And yet, in the dust and distance of what was once one of Australia\u2019s safest seats, something volatile is building \u2013 coalescing around Pauline Hanson and her One Nation, in a way that would have seemed unthinkable here not long ago.<\/p>\n
Inside his family furniture business, Caesar\u2019s, Paul Pierotti doesn\u2019t bother with political euphemisms. He has spent decades in local business leadership, including nearly 30 years at the helm of the Griffith business chamber. What he describes is not drift, it is rupture.<\/p>\n
![\"Griffith](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/7df4e8e1ded10e4491e594709b51a6ed4bf79cd1.jpeg\")
Griffith Business Chamber president Paul Pierotti in 2021.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n
He recalls a meeting about water years ago with Sussan Ley, the deposed Liberal leader<\/a> whose retirement triggered this byelection<\/a>, in which she \u201cbanged the table and said, the lower lakes are off the table, and we\u2019re never to discuss them again if you ever want to speak to me again\u201d.<\/p>\n The message, as Pierotti tells it, was blunt: the political sway of South Australia outweighed the economic survival of irrigation communities upstream.<\/p>\n For Pierotti and many like him, that moment crystallised something more fundamental \u2013 a sense that decisions about water, the lifeblood of the region, were being made elsewhere for someone else.<\/p>\n The fallout, he argues, has been profound. \u201cIn 2013, we went from building 250 homes a year in Griffith down to something like 60 or 80 now,\u201d he says. \u201cSo we invented the housing crisis, and we invented the workforce crisis back in 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n Population growth has stalled. Businesses that rely on a steady workforce now advertise year-round without a single applicant. Skilled migration, once a lifeline, has become tangled in cost and bureaucracy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have jobs listed all year round. We never get an applicant,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Long-running disputes<\/a> over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan have become a central fault line.<\/p>\n Winemaker Darren De Bortoli, whose family name is synonymous with the region, traces the discontent back more than a decade. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of hurt,\u201d he says. \u201cIt comes back to flawed water policy.\u201d<\/p>\n That is now colliding with a political moment that is anything but ordinary.<\/p>\n Outside Bertoldo\u2019s Pasticceria, a Griffith institution heavy with cannoli and espresso, Judy and Wally Currie have stopped for lunch. They\u2019ve driven in from Merriwagga, about 70 kilometres away, and like many here, they are not wavering.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m voting for Pauline,\u201d Judy says. \u201cI\u2019m not sure about my husband, but my son has gone Pauline too.\u201d<\/p>\n She pauses, then adds what has become a refrain across the electorate.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people have just had enough around here. We don\u2019t have any good politicians, so people are just saying \u2018f\u2019 the lot of youse, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n Wally, halfway through a sausage roll, leans in. He\u2019s made up his mind, too.<\/p>\n \u201cShe [Hanson] says what she thinks,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that\u2019s why so many people will vote for her.\u201d<\/p>\n On a nearby bench, Karen Roberts and Lucy Mian are initially reluctant to talk politics. Then, almost sheepishly, they admit they\u2019ve both done the same thing \u2013 voted for One Nation.<\/p>\n \u201cShe says it how it is,\u201d they say, almost in unison, grateful for being asked.<\/p>\n Cian, a second-generation Italian Australian, says it is the first time she has backed Hanson\u2019s party.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sick of all the jargon, sick at all the rubbish, all the lies, just sick of it. I think Australia\u2019s just going down,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Her frustration is layered with personal history and her mother\u2019s journey to the region decades ago.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cShe was never given a pension. She was never given anything, not even housing, right? She worked, she worked, but she allowed us to stay and become Australian.\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts has been voting for Hanson far longer.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t like what she says because it\u2019s true,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s how I feel anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis idiot [Prime Minister Anthony Albanese] keeps handing all their money out to everyone from overseas. I\u2019m not saying they shouldn\u2019t be here. They\u2019re quite welcome to come, but they\u2019ve got to pay their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n In Griffith and beyond, nuance is in short supply. What remains is a pervasive sense of loss. The language is raw and often contradictory. But the through-line is unmistakable: a belief that the system no longer speaks for them.<\/p>\n Daniel Ball, a delivery driver who moved from Sydney to Griffith a few years ago, puts it more quietly.<\/p>\n \u201cComing here from Sydney, I think I understand why people would vote for Hanson,\u201d he says. \u201cLots of people don\u2019t feel listened to. Things are sort of forgotten here. The world has really changed the past few years.\u201d<\/p>\n Further east, outside the Leeton pre-poll centre, Daryl Conroy is making a break from habit. He has voted Liberal all his life. Not this time.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cIf they weren\u2019t constantly fighting with one another I might have voted for them again,\u201d he says. \u201cBut people have simply had enough. I know Pauline doesn\u2019t have a lot of policies, but she says what everyone else is too scared to say.\u201d<\/p>\n In a town that relies on food growing and processing, Kerry Maguire, a nurse and lifelong Coalition voter, tells a similar story.<\/p>\n \u201cI voted One Nation because I want to send the major parties a message,\u201d she says. \u201cLabor and Liberal, there doesn\u2019t seem to be too much direction, you know. Labor are just wasting our money, spending money on campaigns like, get your roof racks off because that\u2019s going to save petrol.