Australia Elections Federal

One Nation and its Elected MPs

Since One Nation’s breakthrough at the 1998 Queensland election, the party has had a mixed record of maintaining parliamentary beachheads.

By half way through its first term in the Queensland Parliament, the party had lost all its elected members. There were numerous disputes between Pauline Hanson, her close party confidants and the elected members. It was not helped the legal action that led to the parties de-registration.

In the party’s first decade, there were 20 elected or appointed One Nation members of parliament. Seventeen split from the party, one was defeated, one disqualified and only one re-elected.

After Hanson’s departure in the early 2000s, the party became largely irrelevant. That changed when Hanson returned to the fold in 2013. The party elected its first new members of parliament at the 2016 Senate election and has reached new levels of success over the last year.

Since 2016, One Nation has had 31 members. 16 are current members, the party boosted by four new Federal members and seven members elected at the March 2026 South Australian election.

But until the last year, the pattern of losing elected members continued. Two members were re-elected but subsequently left the party with Mark Latham still in Parliament. Another eight left the party before facing election of whom three in addition to Latham remain in parliament. Four One Nation members were defeated while still in the party. One Senator resigned due to ill-health.

The party’s record of hanging on to members remains patchy, though surging opinion polls and the recent success of the party have certainly provided an incentive for elected members to stay with the party.

I’ve been keeping track of elected One Nation since that first election in 1998. When the party returned to the Senate in 2016 and began losing members to disqualification and resignation, I published a list of elected One Nation members and their fate in 2018.

When Pauline Hanson sacked the NSW Executive of One Nation and dismissed Mark Latham as the party’s NSW leader, I published a blog post on the party’s record of losing its parliamentary members.

I’ve been asked numerous times over the last year if I could update the list. I’ve finally done it and you can find all the details on the party’s 51 elected or appointed members of state and federal parliaments here.

Trying to pick apart whether members were expelled from the party or resigned can be a little difficult. I tend to use a generic ‘departed’ as the description to get around the participants in the departure having different views on what happened.

Inside the post I’ll publish the overall summary of representation from that document, but you can check the full detail using the above link.

And let me know if you spot any errors.
Read More »One Nation and its Elected MPs

Why Australia Doesn’t Have Novelty Candidates like Count Binface

As I wait to hear the result of the UK’s Clacton by-election, I thought I should ponder the question of why Australia doesn’t have novelty candidates.

The Clacton by-election was triggered by the resignation of Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage. The announcement came amid parliamentary scrutiny of Farage’s personal finances, and allegations concerning undeclared gifts and support. He is re-contesting the seat to, as he puts it, let the people rather than the establishment decide his fate.

It has rather backfired on Farage as none of the ‘establishment’ parties are contesting. His major opponent has turned out to be serial novelty candidate Count Binface, in real life known as Jonathan David Harvey, an Oxford classics graduate and television comedy writer.

The record field of 34 also includes Nick the Incredible Flying Brick, Howling Laud Hope and Baron Von Thunderclap, candidates for Britain’s ‘establishment’ novelty party, the Monster Raving Loony Party.

So how is this allowed and why doesn’t it occur in Australia?

Well, it sort of used to occur, but the law was tightened after several protest candidates representing the Abolish Child Support/Family Court Party adopted vvvveeerrrryyyy lloonngg names to contest the 1998 Federal election.Read More »Why Australia Doesn’t Have Novelty Candidates like Count Binface

FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

The South Australian redistribution of electoral boundaries has been finalised this morning. The Commission has abandoned a swap of suburbs between Kingston and Mayo, as well as the transfer of an area from Spence to O’Donoghue (formerly Grey). This means that Kingston and O’Donoghue retain their former boundaries without change.

The Draft boundaries released in March produced only minor changes to the boundaries used at the last three federal elections. Those changes have now been reduced with the Spence to O’Donoghue change reversed and the proposed suburbs swap between Mayo and Kingston abandoned.

South Australia was reduced from 11 to 10 House of Representatives seats by the 2017 redistribution. The current redistribution retains 10 seats and was triggered by the rule requiring boundaries to be re-drawn every seven years. The reason for periodic re-draws is to account for differing patterns of population growth, to bring all electorates back within permitted variation from quota.

Barker pushes closer to Adelaide and gains 3,365 voters around Woodchester from Mayo. Grey has been re-named O’Donoghue but proposed boundary changes abandoned. Population growth in the Adelaide Hills has seen Mayo shed voters to Barker and around 6,275 to Boothby. Adelaide’s outer north has also been growing rapidly and Spence has lost 14,043 voters in Brahma Lodge and Salisbury to Makin. Proposed changes to Kingston have been abandoned and Adelaide, Hindmarsh and Sturt retain their unchanged status from the draft phase.

