One Nation ambition at South Australian election a ‘testbed for Australia’, expert warns

One Nation’s ambitions for the upcoming South Australian election will be “a testing ground for Australia” as the populist party looks to capitalize on its best-ever polls, an expert has warned.

Pauline Hanson’s party has fielded candidates in all 47 lower house seats in the March 21 vote, while former federal Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has been tapped to lead the upper house list.

This comes after One Nation overtook the Coalition nationally in successive polls; This is a first-time success for a small party.

However, Flinders University Associate Professor Rob Manwaring said state elections in South Australia, which has a complex but evolving history of organizational skills, could be a precursor to One Nation’s ability to expand from its traditional Queensland base and successfully organize real state and federal electoral challenges.

“If they have smarter minds on the organizational side of the party, then they will use South Australia as a test bed and say, look, if we can run an effective campaign here, then they can use the South Australian model as a template in other states and territories where we don’t have the same level of presence,” Mr Manwaring told NewsWire.

Mr Manwaring said so far One Nation had not had a “significant presence” in South Australia and was “pretty dispersed” as a party.

This began to change in 2022 when Sarah Game was elected to South Australia’s upper house, the Legislative Council, on a One Nation ticket, but she resigned from the party to sit as an independent in 2025, citing issues with the party’s brand.

Mr Manwaring said he expected One Nation would try to increase its vote share in South Australia, perhaps grabbing a seat or two in the upper house.

“They also want to bloody the noses of as many Liberals as politically possible,” he said.

“If they are lucky or fortunate, they may dare to dream of trying to snatch one or two of the regional or rural seats if their votes count.

“And depending on what the overall impact is going to be, perhaps we could have a much greater influence on vetoing government bills.”

South Australia is no stranger to third-party challenges.

Led by former senator Nick Xenophon, SA Best polled well ahead of the 2018 state election.

However, the party failed to win even a single seat in the lower house.

Mr Manwaring said the 2026 vote would determine whether One Nation could succeed where SA Best had failed.

“I think this will really be a testing environment for Australia,” he said.

“I think the real question is how deep is the One Nation wave and can it do what Xenophon couldn’t? And that actually translates into meaningful gains in terms of seats.”

Liberals face ‘existential question’

Facing a disastrous poll, senior federal Liberal Party members have expressed concern about the party’s future unless the situation turns around before the next federal election.

Mr Manwaring said the party was facing “existential problems” in South Australia, where leader Ashton Hurn only took office in December.

He warned that the party faced the prospect of single-digit representation in the 47-member lower house.

“The Liberal Party still appears to be factionally divided,” Mr Manwaring said.

“I think a lot of voters who might have been inclined to support the centre-right side of politics are now turned off.”

This claim was backed up by the latest News Poll released on Friday, which found the Liberal primaries in South Australia had a dismal 14 per cent.

Meanwhile, One Nation gained a whopping 24 per cent of the vote, with Labor holding a strong 10-point lead.

While in other states the Liberals fear disenfranchised voters will turn to One Nation, Mr Manwaring said in South Australia they could do the opposite and vote for the incumbent Malinauskas government.

“On some issues, he’s socially conservative, he’s relatively pro-mining, he’s pro-development, and that’s going to tick the boxes for some of those who see Malinauskas as a slightly different breed from themselves.

“I guess the real question is how much can One Nation benefit from these disgruntled Liberal votes, and we won’t know the answer to that until the next morning.”

Mr Manwaring said Labor would have a “relatively comfortable night”.

Asked about the future of One Nation, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas last month said it would be “interesting to see how it plays out”.

“We live in a proud, wealthy, liberal democracy and there are different views within it and local parties can nominate candidates and put their candidates to the polls,” he said.

“What sets the South Australian parliamentary Labor Party apart from our rivals is that we are a truly united team that actually believes in a common purpose and uses the power of government to deliver that, to make a difference to people’s lives, and we mean it.

“We have a team of people who are interested in achieving results rather than specific personal ambitions and I think that’s a great credit to the culture we’ve managed to create over a long period of time and it’s a stark contrast to the Liberal Party in the province and who knows what that looks like from a One Nation perspective.”

Two parts of the party – and Cory Bernardi

One of the biggest challenges facing One Nation is its own candidates.

Mr Manwaring said smaller parties like One Nation lacked the resources, such as scouring social media, to vet large numbers of candidates.

“Therefore, it is quite possible that candidates who say provocative or controversial things on social media will not be considered in the vetting process,” he said.

The other problem may be Ms. Hanson herself.

Mr Manwaring said he was unsure whether One Nation had passed the one-man branding party despite the recruitment of Mr Bernardi and federal former Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce.

“I think One Nation still has the same problem, which is that Hanson kind of wants to direct and control, and having a lot of egos makes it difficult because they kind of don’t have the kind of factional agreements that other political parties and more established parties have,” he said.

While acknowledging that Mr Bernardi’s last-minute addition to the One Nation ticket had raised the party to its highest-ever profile in the state, Mr Manwaring was unsure of its cache beyond “ambivalent centre-right, radical-right support”.

He said Mr Bernardi did not have the “groundbreaking appeal” of a “clean-skinned candidate”.

“I think this might galvanize some of those who were already considering voting for One Nation, but I don’t think it has significant crossover appeal,” he said.

In announcing his candidacy, Mr. Bernardi said One Nation would “cut spending, cut taxes and get our debt under control.”

In a press release dated 19 February, he accused Labor of “mass immigration” and said this had increased demand for housing.

“Peter Malinauskas is an emperor without clothes. South Australians cannot live for at least ten years in submarines that will not be built,” he said, referring to AUKUS.

“One Nation has solutions. By directing compulsory Construction Industry Training Board levies to housebuilding businesses to fund apprentice wages, waiving exorbitant registration costs for first and second year apprentices, and exempting apprentice wages from payroll tax, we will develop a homegrown SA workforce.”