Australia\u2019s political leaders are still \u201cgrappling with a new political reality\u201d as One Nation celebrates a stunning upset in South Australia, an expert has warned. <\/p>\n
Pauline Hanson\u2019s populist party took home a significant 21 per cent of first preference votes in the lower house in a blow to the major parties. <\/p>\n
Labor won just shy of 40 per cent of the primary vote in the lower house, while the Liberal Party was poised to pick up eight seats.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the result, Flinders University Associate Professor Rob Manwaring said Australian politics was \u201cmuch more fragmented and fluid than it has ever been\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not going away,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n
Dr Manwaring said that despite the federal Labor Party winning a significant majority of MPs at the 2025 election, its primary vote \u201cwasn\u2019t that huge\u201d,.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a third bloc here of voters who are pushing away from the major parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, in one sense, I think Australia is still actually just grappling with a new political reality, which countries like Sweden, Germany and France have been dealing with in a more significant way for the last 10 to 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, One Nation still had to overcome \u201corganisational instability\u201d and dump some of its more controversial rhetoric if it wanted to continue to become a more formidable electoral force, Dr Manwaring said.<\/p>\n
The \u201cfracturing of the right\u201d would benefit Labor \u201cbecause it means they don\u2019t face a serious challenger for government\u201d, he warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst the right are fighting each other and there\u2019s sort of factional warfare, then it means they\u2019re diminished,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That risk is especially true in Sussan Ley\u2019s former seat of Farrer, where One Nation is facing off against a strong independent, the Liberals, and the Nationals, and will face challenges from preferences flowing to major parties. <\/p>\n
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce lashed Labor over its preferencing arrangements on Sunday, claiming they saw \u201cOne Nation as the real opposition\u201d.<\/p>\n
The former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister admitted his new party would face similar challenges at the upcoming Victorian state election and future federal polls.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a good example to the Australian people, so if you want to change and you do, you\u2019ve got to put One Nation first,\u201d he told Sky News on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Mr Joyce said One Nation was talking about better vetting of candidates after one of its SA candidates was found to reportedly be facing assault charges in the United Kingdom, but rebuffed suggestions of any leadership tension with Senator Hanson.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the boss, I\u2019m not stupid \u2026 I\u2019ve got my part to add to the discussion, and you can see it is going well,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Federal Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said \u201cthe Liberal Party in particular must respond\u201d to One Nation\u2019s strong showing. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we saw during the campaign was the inability of the Liberal Party to differentiate itself,\u201d the SA MP told Sky News<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, we saw Senator Alex Antic having a beer with Cory Bernardi. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t send a message to their voters that \u2018we stand for something, we\u2019re different and we\u2019re worth voting for\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labor\u2019s strong showing also reignited speculation about a federal tilt for Premier Peter Malinauskas. <\/p>\n
Both Ms Rishworth and Mr Malinauskas downplayed that speculation.<\/p>\n
The Premier\u2019s message to his federal counterparts: make sure the \u201ceconomic settings are right \u2026 culture and economics, I think, are always front of mind\u201d. <\/p>\n
Mr Malinauskas said not only Liberal voters had turned to One Nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think we saw Labor voters moving to One Nation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at One Nation\u2019s contribution in the South Australian campaign, what you see is a lot of rhetoric, a lot of rhetoric, and almost zero policy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey made a virtue out of it almost, that they\u2019re not offering a policy proposition to the people of our state in terms of how we govern ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have to do \u2013 mainstream parties of government and obviously Labor being the most important, in my view \u2013 is to make sure that we\u2019re keeping an eye on the cultural sense of the party itself and what we stand for.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, at the same time, making sure that we do offer a clear policy agenda, particularly around growing prosperity and sharing opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s political leaders are still \u201cgrappling with a new political reality\u201d as One Nation celebrates a stunning upset…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[236290,274806,274818,64,63,689,274812,36974,274809,234194,134,2057,274810,68896,274807,274811,44982,5717,31478,274805,10940,127358,208915,187436,3583,677,274808,14754,24805,274817,274814,274816,274815,101727,1124,4200,274819,427,3586,2062,274813],"class_list":["post-556435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-alex-antic","tag-amanda-rishworth","tag-assault-charges","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-people","tag-australian-politics","tag-controversial-rhetoric","tag-cory-bernardi","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-federal-counterparts","tag-federal-election","tag-federal-polls","tag-federal-tilt","tag-flinders-university","tag-germany","tag-labor-party","tag-leadership-tension","tag-liberal-party","tag-lower-house","tag-nathan-schmidt","tag-newswire-news","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-one-nation-mp-barnaby-joyce","tag-pauline-hanson","tag-peter-malinauskas","tag-political-leaders","tag-political-reality","tag-populist-party","tag-real-opposition","tag-rob-manwaring","tag-south-australia","tag-sweden","tag-the-premier","tag-tv","tag-united-kingdom","tag-western-europe","tag-worth-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}