The table below has been now re-calculated for the final boundaries.

South Australia Federal Redistribution – Summary of New Margins
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Adelaide ALP 19.1% ALP 19.1% unchanged boundaries
Barker LIB 13.0% LIB 12.7% 0.3 to Labor
Boothby ALP 11.1% ALP 11.1% no change
Hindmarsh ALP 16.3% ALP 16.3% unchanged boundaries
Kingston ALP 20.7% ALP 20.7% unchanged boundaries
Makin ALP 14.7% ALP 15.3% 0.6 to Labor
Mayo (2-Party) ALP 5.0% ALP 4.8% 0.2 to Liberal
Mayo (IND v ALP) IND 14.9% IND 15.5% 0.6 to Independent
O’Donoghue (formerly Grey) LIB 4.6% LIB 4.6% unchanged boundaries
Spence ALP 15.3% ALP 15.2% 0.1 to Liberal
Sturt ALP 6.6% ALP 6.6% unchanged boundaries

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

The new electoral boundaries for Tasmania have been released today.

Reading through the proposed changes, the major changes to Clark, Franklin and Lyons in southern Tasmania have been agreed to. But there are changes in the north with Break O’Day council being moved into Bass.

There is also a proposed name change which has triggered the calling of a new round of comments specifically about changing the name of Franklin to Tongerlongter. As the proposal explains the name –

Following its deliberations, the augmented Electoral Commission proposes renaming the electorate of Franklin in honour of Tongerlongeter (c. 1790-1837), a Poredareme man of the Oyster Bay nation and a prominent Aboriginal leader whose Country encompassed much of south-east Tasmania, including areas within the reconfigured electorate boundaries. The name ‘Franklin’ is proposed to be retired.

Earlier I tweeted that the draft boundaries had been abandoned. That was confusion on my part by opening the wrong map and thinking that was the reason for calling a new round of submissions. It is rare for redistributions to engage in this extra consultation step. It appears the consultation is over the name change alone so the boundaries appear to be otherwise final.

The draft boundaries released earlier this year produced massive changes to the electorates of Clark, Franklin and Lyons. You can read more details in my post on the draft boundaries.

The table below summarises the two-party preferred margins between Labor and Liberal in the five divisions. I’ll go into more detail on the Independent positions in Clark and Franklin inside the post.

Tasmania Federal Redistribution – Summary of 2-Party Preferred Margin Changes
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bass ALP 8.0% ALP 8.3% 0.3 to ALP
Braddon ALP 7.2% ALP 7.2% Unchanged
Clark ALP 20.9% ALP 20.2% 0.7 to LIB
Franklin ALP 19.4% ALP 18.7% 0.7 to LIB
Lyons ALP 11.6% ALP 12.7% 0.9 to ALP

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

The final boundaries for the ACT have been released. Maps and numbers of voters transferred have not been released, but I have managed to estimate new margins using data published with the draft boundaries.

In short, nothing much changes. The table below summarise the margins for the ACT’s three electorates.

ACT Federal Redistribution (Final) – Summary of Margin Changes
District Contest Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bean 2-Party ALP 19.3% ALP 19.4% 0.1 to ALP
Canberra 2-Party ALP 26.4% ALP 26.4% No change
Fenner 2-Party ALP 22.1% ALP 22.1% No change
Bean ALP v IND ALP 0.3% ALP 0.2% 0.1 to IND
Canberra ALP v GRN ALP 19.5% ALP 19.5% No change

There’s more details on each electorate inside the post.
Read More »FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

ABS Population Statistics confirm no change to State Representation for the Next Federal Election

(Update 23 July: the Electoral Commissioner’s determination has been published in the government gazette today. You can find it here.

The official calculations are the same as the ones in this post except the Territories have slightly higher numbers after adding in Norfolk Island and Jervis Bay to the ACT, and Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Island to the Northern Territory.)

(Original post from 18 June follows)

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released state population figures for the last quarter of 2025. These numbers confirm that there will be no change to state representation in the House of Representatives for the next Federal election.

The interest had been whether Queensland would be entitled to an extra seat for its twice delayed redistribution of Federal electoral boundaries.

Under the 7-year rule, Queensland had been due to have a redistribution begin in March 2025. Clearly this wasn’t possible with a Federal election due.

The redistribution should have started after the election along with the redistributions in Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT.

The Queensland redistribution was officially deferred until after a determination on state representation by the Electoral Commissioner to be made in July 2026

If Queensland was going to be allocated a 31st seat, there was no point starting a redistribution for 30 seats. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released today confirm that Queensland will remain with 30 members.

No change in state numbers will become official in July when the Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope issues a formal determination of the number of House members to be elected form each state and territory. The determination is always made one year after the first sitting of the House of Representatives following an election.

