{"id":873630,"date":"2026-08-30T08:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873630\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T08:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:28:14","slug":"secret-harbour-byelection-why-one-nations-shock-win-in-western-australia-is-a-warning-for-labor-and-the-coalition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873630\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Harbour byelection: Why One Nation\u2019s shock win in Western Australia is a warning for Labor and the Coalition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"James<\/p>\n

August 30, 2026 \u2014 4:36pm<\/p>\n

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Last week, on his 45th visit to Western Australia, Anthony Albanese promised his government would never alter the outrageously generous GST deal that hands extra cash to Australia\u2019s richest state.<\/p>\n

West Australians (barely) thanked him for the guarantee, and then on Saturday handed Labor a thrashing in a byelection for the state seat of Secret Harbour.<\/p>\n

\"NewlyNewly elected One Nation state MP Luke Herdegen.Colin Murty<\/p>\n

While some may argue that One Nation\u2019s thumping win in Secret Harbour means little for federal politics, that would be a mistake.<\/p>\n

Albanese did not visit Secret Harbour<\/a>, claiming last week that he didn\u2019t campaign in state byelections \u2013 never mind that he opened a Medicare urgent care clinic in the WA state seat of Rockingham during a 2023 byelection \u2013 and will probably play down the federal implications of this result.<\/p>\n

WA Labor has been in power at a state level for nearly a decade, which made it harder for the party to hang on, and it\u2019s true that state and federal issues don\u2019t overlap perfectly.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne Nation Leader Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce attend the Farmers Fightback rally at Marnoo in western Victoria. Facebook<\/p>\n

But the fact that the winning candidate, Luke Herdegen, campaigned without any substantial policies and a pitch that amounted to \u201cif you\u2019re fed up, vote for me\u201d \u2013 as my colleagues Hamish Hastie and Michael Philipps<\/a> noted \u2013 has to be a concern.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the win, the first time Labor had been beaten by One Nation in a head-to-head contest, Herdegen declared \u201cthere are no safe Labor seats in this state or in this country anymore\u201d.<\/p>\n

The swing against Labor was savage, with Herdegen defeating Labor\u2019s Georgia Tree 57-43 in the two-party preferred vote.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country in western Victoria, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce were attending a wild One Nation rally that included props such as a coffin with a giant nail in it and inscribed with the words \u201cNet Zero\u201d.<\/p>\n

One Nation\u2019s meteoric rise in the polls, which began quietly last September before accelerating rapidly from December, has been fuelled by people who are fed up with the old two-party system and are struggling with high interest rates, inflation and rent, and other cost-of-living concerns.<\/p>\n

Albanese is acutely aware of that. And it\u2019s very much the case that cost-of-living concerns cut across state and federal politics.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Albanese is adamant that Labor must defeat One Nation, declaring \u201cwe owe it to history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most telling was that on Sunday morning, Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers both took aim at Hanson during speeches at the Queensland Labor Party\u2019s state conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a crucial time for our movement because across the world, hard-right populists are on the march, peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest,\u201d the prime minister told party members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll say anything and do anything, bend any facts, peddle misinformation and disinformation, turn Australian against Australian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are not the words of a Labor prime minister who thinks there are no federal implications from the Secret Harbour result, or who is unconcerned about the rise of One Nation.<\/p>\n

But the result is also a blow to the Coalition.<\/p>\n

While Secret Harbour, in its various iterations and under different names, has been solidly Labor since the 1980s at the state level, the seat sits in the federal seat of Canning, which is held by Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie. The Liberals stood a candidate in this contest, too, but he finished a distant third.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Prime<\/a><\/p>\n

Hastie is already facing blowback for testifying against his former SAS colleague, Ben Roberts-Smith, in court while Hanson has taken up the mantle of one of Robert-Smith\u2019s chief defenders.<\/p>\n

This result will, at a minimum, have Hastie pondering his own political mortality.<\/p>\n

Secret Harbour is older, whiter and more British than the average federal seat, and the anger with the Albanese government on the ground is palpable, as my colleague Paul Sakkal reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a state version of the sort of outer-suburban seat that Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison before him have tried to win over at the past two federal elections in the outer suburbs of Australia\u2019s major cities and mostly failed to claim, though Hastie was one of few Liberals to increase their margin at the 2025 federal election.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Nepalese<\/a><\/p>\n

So the fact that voters have skipped past the Liberals and cast their vote for One Nation is a blow to the opposition.<\/p>\n

The Secret Harbour result confirms One Nation\u2019s rise is far from done. And that\u2019s a problem for both major parties.<\/p>\n

Get to the heart of what\u2019s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"JamesJames Massola<\/a> is Chief Political Commentator. He has previously been National Affairs
\nEditor and South-East Asia Correspondent, and has won Quill and Kennedy awards and is the 2026 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 30, 2026 \u2014 4:36pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-873630","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\/873630","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=873630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}