Nationals facing heat as disillusioned voters lash out
The National Party risks losing support from voters who want to “burn the house down” after weeks of damaging infighting.
When the Liberals and the National Party failed to agree on the terms of reunification, polls showed One Nation trailing the coalition.
Redbridge Group director and former Victorian Labor strategist Kos Samaras said conservative working-class voters in the economic downturn were flocking to One Nation out of frustration.
“It’s about revenge, cultural and political revenge,” Mr. Samaras said.
“These people know One Nation may not have sound policies, but they want to burn the house down.”
He said the Nationals were at risk of losing all their seats in regional NSW and Queensland, where One Nation was expected to do particularly well.
He added that the Liberals and Nationals were struggling to survive in the multi-party system.
“They are under pressure from the right and the left, and they have no answer to either,” Mr. Samaras said.
A Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll published by The Australian Financial Review on Sunday showed support for One Nation had risen to 26 per cent, making it the second most popular party after Labor.
The poll has alarmed many within both the Liberals and the National Party and is likely to encourage Conservatives to challenge Sussan Ley’s Liberal leadership.
Ms Ley offered to re-form the coalition on condition that National senators Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald stay on the backbenches for six months after they breached shadow cabinet solidarity.
National Party leader David Littleproud is understood to be unlikely to accept this condition and argues that the three men should be reinstated for the coalition to be reconciled.
The Redbridge poll showed the Liberal and National vote combined falling to 19 per cent.
Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has joined One Nation and will run for the party in the upper house in South Australia’s March election.
Mr. Bernardi, who served as a senator until 2020, said the major parties were failing voters.
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