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As the recent South Australian state election showed, the surge in support for One Nation is coming from some of the least-expected places. Predictably, One Nation absolutely belted the Liberals, overtaking them to become the second-most voted for party in the state, even if preference deals meant that the huge swing, 20 per cent statewide, to One Nation hasn’t translated to seats won. Though winning their first upper house seat in the ‘progressive’ state is no mean achievement (with three more likely to follow when counting is finalised).
While most of the swing to One Nation came at the expense of the Liberals, Pauline Hanson’s party also ate into Labor’s vote by nearly three per cent.
A new opinion poll has delivered an even more surprising result: One Nation is surging in popularity among young people in Sydney’s affluent, super-woke, Northern Beaches.
The poll, conducted by uComms for The Australia Institute in the federal seat of Mackellar last week, found One Nation is by far the most popular party among those aged 18 to 34 with 26.9 per cent of the primary vote, followed by the Liberal Party on 18.8 per cent.
The Northern Beaches are, of course, the stamping ground of the ‘teals’: wealthy, ‘blue-green’, almost exclusively white female politicians, who pander to the luxury ‘issues’ of the ‘Doctor’s Wives’ set. Climate change, refugees, transgenderism: you name a woke nostrum and the teals are ga-ga for it. Just so long, of course, as all those smelly refugees and nasty windmills aren’t polluting their nice suburbs.
As the Northern Beaches trend heavily to wealthy white millennials, the teals are still sitting pretty, but there are notable demographic cracks opening up.
The local MP, “teal” independent Dr Sophie Scamps, is still in front overall on 30.7 per cent, followed by the Liberals on 22.2 per cent, and One Nation on 20.6 per cent. There is also a large gender gap, with men preferring One Nation 24.3 per cent to 17.2 per cent, and women favouring Dr Scamps 35.3 per cent to 25.7 per cent.
Before Dr Scamps was elected in 2022, Mackellar was continuously held by the Liberal Party, and was once considered a “blue-ribbon” seat […]
Identical polls conducted in two other teal-held seats – Kooyong in Melbourne’s inner-east held by Dr Monique Ryan, and Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs held by Allegra Spender – also showed a massive increase in One Nation support propelled by the youngest demographic.
In Wentworth, One Nation is polling lower than in Mackellar overall on 15.7 per cent behind Ms Spender and the Liberals, but it is winning 30.4 per cent of the 18-34 age group.
In Kooyong, Pauline Hanson’s party is on 12.5 per cent overall but still in third place, and is the most popular party among the youngest demographic on 24.3 per cent of the primary vote.
To put those numbers into perspective, at last year’s federal election One Nation won 2.53 per cent of the vote in Mackellar, 2.38 per cent in Wentworth and 1.05 per cent in Kooyong. This means that, across all demographics in those seats, One Nation has risen by 18.07 per cent in Mackellar, 13.32 per cent in Wentworth and 11.45 per cent in Kooyong.
This is all, remember, in some of the wealthiest, wokest suburbs of Australia.
The poll was conducted before the South Australian election.
Another poll, from last week, found 79 per cent of Australians want a major immigration cut and 60 per cent say the country has “too many migrants”. Migrants themselves made up a significant percentage of those who want immigration slashed.