Commissioner Pope has no personal choice in making the determination as the method is strictly defined in law. For states the Commissioner will apply the formula set out in Section 24 of the Constitution. For the Territories the Commissioner will use the formula set out in the Electoral Act. The Constitution also states that the Commissioner will use the “latest statistics of the Commonwealth”, a phrase the High Court and Parliament has determined will be the quarterly population statistics. Today’s ABS release of last December’s statistics is the population numbers that Commissioner Pope will use.

The precise calculations around how seats are allocated is explained inside this post.

Once the new numbers are officially announced at the end of July, a redistribution of Queensland federal boundaries will commence based on re-drawing the existing 30 seats. The new boundaries will be in place for the next election due in 2028.Read More »ABS Population Statistics confirm no change to State Representation for the Next Federal Election

The Financial Review’s Inaccurate Preference Analysis

One Nation’s polling surge has triggered an intense dissection of recent election results.

One Nation made the final preference count at the recent Farrer by-election. One Nation also finished in the final preference pairing in more than half of South Australian electorates at the state election in March. These results offer a mine of data where One Nation is a recipient of preferences rather than a provider.

Trying its luck dissecting the results on 7 June was the Australian Financial Review. It published an analysis piece on Farrer and South Australia headlined “How One Nation is winning the preferences war (with the Greens’ help)”.

As I will outline in this post, the article has confused published preference distribution data with more accurate but unavailable preference flow data. And the remark about Greens preferences isn’t backed by my analysis of the data.

The article was published three days before the Farrer flow data was released and the South Australian analysis has been attributed to preference flow data that is not available.

With the South Australian results, the article uses preference transfer data to draw some odd conclusions about Green preferences, and illustrates flows for other parties that aren’t justified given the quality of the data.

That the analytical problems, which I’ll explain in this post, have passed without much comment from anyone is due to the published chart included below. The chart tries to show SA preference flows from other parties to One Nation.

The chart’s meaning and data source are hard to unravel, but mirth has been the main reaction due to the inclusion of imaginary party names. It has caused the AFR to publish a correction and remove the chart from the on-line article.

LCP, an acronym for the Legalise Cannabis Party, is rendered as the Liberal Catholic Party. FGA, for Sarah Game’s Fair Go Australia, is transformed into the Family Guardian Association.

To the best of my knowledge, neither party name has ever been used in Australia.

It looks to me like a case of AI ‘hallucination’, AI asked to convert codes into party names and guessing it wrong. I doubt a human made those errors.

But enough cheap shots over party names. What I really want to explain is the article’s problems with data source and analysis.

With Farrer, I want to explain how the chart used to demonstrate the composition of One Nation’s winning vote uses the wrong data. It results in an incorrect emphasis on whose preferences were responsible for One Nation’s final margin.

With South Australia, the available data cannot be used to isolate the preference flows shown in the now deleted AFR chart. And the data that is available does not support the headlined conclusions about Greens preferences.

In both cases the problem comes down to limitations on how you can use preference transfer data from published distributions. The data must be treated with caution and can’t be automatically compared with more accurate preference flow data.Read More »The Financial Review’s Inaccurate Preference Analysis

2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

This morning the AEC finalised counting for the Farrer by-election with the release of detailed preference data.

It answers what I thought was a key question in the result – whether there was a difference between Liberal and National preference flows to One Nation. It was not possible to answer this question using the previously released full distribution of preferences.

Preference flow data tallies destination preferences from the primary votes for each excluded candidates to one of the final two candidates. In Farrer this data tallies preferences from ten excluded candidates to One Nation’s David Farley and Independent Michelle Milthorpe, the final pairing of candidates. Preference flow data ignores the intermediary stages published as part of the formal distribution of preferences.

The data released today reveals a difference in preference flows by supporters of the two Coalition parties . Liberal voter preference flows to One Nation were 59.0% compared to 69.1% for Nationals voters.

The flow data also reveals that One Nation’s David Farley did not need Liberal preferences to win. In the full distribution of preferences, Farley did not pass 50% until the Liberal candidate was the last excluded. Using the flow data where National preferences do not first flow through the Liberal candidate, Farley reached 50.2% on the flow of National preferences without the need for any Liberal preferences.

The question is whether the different flows tell us anything about how Liberal and National preferences would flow at a general election. In Farrer there was no Labor candidate in the final pairing. I suspect both National and Liberal preference flows to One Nation would have been higher in a final contest involving Labor rather than an Independent.

But it does suggest that Liberal preferences to One Nation will be weaker than those of National candidates. That was the case two decades ago in Queensland before the formation of the LNP. It in part reflects the different appeal of One Nation in rural electorates contested by Nationals versus the flows in urban electorates contested by Liberal candidates. One Nation polled a high enough first preference vote in Farrer for this difference not to matter. But a lower primary vote and weaker Liberal preferences would hamper One Nation hopes of winning urban seats.

