In a startling encounter in Adelaide this week, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson wagged her finger at the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, during a chance encounter.
“Wipe your bum,” she said, referring to comments Malinauskas had made about the importance of immigration. “I’d invite you to look at the context,” he responded.
It was the first time the pair had met and produced one of the oddest moments in an odd election campaign.
Saturday’s state election will be the first test of the surging support for Hanson’s party, which has fuelled and ridden a wave of anti-immigration rhetoric.
Labor is heading for a thumping win and the Liberals for a battering, with leader Ashton Hurn – only installed in December – fronting the already embattled party.
Despite near-certain victory, Malinauskas has had to work out how to deal with that One Nation support, with the party set to get at least one upper house seat. That will be taken by former senator Cory Bernardi, and he may be joined by state president Carlos Quaremba, and possibly Rebecca Hewett in third place.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailThe rest of the country is watching keenly to see whether support in the polls translates to the ballot paper and gives One Nation lower house representation.
The premier’s approach, on the whole, has been to say he understands One Nation supporters’ grievances, to suggest the party does not have the policy answers to their problems, and to deliver Hanson the occasional whack.
In February he said of the party’s anti-immigration stance:
“My message to One Nation voters is: ‘Who’s going to feed you and bathe you and wipe your bum when you’re 90?’”
Then, he accidentally ran into Hanson in the foyer of the Advertiser, conveniently gifting the Adelaide newspaper a nice video and neat story, and Hanson the opportunity to finger wag.
The encounter ended with Hanson saying she respects migrants, contrary to many of her previous observations, and Malinauskas – who has repeatedly referred to her “Queenslander” status, wishing her “safe travels back to Queensland”.
A state poll, released on Wednesday, put Labor firmly on the path to victory with a 38% primary vote, and One Nation pipping the Liberals, with 22% to their 19%.
Just 2.6% of the primary vote at the last state election went to One Nation – but in 2022, they only had candidates in 19 of the 47 seats. In the seats they contested, the primary vote was 6.6%.
The Advertiser/YouGov poll of 1,265 voters gave an identical two-party-preferred vote for Labor v either One Nation or the Liberals – 59% to 41%.
A Newspoll published on Friday in The Australian also had One Nation on 19%, but the Liberal vote lower at 16% and Labor up to 40%. Depending on how that translates on the ground it could put more lower house seats in play.
Australian National University politics lecturer Jill Sheppard says we’re “probably seeing a short-term re-alignment in Australian elections”, with One Nation attracting support from voters frustrated with the major parties.
“It’s sending a message to both major parties that voters aren’t going to stand for mediocre governments,” she says.
“This is not just a Malinauskas effect, or an SA Liberals effect, this is across state and federal polling. It’s a serious movement.
“The parties have been so willing to ignore these sorts of movements in the past.”
And while Malinauskas and others declare One Nation a policy-free zone, many voters simply don’t care as they lodge their protest votes. More than half of One Nation voters say they “no longer feel represented by the major parties”.
Just 10% are in it for the policies.
But they might get into that polling booth, realise Hanson’s not on the ballot, and give their vote to an independent.
“It seems like One Nation are banking on the fact that SA voters like Pauline,” Sheppard says.
“The problem is when you run this style of presidential campaign in a party system two things happen. Voters work out Pauline’s name is not on the ballot paper, and she subjects herself to more scrutiny.”
Support for One Nation at the federal election was highest in the electorates of Barker, Grey and Spence.
Barker, held by Liberal MP Tony Pasin, covers a large country and coastal zone. Grey is a vast electorate across the state’s outback that should be a Liberal stronghold, although a strong showing from independent Anita Kuss gave Tom Venning a scare last time. Spence covers the mainly working class northern suburbs and is safely held by Labor.
Federal results may give some clues about where One Nation could try to creep in, but the 10 federal electorates do not map neatly on to the 47 state ones. Preference flows further complicate the picture.
A DemosAU/Ace Strategies poll published in InDaily on Thursday named the most vulnerable state seats as Flinders on the Eyre Peninsula and Chaffey in the Riverland, both Liberal-held.
“The rural seats will be the main focus,” Adelaide University political analyst emeritus professor Clem Macintyre says, but adds there are also independents that could have a good run in rural seats such as Flinders, Finniss (where Lou Nicholson stands a good chance against Liberal MP David Basham), and Kavel.
There are some interesting scenarios in other rural seats: Mount Gambier sits vacant after independent Troy Bell was charged and convicted for theft, while Liberal turned independent MP Nick McBride is contesting MacKillop wearing an ankle bracelet after domestic violence charges.
“What happens in MacKillop and Mount Gambier, given Mount Gambier is vacant because the former member’s in prison and the sitting member for MacKillop is only able to campaign in a limited way?” Macintyre asks.
He also says he’ll be watching how the Liberals go in metropolitan seats including Bragg and Morphett, as well as Heysen, where the Greens think they’re in with a chance.
Malinauskas’s main pitch is that SA is doing well economically, and that the Liberals are a “shambles”. At a leaders’ debate on Wednesday he grilled Hurn over the Liberals’ mixed net zero policies and her policy to scrap the state’s Indigenous voice to parliament – sore points for a moderate leader in a party whose branches have been captured by conservatives.
Hurn’s lines of attack have centred on the government’s failure to fix ambulance ramping, saying the premier is too focused on the “razzle dazzle” of attracting big-ticket events.
Malinauskas has more broadly come under fire for his government’s handling of the algal bloom, his handling of Adelaide writers’ week, and various developments in the parklands.
Macintyre says Hurn has made a “good fist” of leadership in tough circumstances, but that the polling is “just diabolical”, opening the way for One Nation to scrap it out in some seats.
“If it’s a really messy three-way split, including the odds and sods, most of whom are conservatives … it’s possible they’ll break through and win a seat,” he says.
“Stranger things have happened.”
