by DAVID FLINT – THE political establishment is in a state of shock.
When Sky News Australia took the unprecedented step of calling the Farrer by-election for One Nation at an extraordinarily early hour, it wasn’t just calling a seat; it was announcing the end of an era.
- People have finally decided to manage themselves.
- Australians are not merely “protesting”; they are voting for a platform of common sense.
- The “safe seat” is dead. The policy of common sense is back.
For the first time in Australian history, One Nation has captured a House of Representatives seat at an election – and if current opinion polls are any indication, it is merely the first of many.
The “commentariat” – that insulated class of pundits and pollsters – has spent years repeating the tired myth that One Nation is a Party of complaint but not of policy.
FORGOTTEN
This is precisely why, before the last Federal election, I suggested that Liberals do what Sir Robert Menzies did: return to the philosophy of the “Forgotten People”.
I advised voters to give their first preference to the Party with the best common-sense policies and the leader who will deliver them, One Nation.
Farrer has proven that the commentariat’s “no-policies” narrative was a delusion.
Australians are not merely “protesting”; they are voting for a platform of common sense, consistently put forward by Pauline Hanson and Senator Malcolm Roberts – one that the major Parties have long since abandoned.
Senator Roberts is, incidentally, one of the few former manual workers in Parliament, appearing as a rare exception alongside some farmers within the Nationals.
In contrast, Labor has become a Party of career politicians who have been embedded in the political machine since their university days.
The result reflects a deep-seated exhaustion with the status quo. Labor is no longer the Party of the worker; it has become the Party of the inner-city elite.
The Greens, far from being environmentalists, seem content to see our landscape ruined by industrial “renewables” to enrich foreign interests – propping up what Donald Trump rightly called the “world’s biggest fraud”.
In contrast, voters have responded to a leader who tells the simple truth.
Beyond the personality of Pauline Hanson lies a suite of consistent, nationalist policies that address the existential crises facing the country:
- Cost of Living & Waste: One Nation has a strong program to eliminate the duplication caused by Canberra and the States performing the same functions. They are also committed to ending the enormous cost of net-zero energy and demonising “fossil fuel”, which is wrecking the country’s agricultural land and giving us what is among the most expensive electricity in the world.
- Energy & Water: While the major Parties pursue a financially ruinous and environmentally damaging net-zero agenda – ripping up agricultural land for useless windmills, solar farms and power transmission lines – One Nation has championed an updated Bradfield Plan. Australia is the driest continent on Earth, yet we allow our water to flow into the sea. We need massive engineering, not massive taxes. Bringing northern water south is far more sensible than delivering power via a fragile, coal-shunning grid.
- Immigration: One Nation’s net-zero immigration policy – the guideline that arrivals do not exceed departures – is the right target for a nation struggling with a housing and cost-of-living crisis.
- Indigenous Policy: The Party is willing to address the “sit-down money” that has plagued remote communities since the Whitlam era. By focusing on work over welfare and supporting the principles of the Howard-era intervention, they offer a path out of dependency that the “Voice” industry never could.
- Defence & Mining: With figures like Malcolm Roberts – a man who actually knows what it’s like to work in a coal mine – the Party stands as the lone defender of our resources sector. They understand that our national wealth and our national defence (including the proper treatment of our veterans and heroes like Ben Roberts-Smith) are the twin pillars of a sovereign nation.
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
Perhaps most importantly, One Nation remains the sole political advocate for Direct Democracy on the Swiss model.
By allowing the Australian people to initiate referendums via simple petitions, we can finally control the politicians between elections.
It is a constitutional mechanism that would allow us to introduce the laws we need and scrap the ones we don’t.
Crucially, it provides a “People’s Veto” over the High Court when activist judges attempt to change the Constitution through the back door – something only the people should be able to do by a considered vote.
FARRER
The Farrer victory is a breakthrough that proves the Australian people are ready to reclaim their country.
