The Secret Harbour result may reflect less a sudden embrace of far-right ideology than a deeper mix of economic anxiety, political alienation and collapsing trust.
The recent by-election result in Secret Harbour, Western Australia, is a genuine and deeply unsettling wake-up call. It forces us to confront a fragile new reality that the old political assumptions we once relied upon for comfort are beginning to crumble and the very concept of a ‘safe seat’ might be disappearing before our eyes.
Seeing a seat that Labor held for so many years swing so decisively to One Nation makes the phrase ‘safe seat’ feel like a relic of a bygone era and I suspect there are quite a few nervous politicians and citizens around the country looking at their own electorates right now and wondering whether their supposedly secure majorities are built on anything more substantial than ‘shifting sand’, leaving them vulnerable to a wave of populist anger they didn’t see coming.
It’s incredibly tempting to look at a result like this and conclude that the average Australian is moving dramatically and deliberately to the far right, but I don’t believe that’s the full story. I think we’re witnessing a growing, desperate preference for change, because One Nation has become highly effective at giving a voice to raw, unaddressed frustrations over immigration, housing unaffordability, cost of living, world politics and a major-party political establishment of perceived ‘suit and tie elites’ who simply won’t listen and have perhaps become too comfortable in their own sense of invincibility.
However, this doesn’t mean ordinary voters have suddenly embraced Pauline Hanson’s entire ideological worldview; rather, the truth might be much deeper and more systemic. I think we’re witnessing a dangerous accumulation of chronic anxiety, economic exhaustion and institutional distrust finally finding an organised political outlet in One Nation. The danger isn’t necessarily that every voter turning to the party has become far-right, but that the far right is increasingly becoming the vehicle through which that frustration is expressed.
When I look at where this deep-seated anger comes from, our crushing cost-of-living pressures are the most obvious and painful place to begin. We have spent several agonising years watching the price of almost everything rise while housing has been warped into an unattainable luxury, leaving many younger people with the heartbreaking realisation that owning a home is a distant dream.
When people feel they’re working themselves to the bone but still falling backward, they become deeply receptive to populist politicians offering simple answers to complex structural problems. One Nation exploits this economic pain by blaming immigration, accusing governments of losing touch with ordinary citizens and targeting “elites” to argue that the country must put everyday Australians first.
However, we can’t look at the erosion of Australian political stability in a vacuum, because this local message becomes more powerful when connected to a world that has become visibly less predictable and stable. Over the past decade, the international political landscape has shifted towards authoritarian and right-wing populist movements, creating an environment in which anger, nationalism and distrust have become increasingly normalised.
What concerns me most is the possibility that this international erosion of trust in human rights, justice and democratic institutions could reinforce the domestic conditions in which the far right flourishes. We look abroad at the devastating violence in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere and see a world where peace appears increasingly elusive and international accountability often seems painfully inconsistent. When governments appear unable or unwilling to prevent innocent civilian suffering, uphold international law or hold powerful countries to the same standards expected of others, it can send a profoundly corrosive message, that the rules might no longer matter as much as we once believed and that institutions such as the United Nations might be less capable of protecting the principles they were created to uphold.
This loss of confidence in global leadership can feed directly into domestic political cynicism. If international institutions and democratic governments appear unable to provide stability or enforce agreed rules abroad, why should struggling voters automatically trust their political leaders to deliver a fairer and more secure society at home? This is precisely the environment in which populist narratives can and do flourish, because when enough people believe the system is broken, far-right parties can present themselves as its insurgent alternative, offering nationalism and rejection of political elites as a form of protection from a world that increasingly feels beyond their control.
We should be deeply concerned about where this trajectory could lead, because when global uncertainty combines with local economic pain and declining institutional trust, the door opens wider for far-right movements to reshape Australia’s political character and one of the greatest dangers is that the major political parties could respond to the threat of One Nation not by addressing the underlying causes of economic insecurity and political alienation, but by adopting more of the rhetoric that has helped the far right gain its lead. We’re already seeing Labor and Liberal engage in increasingly hard-edged debates around immigration and border security and there’s a genuine risk that mainstream parties, in trying to win back disillusioned voters, could ‘inadvertently’ legitimise some of the very narratives they claim to oppose. If we continue to ignore systemic economic hardship while failing to offer convincing answers to growing political distrust, Secret Harbour may prove less an isolated anomaly than an early warning of a broader political realignment.
We can’t afford to look away from this moment and simply say that this is just a WA by-election on local issues. We need to recognise that economic security, social cohesion, democratic trust and confidence in the wider world are connected in ways we can no longer comfortably ignore. If mainstream politics fails to address the genuine frustrations driving voters towards protest and populist alternatives, the far right will continue to find opportunities in the gaps left behind.
The future of Australian politics may ultimately depend not on whether Australians have suddenly become far-right, but on whether our political establishment can give Australians a compelling reason to believe that the system can still work for them.
Meg Schwarz
Meg Schwarz holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy and brings over 35 years of experience championing social justice, advocacy and consumer engagement. Based in South Australia, Meg has dedicated her career to working alongside diverse communities, including refugees, people with disabilities and individuals with complex trauma backgrounds.With a strong passion for equality and human rights, Meg specialises in fostering meaningful communication, empowering voices through advocacy and creating inclusive spaces for dialogue. Her skills in stakeholder engagement, strategic communication and community development have earned her recognition as a trusted and compassionate leader in her field.