\u201d<\/p>\n Just over 12 months ago, when Sussan Ley won with a 40 per cent primary vote, only 6.6 per cent of Farrer voted One Nation. In hamlets like Oaklands, it was up to 13 per cent, with booths in Goolgowi, Wentworth, Blighty, Deniliquin and Walla Walla around 10 per cent.<\/p>\n Now, if the polls are correct, One Nation\u2019s primary vote<\/a> is more than 30 per cent across an electorate the size of South Korea. That\u2019s enough, with preferences from the Coalition, to be a red-hot favourite. While independent Michelle Milthorpe, a candidate taking funding from Climate 200 even as she backs away from their environmental platform, might carry the 60,000-strong city of Albury, the western part of the electorate is in another mood altogether.<\/p>\n One Nation\u2019s 69-year-old candidate, David Farley, is an unlikely vessel for that fight.<\/p>\n In his home town of Narrandera, an hour and a bit from Griffith, his wife, Janice, is handing out how-to-vote cards, and his 98-year-old mum, Patsy, is voting when this reporter arrives. She smiles before declaring she hasn\u2019t voted for her son. \u201cI\u2019ve got a pimple on my tongue,\u201d she says, giving a cheeky wink.<\/p>\n The presence of the national media over the past few weeks has been welcomed by many, but within One Nation there have been strict instructions to be wary. Several volunteers have offered a \u201cno comment\u201d as if they\u2019re starring in a new TV police procedural drama.<\/p>\n Farley\u2019s campaign has been littered with controversy, from revelations he tried to run for Labor four years ago<\/a>, to the endorsement of his independent rival<\/a> last year, to his contradictory statements on One Nation policy<\/a>. He\u2019s avoided cameras in recent days, cancelled events and apologised for a volunteer engaging in biffo with an elected politician. He likes to chat and is prone to waffle.<\/p>\n But nobody on the ground really seems to care. A farm sector identity of nearly 40 years, Farley\u2019s career spans from Riverina jackaroo to senior roles at Colly Cotton and the Australian Agricultural Company. Few who have worked with him expected he would align with Hanson\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n But those who know him do not doubt his drive. For some supporters, the distinction matters. They are backing Farley much more than they are backing One Nation.<\/p>\n Related Article Even so, the paradox is clear. In a region that depends on migration and prides itself on multicultural cohesion, Hanson\u2019s party is gaining traction. Supporters navigate that tension by focusing on local concerns \u2013 water, hospitals and the sense of being ignored.<\/p>\n \u201cThere needs to be two different policies,\u201d Pierotti argues, suggesting Farley could influence that. \u201cThere needs to be how do we produce housing and workforce in regional areas immediately, then something else for the cities.\u201d<\/p>\n But even among those sympathetic to the revolt, there is caution.<\/p>\n De Bortoli, who has known Farley for years, is careful in how he draws the distinction.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid\u2019s heart\u2019s always been in the right place,\u201d he says. \u201cHe\u2019s got the intellect, he\u2019s got the intelligence, he\u2019s got the tenacity.\u201d<\/p>\n It is an endorsement of the man, but not an unqualified embrace of the vehicle carrying him.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a bit of baggage there. I will give him my vote, but haven\u2019t given them any money,\u201d De Bortoli says.<\/p>\n That ambivalence runs through the electorate. Voters are prepared to take a risk, but they are not blind to it.<\/p>\n Nobody gives either the Liberals or the Nationals much chance of finishing in the top two. And if the Coalition cannot hold here, questions about its path back to government become unavoidable. If One Nation can win its first-ever seat in the House of Representatives in a seat like Farrer, it would confirm a structural shift on the right of Australian politics.<\/p>\n Related Article The Coalition\u2019s strongest redoubts are no longer immovable. Loyalty, once assumed, is now conditional. And in places like Griffith, where politics was once a settled question, it is being asked again \u2013 with an edge.<\/p>\n![\"Darren](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1cdc52d8301ac54b7e1387df572653d314ba9c47.jpeg\")
Darren De Bortoli, managing director of De Bortoli wines, says much of the discontent in Farrer is down to \u201cflawed water policy\u201d.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"Judy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1b43f90c0590749faf366cb331d7682670cce756.jpeg\")
Judy and Wally Currie, with their dog Runty, in Griffith.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"Lucy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/570eb9e872653f5e40ab4a804d165378840b9639.jpeg\")
Lucy Mian (left) and Karen Roberts say they will be voting for One Nation in the Farrer byelection.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/a09f98d613c35b60f69537a499b6037de02b44ef.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\u201cLots](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/772b53e20cc00322d76d736722d62be9daf8c0f2.jpeg\")
\u201cLots of people don\u2019t feel listened to\u201d: Daniel Ball, who moved from Sydney to Griffith in recent years, says he understands the shift to One Nation.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/89601ed75dec2c40ca0d640116153985b2f99bfc.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Pre-poll](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c8ed13bac237c587bff56d05a5e5c847f75c336b.jpeg\")
Pre-poll volunteers Greg Braniff and Rita Fascianelli-McIver outside a booth in Griffith.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"Footage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5002a2e6b97bc7556cf8a90c6d60de613e37496f5da56780a72ae3868beb3693.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/58eb2c60d3a2214c954aa24eaaf852ea243692d9.jpeg\")
One Nation\u2019s candidate for Farrer, David Farley.Jules Boag<\/p>\n![\"Farrer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772221274_593_954077b016cfe2ee95a684bf362aa0d64129981ecc569ab36a01501f64fbf1ae.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n