The major Parties have spent decades treating the electorate like puppets to be managed. This result suggests that the people have finally decided to manage themselves.
The “safe seat” is dead. The policy of common sense is back.PC
So good to hear that at least one Party has Swiss style Citizens’ Initiated Referendums on its policy list. Not that I heard a word of that policy in the Farrer bye-election. It should be a fundamental liberal element of any democracy. But it always gets buried and hounded into submission by people who have no experience or idea of how that system works to limit the galloping “creep” of government onto Citizens’ lives. If One Nation really promoted this aspect well before the next elections, it would anchor a coherent set of policies that would be much more understood and accepted by the voting public. People vote for clarity and certainty, even if that particular Party might go against their basic values. Vague policies with no 3-dimensional clarity do not settle into peoples’ consciousness. In the current situation, the Labor Party wins by default by crafting a seemingly clear narrative of policies that are slowly becoming obvious as disastrous in their roll-out. If another Party had clarity of purpose AND more workable real-world applicability, their message would appeal to the minds of voters well ahead of election time.
I noticed that on Saturday 16 May 2026 there was a state by election in Queensland, Stafford electorate held by Labor and retained by Labor but they suffered a loss of support of about 5% compared to the last full state election when the Liberal National Party Queensland (LNP) formed government, the LNP gained support.
Interesting because One Nation had a candidate at the state election, Queensland is their home state and their leader’s Federal Senate seat state, but no candidate at the by election.
The long stated objective of One Nation has been to gain balance of power in the Federal Parliament Senate and after the 2025 election they had four Senators, no House of Representatives MP elected. This compares to the Greens that most often support Labor with ten Senators and one House of Representatives MP from 2025 election.
The Farrer by election recently gave One Nation their first House of Representatives elected MP, their other MP was returned again as a National Party MP and decided to move to One Nation later. And the Farrer Liberal quit a year after the national election, had been replaced as Opposition Leader and Liberal Leader by a two thirds majority Liberal MP votes, and had caused a rift between Liberal and National Coalition partners. Her constituents had few reasons to continue to support Liberal and their new candidate, about ten percent voted National Party noting their candidate was the first National for many years since the last National MP for Farrer.
So why did One Nation avoid Stafford by election? If they are as they claim on the same side as the Coalition their candidate might have helped LNP to take that electorate seat from Labor.
From my distant observations I have suspicions about the background we are not being told about, I mean the Climate 200 renewable energy transition vested interests support for Teals masquerading as Independents and Labor Union’s GetUp activist organisation also support Teals and Union Movement is now a vested interest with major investments directly and via Union Industry Superannuation Funds investments providing influence and even seats on public company boards. And then One Nation suddenly the centre of at least some media attention and backed by a well known and well respected Australian business women and others, her support for the now former National MP who joined One Nation was widely reported by media in past years. Very recent news is that former Liberals of the left faction that have been losing influence since at least 2018 when PM Morrison replaced PM Turnbull are now supporters of One Nation.
Is there a hidden agenda maybe based on increasing the number of cooperative lobbyist MPs? It was reported that when he was Deputy PM the National MP now One Nation MP lobbied on behalf of a major supporter for agricultural concessions from the Turnbull Government, and no suggestion of anything improper taking place.
Obviously, and noting the opinion polls indicating the increasing popularity of One Nation, at least with the samples polled, to form Federal Government requires seventy six House of Representatives MPs minimum.
After I retired I lived in Queensland for several years in a house that I owned and I also had homes in New South Wales. The Queensland electorate MP represented Pauline Hanson One Nation, PHON had a brief period of maybe two election cycles with several state MPs elected at that time. They lost their seats eventually. Pauline Hanson has concentrated on being a State of Queensland based Federal Senator and has often remarked that her objective is balance of power in the Senate, but right now with four including herself and Greens with ten Senators that is not possible.
