ditching the establishment parties altogether.
The major parties, called the ‘uniparty’ by One Nation, have continued until very recently to focus on deriding each other as the worst on record rather than pointing out the new challenger’s weaknesses. This has helped One Nation. They assumed that One Nation was just a flash in the pan. Only now are they considering attacking One Nation, though they don’t really know how to do it. The conservative parties are still conflicted, torn between seeing One Nation as opposition or an ally in the fight against Labor. Labor sees One Nation as largely a problem for the conservative right rather than for both sides.
Political science has tracked these developments diligently using an orthodox framework. It still doesn’t see much to justify One Nation’s unprecedented surge. That party has been an option for voters for the better part of 30 years, taken less seriously than Clive Palmer’s party.
Analysts have busied themselves with several ancillary themes. Brief consideration was given to whether the community independents, or Teals, should form a political party. There was no agreement among the Teal MPs, and the matter was summarily dropped. Little attention has been given to the fortunes of the existing third party, the Greens, which, alone among the established parties, has held its position but not attracted growing support in the midst of falling support for the major parties. It has been a virtual bystander in this fracas.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott’s crowning as Liberal Party president attracted attention as an indicator of a possible new direction for that party. He may prove to be not a saviour but a fatally disruptive influence, diminishing Angus Taylor. The growing impact of conservative billionaires like Gina Rinehart on politics is titillating.
But ultimately, political science has struggled with the biggest questions of all. Why is One Nation doing so remarkably well, so quickly? Will the surge last? Mostly, analysts have been reduced to creative speculation.
One problem is that most of the new One Nation supporters are too new to be reliably analysed. We know much more about the traditional six per cent (predominantly older males from the regions) than the new 24 per cent that make up the 30 per cent.
One of the most interesting attempts to deconstruct One Nation supporters has come from the prominent analyst Kos Samaras, who argues that the party’s new adherents, who have joined the bandwagon over the past six months to a year, are very different in terms of background and attitudes.
We know that there is a bandwagon effect (a durable traditional concept), as voters are attracted to the winning side. We know there are push and pull factors. We know that this is primarily a surge to the right because it didn’t go to the independents or the Greens, and because One Nation preferences break that way.
The safest, though not the most satisfying, approach for political scientists and other political analysts is to admit their limitations, eat humble pie, and wait for further developments and more survey and polling data. We just can’t fully understand the present or predict the future. The next federal election is two years away but, in the meantime, there will be two important state elections in Victoria and New South Wales. Depending on those results, the possibility that One Nation may make huge inroads, even provide the next federal opposition or even the government, may then move from possibility to probability.
Republished from Eureka Street
John Warhurst AO is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University, and was the Moderator for Massimo Faggioli’s talk. He is chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn and a member of the Plenary Council, and a regular columnist with the Canberra Times and Eureka Street.