Against this view, that the Liberal candidate drew top spot on the ballot paper with Milthorpe in second position suggests that the donkey vote may have played a party in the weaker Liberal preference flows to One Nation.

And it has to be remembered that preference flows from voters on the right of politics have always been weaker than from voters on the left. One Nation and the two Coalition parties rarely achieve the sorts of flows produced by the Greens in Farrer. Despite polling only 2.3% of the vote, Greens preferences flowed 91.8% to Independent Michelle Milthorpe. At general elections, Green voter preferences to Labor are consistently above 85%, a figure that the Liberal and National parties struggle to achieve from their supporters in three cornered contests.

I haven’t had time to pull apart the data by polling place, but the swing to One Nation was smaller in Albury, by far the largest regional centre in the seat. It was also in Albury where Liberal and Milthorpe support was strongest. Farley was better known in the west of the electorate where National support was also strongest. It may be the different preference flows reflect this familiarity with local candidates and the weaker One Nation support in Albury.

There’s more data on the preferences inside the post, along with an effort to graph the preferences data. Read More »2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

Farrer By-election post-mortem – Where to now for the Coalition?

There are lessons to be drawn for current politics from One Nation’s second Queensland election in 2001. A collapsing Labor government called a snap election and played the instability card. Labor’s campaign included a memorable ad (inside this post) comparing Pauline Hanson to a back seat driver interfering with a Coalition government. Labor was re-elected in a landslide, even sweeping Gold and Sunshine Coast seats for the first time.

Saturday’s Farrer by-election has revealed the scale of the threat One Nation poses to the electoral prospects of the Liberal and National Parties.

One Nation polled just short of 40% of the primary vote. At 12.4% the Liberal Party lost three-quarters of its vote from last year’s election. The Nationals polled only 9.7% of the primary vote and struggled to reach 15% at the western end of the electorate where it has traditionally dominated. All this in a seat that for eight decades has been one of the Coalition’s safest.

Labor chose not to contest the by-election which might have disappointed local party members and supporters. It was an easy decision to make given Labor hasn’t passed 20% in the seat for a decade, or reached 30% for three decades. Labor’s absence left the seat open for the slim chances of Independent Michelle Milthorpe.

But the main advantage for Labor is the by-election left no measure of One Nation’s impact on Labor’s vote. It is the Liberals and Nationals left picking through the wreckage of Saturday night’s result.

Farrer has given us a true measure of One Nation’s support. But it creates a series of new questions on how the Liberal Party, National Party and One Nation will engage with each other in the run-up to the next Federal election.

If repeated elsewhere, the Farrer result will come close to destroying the National Party and reduce its representation in the House of Representatives to a rump. The same existential threat applies to rural and regional Liberals.

We know that One Nation has always polled more strongly in rural and regional seats than in city seats. Last month’s South Australian election provided hints that One Nation could be a threat to Labor in some city seats.

But where One Nation is an electoral threat to Labor, it is an existential threat to the Liberal and National Parties. One Nation is a threat to their relevance, their chances of ever governing again, and to their continuing existence.

Labor’s current strength in the House of Representatives is from crushing the Liberal Party in urban seats over two Federal elections. The Liberal position was made even worse with the loss of previously safe seats to Independents.

Defeating Labor at the next election will not be achieved in rural seats like Farrer. It will be determined by whether the Liberal Party and One Nation can capture Labor seats in metropolitan areas.

Will the Liberal Party and One Nation co-operate to do this? Will they come to a non-compete arrangement as currently exists between the Liberals and Nationals? Will they swap preference recommendations, either by agreement or by disagreement but shared self interest?

In the last couple of weeks I’ve written several posts comparing One Nation performance at the 1998 Queensland election with recent results for the South Australian election, the Nepean by-election in Victoria last weekend, and now the Farrer result.

Post-Farrer, and looking towards the 2028 Federal election campaign, I’m moving forward three years to look at One Nation’s impact on the 2001 Queensland election.

In late 2000, the scandal-plagued Beattie Labor government adjourned parliament to avoid relying on the votes of Labor members expelled over various scandals. Beattie called a snap election for February 2001, and instead of being brought down by the scandals, achieved one of Queensland Labor’s biggest victories.

And in the week before election day, Labor released a campaign ad it called “Who’s driving”. I’ve included the ad inside this post. It played on the campaign chaos of the non-Labor parties and helped deliver the first Beattie landslide.

I would not be surprised if the message of this 2001 ad is replicated by Federal Labor over the next two years.Read More »Farrer By-election post-mortem – Where to now for the Coalition?