{"id":659950,"date":"2026-05-09T14:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659950\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T14:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:32:09","slug":"australian-far-right-party-wins-first-lower-house-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659950\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian far-right party wins first lower house seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s<\/a> far-right<\/a> One Nation party won a key by-election on Saturday in a rural seat that had been held by traditional conservatives for more than half a century.<\/p>\n

Preliminary results showed its candidate, David Farley, was on track to win 59.1%, defeating the incumbent center-right Liberal Party by a wide margin.<\/p>\n

It marks the first time One Nation has won a lower house seat in the federal parliament.<\/p>\n

Farley, a former agribusiness executive, was the clear favorite heading into the contest for Farrer, a large agricultural electorate some 550 \u200bkilometers (340 miles) south of Sydney.<\/p>\n

“We’re like a mason with a chisel and a hammer, and we’re carving the letters into the Australian democracy,” Farley told cheering supporters.<\/p>\n

“One Nation\u00a0is at the end of its beginning \u2014 we are going through the ceiling,” he said, pledging to bring down the cost of living.<\/p>\n

\"OneFarley (C) said the election win is the ‘biggest achievement’ of his careerImage: Hilary Wardaugh\/AFP<\/p>\n

Why was a by-election held?<\/p>\n

The seat was left vacant when former Liberal leader Sussan Ley resigned in February as her party slumped in the polls behind One Nation.<\/p>\n

Farley’s main rival, popular independent Michelle Milthorpe, was trailing in second place with around 40%, while the Liberal candidate Raissa Butkowski had around 11%, according to the ABC.<\/p>\n

The ruling Labor Party did not contest the seat, which is considered unwinnable for a left-leaning candidate.<\/p>\n

The One Nation win does not affect the parliamentary majority of Labor, which still holds 94 of 150 seats in the lower house.<\/a><\/p>\n

What is One Nation?<\/p>\n

One Nation was founded nearly 30 years ago by Pauline Hanson<\/a>, who has long advocated for cuts to immigration. She is one of four senators from One Nation in the upper house.<\/p>\n

\"OneHanson was widely condemned after she wore a burqa in parliament last year as part of her push to ban the face coverings [FILE: November 2025]Image: Mick Tsikas\/IMAGO<\/p>\n

Hanson said the result was\u00a0“a win for Farrer but a bigger win for the nation.”<\/p>\n

Liberal leader Angus Taylor said the outcome of the by-election brought some “hard lessons” for his party, which has been battling for second place with One Nation in national polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result in Farrer comes amid a surge of support for far-right parties globally. Britain’s ruling Labour Party this week suffered a significant loss of seats at council elections.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)<\/a> is polling at 41% ahead of elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt that could potentially see it win an absolute majority in a regional parliament for the first time.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Karl Sexton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s far-right One Nation party won a key by-election on Saturday in a rural seat that had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-659950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659950","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=659950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}