The Protest Vote in Perth. Victoria is the real test.

One Nation just won a Western Australian state seat on the fringes of Perth that Labor held by a margin most parties would consider comfortable. With nearly all votes counted, the party polled 39.1 per cent of the primary vote in Secret Harbour, up more than 30 points from the March 2025 state election. That is not a protest vote. That is a rout.

Secret Harbour is readable: the voters who moved weren't voting for Hanson

The seat matters more for what it represents than what it delivers. Secret Harbour overlaps federally with Canning, held by Liberal Andrew Hastie, and shares the demographic profile One Nation has learned to read accurately: high rates of vocational qualifications, low ethnic diversity, and a cost-of-living pressure that makes working-class loyalty to Labor feel increasingly like a habit rather than a conviction. These are not voters who have moved to One Nation because they particularly love Pauline Hanson. They have moved because something else stopped working for them.

That distinction is the hinge on which everything turns.

These are not voters who have moved to One Nation because they particularly love Pauline Hanson. They have moved because something else stopped working for them.

Byelections are peculiar events. The incumbent party loses its MP's personal vote. Voters who would never switch at a general election are free to register a message without real consequences. When a government holds 46 of 59 lower house seats, as Labor does in WA, the temptation to kick it becomes even more powerful. The size of the majority makes a protest feel costless. These conditions reliably inflate minor party results, and they are exactly the conditions that existed in Secret Harbour on Saturday.

Which is why the raw numbers, spectacular as they are, need some care. Analyst Kevin Bonham noted that Secret Harbour and its predecessor seats have been safe for Labor against the Liberals. One Nation's win is meaningful precisely because it shows the party can take ground the Liberals cannot, but it is one data point, collected in maximally favourable conditions.

The real question is whether this is a genuine structural shift or a very loud mood indicator. And that question has a test case: Victoria.

Victoria is the test, but One Nation's foundations there are shakier

Victoria goes to a state election in November 2026. The state government is under genuine pressure, the budget is strained, and there is an electorate of outer-suburban and regional voters who share many of the characteristics of Secret Harbour: working-class, non-university-educated, and increasingly disengaged from a Labor Party that has, as we have noted before, a primary vote that senior figures within the party have described as wide but shallow. If One Nation can hold and direct preferences efficiently, it could win seats in outer Melbourne and regional Victoria that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

But Victoria is not WA. One Nation's organisational presence is thinner. The Victorian Liberals, unlike in WA, are not in quite such complete disarray, which means some of the protest energy could disperse across more options. And One Nation's WA leader Rod Caddies is sitting at a net approval rating of minus 15 — well underwater — which suggests the party is running on the momentum of dissatisfaction rather than affection for its candidates. Momentum from dissatisfaction is real, but it is also volatile.

The preference arithmetic that could cap One Nation's ceiling

The preference flow out of Secret Harbour is instructive. Liberal voters in the seat did not follow their party's recommendation to preference One Nation ahead of Labor. The split was essentially even: 50.8 per cent of Liberal preferences went to Labor, 49.2 per cent to One Nation. At a general election, with more seats in play and the preference game running at scale, that ambivalence among Liberal voters could cost One Nation seats its primary votes should deliver. The party won Secret Harbour comfortably despite the leakage, but the margin could have been much larger. Across multiple seats, the arithmetic gets harder.

There is also the question that One Nation's digital and media strategy raises. As we have covered previously, the party has been building its audience through channels that bypass traditional media entirely, which means its support can grow faster than conventional polling captures it, but it also means it is harder to test whether that support converts at scale.

What Secret Harbour confirms is that One Nation is no longer operating as a fringe protest party collecting marginal votes in Senate contests. It is now a genuine threat to Labor's hold on working-class outer-suburban seats, and it has demonstrated it can win where the Liberals cannot. That is a structural observation about the current state of Australian politics, not merely a byelection curiosity.

Whether Pauline Hanson lands in Victoria and stays, or simply passes through, depends on whether the November result shows voters choosing One Nation or just leaving Labor. Those are different things, and they produce different futures. Perth told us something real. Melbourne will tell us what it means.

Sources

The Conversation — One Nation thumps Labor to gain WA state seat of Secret Harbour at byelection

Frequently Asked Questions

How did One Nation win the Secret Harbour byelection in WA?
One Nation polled 39.1 per cent of the primary vote in Secret Harbour, a swing of more than 30 points from the previous state election in March 2025. The result was driven by byelection-specific conditions — Labor's massive WA majority made a protest vote feel costless — combined with a demographic profile of working-class, non-university-educated voters who have grown disengaged from Labor.

Why are One Nation's byelection results hard to read as a long-term trend?
Byelections reliably inflate minor party results because voters can register dissatisfaction without real consequences, and the incumbent party loses its sitting MP's personal vote. Secret Harbour was collected in maximally favourable conditions — Labor holds 46 of 59 WA lower house seats — which is exactly when protest votes run hottest.

Can One Nation win seats the Liberal Party cannot?
Secret Harbour demonstrates that it can. The seat had historically been safe for Labor against the Liberals, meaning One Nation took ground the centre-right could not reach. This reflects One Nation's ability to appeal directly to working-class outer-suburban voters for whom the Liberal Party is culturally distant.

What will the 2026 Victorian state election tell us about One Nation's strength?
Victoria is the real test because it shares outer-suburban demographics with WA but One Nation has a thinner organisational presence there, the Victorian Liberals are less disorganised than their WA counterparts, and protest energy is therefore more likely to disperse. If One Nation can win seats in outer Melbourne or regional Victoria under those conditions, the structural-shift argument becomes much harder to dismiss.

Why didn't Liberal voters in Secret Harbour preference One Nation as their party recommended?
Despite a how-to-vote recommendation to put One Nation ahead of Labor, Liberal preferences split almost evenly — 50.8 per cent to Labor, 49.2 per cent to One Nation. That ambivalence matters because at a general election, across multiple seats, leakage at that rate could cost One Nation seats its primary votes should otherwise deliver.