The Farrer by election win cannot be dismissed and when the early retirement after one year of three years term she was elected to serve for a disappointment for her constituents who had supported her as a Liberal in an electorate that had previously been held by a National Party MP.
What too many voters don’t seem to realise is that the Labor propaganda machine is the most professional of all and has been for a long time, and in government taxpayer funded advantages located in the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet. A taxpayer funded advantage first used in Federal Government by Hawke Labor from 1983 to 1996. And first used in New South Wales by Wran Labor Government. They merged the then press secretaries attached to each Cabinet Minister’s staff into a media management unit. One of the tactics used was handing out to journalists media releases written so that a journalist did not need to write the story before handing it to the editor. Media monitoring of television, radio and newspapers enabled the spin doctors to quickly prepare damage control when deemed to be necessary or to provide responses to sell Labor messages.
Uniparty is a classic mind game used to project the false message and image of all the same when the truth is far from same more often than not. And used by at least one minor party that wants to appear to be above all others. They if true conservatives would serve conservative voters needs by not spreading false hopes they cannot deliver and cooperating like defence forces combined strengths.
By the way, if we were to continue to look backwards, and to accept the very clever Labor spin media management unit propaganda and relentless negativity that they find many useful voters to spread for them we would also criticise One Nation for the many slip ups by the founder and Leader over 29 years to recently achieve four Senate seats and now two House of Representatives seats in Parliament.
The way forward is conservatives cooperating and rejecting the Albanese Labor Government and all of the problems and issues we want overturned.
Perspective please, mission statements have been a speciality by One Nation for as long as I have been observing them, since Pauline Hanson was disendorsed by the Liberal Party as a Queensland electorate candidate that she won, disendorsed for what was described as “contentious comments” regarding indigenous Australians that resulted in condemnation from many, that was 1996 and in 1997 she started Pauline Hanson One Nation.
The Greens who mostly support Labor have ten Senators and one House of Representatives.
To form government at least 76 House of Representatives MPs are needed.
Over the past 29 years until the South Australian state election seats gained upper and lower houses the only other multiple seat achievement was in Queensland state elections and also not enough seats to form the major opposition, and then those seats were lost over the next couple of elections.
Senator Hanson has concentrated on Federal Senate seats and One Nation (no longer PHON) since the 2025 election has four Senate seats in Parliament House Canberra. And now their first ever House of Representatives MP elected at the Farrer by election last weekend. The other MP is a former National Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister (two times) who was elected again in 2025 as a National candidate and decided to join One Nation later.
What the Farrer victory for One Nation proves again is that when a sitting MP decides to resign (as compared to passes away) between elections, and Sussan Ley resigned about one year into the three year term, many or most constituents are not happy. In this example add the arguments between her and the National Party Leader and even worse her rejection of most of the policies the Coalition had presented at the 2025 election, so therefore what do they stand for in the minds of her constituents? Her resignation was obviously timed to do the most damage, and as her message published from the United States where she is on a holiday reinforced her negativity.
Note that One Nation did very well at the by election however the second position was the Teal Independent backed by Climate 200 climate and renewables politics based vested interests and Union (Labor) GetUp activist organisation that was established when Bill Shorten was an AWU executive and he became a GetUp Director. According to reports the combined campaign funding for the Teal was much more than any other candidate received.
Obviously politics has changed and continues to change, the two party preferred calculation based on the preferential voting system no longer appears to favour Labor and Coalition Liberal-National-LNP.
However, with the next Federal election scheduled for 2028 so only two years away, and there is a chance that Labor will go earlier, maybe late 2027, consider their latest Budget Plan and tactics therein, and One Nation now with only two MPs and four Senators cannot possibly defeat Albanese Labor for government.
The only way is the Coalition and forget the past history because only the future can be changed, and Turnbull Government ended 2018, the close call short term return of a fellow traveller after the 2025 election described above is finished as well. Coalition now has two younger determined Opposition Leader and Deputy Leader Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan. And a new Shadow Cabinet.