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Is a seismic shift underway in Australian politics? For the entire post-war period, the two major parties have dominated Australian politics. Between them, the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party have played musical chairs in parliament. Minor parties come and go, and occasionally hold some major influence, but, in the end, it’s been a solidly two-party system for 80 years.
No new major party has emerged since 1944. Even the formation of the Liberal Party from the ashes of the United Australia Party continues an ideological through-line that goes right back to Australia’s second prime minister, Alfred Deakin. The two majors, Liberal and Labor, have seen off schisms (the Democratic Labor Party and the Australian Democrats) and comfortably ruled the roost between them for all of living memory.
Is that all about to change?
Core support for both major parties has plummeted over the past decade. Where either party could pull over 40 per cent of the vote and still lose in a landslide, Anthony Albanese’s Labor won government with just over 30 per cent of the vote. This was its second-worst primary vote in Australian history. At the last election, Labor increased that vote by just a couple per cents, still within its top-five lowest-ever vote shares, yet won a landslide of seats.
That’s because the Liberals (more accurately, the Liberal-National coalition, aka the coalition) fared even worse. Its primary vote has fallen to record lows below even Labor’s.
Yet, while even the Greens have never managed to poll above 12 per cent, centre-right minor party One Nation has skyrocketed. In fact, like Reform in the UK, it seems likely that “minor party” will no longer be an accurate designation. For the first time, One Nation have emerged as the leading conservative party.
Core support for One Nation has surged ahead of the coalition for the first time, as voters abandon the major parties in record numbers amid a politically charged summer break dominated by Anthony Albanese’s response to the Bondi terror attack and antisemitism.
An exclusive Newspoll conducted for the Australian between Monday and Thursday last week revealed One Nation’s primary vote has risen seven points to 22 per cent over the past two months, with the coalition dropping three points to a record low of 21 per cent and Labor falling four points to 32 per cent.
The poll is also dire news for Anthony Albanese, whose personal popularity has taken a nosedive.
Mr Albanese’s net approval rating in Newspoll has plunged to minus 11, with 42 per cent of voters satisfied by his performance, 53 per cent dissatisfied and five per cent uncommitted.
In contrast, Ms Ley’s net approval rating was minus 28, with 28 per cent satisfied, 56 per cent dissatisfied and 16 per cent uncommitted.
Mr Albanese’s lead over Ms Ley as better prime minister also narrowed from 54 to 27 per cent in November to 51 to 31 per cent.
What all this means is that the post-war two-party paradigm is shattered.
The combined primary vote of 53 per cent for Labor and the coalition is the lowest level for the major parties in Newspoll history, with 47 per cent of Australians now backing One Nation, the Greens, independents and minor parties. Labor’s two-party-preferred vote lead over the coalition also fell to its lowest level since last year’s election at 55–45 per cent. The ALP’s 2PP lead mirrors the result of the May 3 poll.
The only reason the two-party-preferred vote seems fine is because the system is geared to benefit one the two parties. It seems likely that this model is unsustainable when nearly half of Australians vote for neither.
The only reason, too, that Labor is dominating this parliament is because of the aforesaid two-party system and the fact that one of the two is on a fast track to extinction.
Despite Labor and Mr Albanese suffering some polling hits over the past two months, the coalition’s record low electoral standing means the ALP remains in a dominant position.
Since replacing Peter Dutton as Liberal leader, Ms Ley’s coalition has recorded four record low primary vote results (29 per cent in July, 27 in September and 24 per cent in October and November) culminating in its current core support of just 21 per cent, which is about 10 per cent lower than the 31.8 per cent achieved at last year’s election.
Unless something radically changes, the future is Pauline Hanson’s.
Hanson is a political survivor, having been in parliament almost continually since 1994. She’s survived the most vitriolic media-political witch-hunts thrown at any political figure in living memory, including a wrongful stint in prison.
But Hanson has never seemed an remote contender for the prime ministership. Even her own campaigning emphasises that One Nation doesn’t expect to hold government but act as a handbrake (to borrow a term Kiwis will be familiar with): “keeping the bastards honest”, as the Democrats used to say.
That’s all changing. The trajectory of the last six months of polling, if it holds through an election, will see Hanson become a serious contender. Even the fact of being a senator is no barrier: it’s highly unusual for a senator to become PM, but it has happened.
Momentum seems likely to keep going Hanson’s way, at least for the coming months. PM Albanese has squandered his political capital, again, with his atrocious responses to both the rise of anti-Semitism generally and the Bondi terror massacre specifically. Sussan Ley seems incapable – mostly because she’s one of the worst of them – reigning in the wet “moderates” who’ve so alienated the party’s centre-right base.
One Nation, meanwhile, are benefitting from white-hot public anger over mass immigration and anti-Semitism. With the release of One Nation’s satirical A Super Progressive Movie slated for Australia Day next week, the party is firing a blistering salvo in the culture wars.
What will determine the ultimate future of One Nation is its leadership. Hanson’s personal profile is a two-edged sword. While she commands enormous personal popularity and the Australian respect for an indefatigable battler, Hanson is also 71. The party needs to bring a successor into the spotlight. While that seems likely to be Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson failed to win a parliamentary seat at her first election last year.
But the Overton Window blocking One Nation from mainstream politics has been shattered. People are no longer afraid to say they’re voting One Nation.
And Australian politics quivers on the brink of a political earthquake.
