One Nation’s David Farley on track for historic win
Updated ,first published
What a difference a year makes.
A months-long surge in support for One Nation has propelled the party to win a historic lower house seat in the federal parliament for the first time, with candidate David Farley joining Barnaby Joyce in Canberra.
Less than two months after the party won seats in the South Australian state election, One Nation’s march from far-right to mainstream political party was reinforced by the win, triggering a political earthquake in Canberra.
At 8.15pm on Saturday, just two and a half hours after the polls closed, Farley announced a landslide win with 42.3 percent of the primary vote, well ahead of second-place independent Michelle Milthorpe with 25.7 percent when 58.8 percent of the vote was counted.
Liberal and National candidates Raissa Butkowski and Brad Robertson were defeated as the Liberal vote fell. Both Butkowski and Robertson won nearly 10 percent of the vote and favored Farley ahead of Milthorpe, further strengthening the One Nation candidate.
Voters in Farrer have sent a clear message to Canberra. Get filled.
Liberal treasury spokesman Tim Wilson, who spent the day in a polling booth in the border town of sister city Echuca-Moama, said: “The outcome is far less important than the need to listen to it and the lessons to be learned from it.”
“People are clearly doing it hard and it was clear at the Moama stand that voters want someone to be their representative, not their manager, and they want their MPs to fight for them,” he said.
In other words, voters were angry and gave a giant middle finger to the Coalition and Labor by voting in large numbers for the most anti-establishment candidate possible; Farley moved ahead of Milthorpe.
Former Nationals MP and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said the Australian people were “roaring” and not just talking. Joyce had a message for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“Western Sydney, here we come.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this for an independent society.
In the 2025 federal election, Milthorpe came second behind senior incumbent Sussan Ley, winning 43.8 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and 10.2 per cent away from her and the former Liberal MP.
One Nation’s candidate Emma Hicks received just 6.6 per cent of the vote, placing behind Labour’s Glen Hyde (15.1 per cent) and just ahead of the Greens’ Richard Hendrie (4.9 per cent).
But from the moment Ley announced his resignation after losing the Liberal leadership to Angus Taylor, Coalition strategists feared the seat would be lost. And so it was proven.
Farley was elected as a One Nation MP despite running a poor campaign that contradicted One Nation’s immigration policy and the embarrassing revelation that he was seeking to run for Labor in 2022.
This is because voters are angry at the big parties and politics as usual.
By-elections tend to favor the incumbent, regardless of whether the party holding the seat is in opposition or government.
There have been 26 by-elections in the last 25 years, and only four of them were won by a person or party that did not yet hold a seat. This is the fifth.
For the coalition, losing Farrer is another disaster for the opposition, which has been in disarray since the 2022 elections.
And for One Nation, this result begs the question: how high can support for One Nation be?
The party’s rise is real and the threat to the Coalition is more direct in the regional seats where it holds a foothold.
But as the party’s performance in Farrer’s largest city, Albury, shows, One Nation is now gaining votes there too. As Joyce makes clear, what comes next for Labor is One Nation.
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James Massola is the chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and Southeast Asia correspondent. He won the Quill and Kennedy awards and was a Walkley finalist. Connect securely to Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect with: X or email.
