{"id":660507,"date":"2026-05-09T20:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/660507\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:48:08","slug":"the-scale-of-the-coalitions-loss-in-the-farrer-byelection-cant-be-overstated-tom-mcilroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/660507\/","title":{"rendered":"The scale of the Coalition\u2019s loss in the Farrer byelection can\u2019t be overstated | Tom McIlroy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes in Australian politics<\/a>, there\u2019s a tendency to over interpret byelection results – projecting local wins and losses far and wide across the country.<\/p>\n

But Saturday\u2019s thumping victory for One Nation<\/a> in the NSW seat of Farrer can hardly be over interpreted. It proves Pauline Hanson\u2019s populist movement is an indiscriminate threat, and that the foundations of the two party system are growing weaker by the day.<\/p>\n

After 30 years of trying, One Nation<\/a> finally won a lower house seat in its own right, with businessman David Farley elected in an area that has sent Liberals and Nationals to Canberra for 70 years.<\/p>\n

Harnessing grievance, anxieties about the economy and immigration and a broad dislike of the country\u2019s political class, Hanson and her motley crew of party colleagues can increasingly demonstrate deeper support than some commentators give them credit for.<\/p>\n

With four senators, as well as Nationals defector Barnaby Joyce already in the lower house, One Nation will be a force to be reckoned with at the 2028 federal election.<\/p>\n

Despite her scant policy and often incoherent positions, the old parties still struggle to fight back against Hansonism, while, for their part, voters don\u2019t care if One Nation doesn\u2019t always make sense.<\/p>\n

But Farley will likely be a challenge for Hanson.<\/p>\n

A journeyman candidate, he flirted with the Nationals, Labor and even the community independent movement before throwing his lot in with One Nation.<\/p>\n

Even before he won, Farley split with his leader on the key policy question of overseas arrivals to Australia, telling a campaign forum One Nation wanted to \u201cmatch\u201d immigration to housing policy, health and education, while noting demand for skilled migrants in the regions. He said hard and fast numbers were impossible.<\/p>\n

Joyce was sent in to clean up the mess, insisting Farley was just feeling \u201cthe pressure of the campaign\u201d and what he really meant was One Nation was committed to cutting migration to 130,000 arrivals a year.<\/p>\n

Over 30 years, Hanson almost always falls out with the strong willed men of One Nation. Her new MP might not last the distance.<\/p>\n

For his part, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor<\/a>, looked poorly prepared for the devastating loss on Saturday night. Appearing with Liberal candidate Raissa Butkowski, Taylor fell back on canned talking points to explain the scale of the challenge facing the Coalition.<\/p>\n

Despite the Nationals and the Liberals both running candidates \u2013 and struggling to reach a combined 20% of the primary vote \u2013 Taylor tried to claim unity as a virtue among the dire results.<\/p>\n

He stood by the decision to preference One Nation ahead of the independent Michelle Milthorpe, even as Hanson celebrated cutting his lunch just a few minutes down the road.<\/p>\n

It is not guaranteed that Taylor will lead the Liberals to the next election, but whoever does will have to do a better job of fighting the growing tide of right wing populism in Australia.<\/p>\n

Every seat Hanson wins from the Coalition<\/a> makes Labor\u2019s grasp on government more secure.<\/p>\n

After maintaining a dignified silence since quitting politics, Sussan Ley issued a statement about One Nation\u2019s win in her old seat on Saturday night. Without even mentioning Taylor\u2019s name, she said it would be a mistake to misunderstand the scale of the defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the day the leadership spilled in February, the new leader said the Liberal party<\/a> needed to \u201cchange or die\u201d,\u201d Ley said. \u201cThree months later, the result in Farrer demonstrates that statement to be far truer today than it ever was then.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes in Australian politics, there\u2019s a tendency to over interpret byelection results – projecting local wins and losses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-660507","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\/660507","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=660507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}