In March, I wrote a piece for this masthead discussing the Farrer by-election. I took the view that, while an interesting election, the odds were stacked in the favour of either a coalition candidate or the independent Michelle Milthorpe. A race to watch; a race to note Labor’s absence; a race which would test the Liberals—but nothing extraordinary.

I believed that Coalition preferences would shield Farrer from the surge of One Nation, and that conservative Farrer did not have an appetite for extremists. I was terribly wrong.

When I stood at Albury polling booths on Saturday, a sea of orange seemed to extend in every direction. One Nation (ONP) faced off with independent Michelle Milthorpe for my conservative regional seat, both parties donning orange shirts and caps. On Saturday evening, One Nation won the seat of Farrer. Only last year, the concept of an ONP victory in Farrer was far-fetched; they finished the 2025 federal election with less than seven per cent of the primary vote. Since then, a shift in the national zeitgeist has proven that there are no certainties in politics.

It took only two hours for the ABC to call the election for the hard-right, anti-migration, pro-life One Nation candidate David Farley. Farley has been the frontrunner for weeks, and TAB betting odds had Farley at 1.09 a day before the election, compared to Michelle Milthorpe in second place with 6.50. On only the 30^th of March this year, betting odds preferred Milthorpe. So, what happened? It’s difficult to tell which factors truly decided this election, but as an Albury local, I’ve watched the independent and coalition campaigns fail to stand up to the orange tide of the far right.

How did we get here?

Weeks ago, both the Liberal and National candidates preferenced ONP above Milthorpe on their how-to-vote (HTV) cards; a major blow to Milthorpe’s chance of success. This was especially unusual, given that the Liberals and Nationals ran deliberate smear campaigns against David Farley. In what was dubbed a “four-horse-race” by Channel 9 and the ABC, those HTV preferences were critical. We’re now seeing the impact of a coalition who fear losing a seat to a strong, centrist independent more than they fear the possibility of an ONP surge. Even speaking this evening, you could see Angus Taylor desperately searching for relevance, speaking at length about drilling and energy, which have not been major concerns in this by-election.

One Nation is having a surge in popularity across the country, and in the past, ONP votes in Farrer have not differed greatly from their nation-wide result. The Farrer victory is, to some extent, a symptom of a national movement. David Farley received about 40 per cent of the primary vote on Saturday.

It would be remiss of me not to lay some of the blame of the independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe’s campaign. Not only was she an established community independent who ran in last year’s election, she had the backing of significant political figures including David Pocock, Albury Deputy Mayor Jess Kellahan and Dr Helen Haynes. The race was Milthorpe’s to lose. She presented as a moderate candidate, with a definitive position on building a new local hospital. However, over the campaign, it became increasingly clear that she did not have positions on a range of significant issues. She revealed that she had previously been a staunch Liberal voter, she backflipped on her support for net zero, and she accepted endorsements from Bob Katter and other conservative figures, all while accepting Greens preferences.

I was still shocked, however, at how easily David Farley won.

Farley is a controversial candidate for a variety of reasons. He broke ONP position during a candidates’ debate on migration, suggesting that current immigration “isn’t too high”, and he later withdrew the comment on social media. He also used to be a Labor donor and sought Labor preselection at a previous election, leading to suggestions that he is after the seat rather than genuinely representing community interests. He donated to Milthorpe in the last federal election and confessed that he considered a position in the coalition. On election eve, he told a prominent local hospital campaigner and doctor, Lachie McKeeman, that he “can see why he lost his job” at a candidates’ forum, earning boos from the crowd. There was also a viral clip of a conflict between an ONP volunteer and Liberal senator James Paterson over which Farley walked back an apology. And yet he was the definitive winner of the election.

What does this mean?

For me, it’s disheartening to know that my seat will be represented by One Nation. In a campaign filled with mis and disinformation, I feel that the electorate has not made an informed decision, and we have ended up even worse off than we were under decades of Sussan Ley. Farrer Greens candidate Richard Hendrie condemned the “dangerous and divisive rhetoric” of One Nation, and David Farley was one of few candidates in the by-election who did not advocate for a new hospital on a new site, as shown in the below Milthorpe poster.

Campaign Poster from Michelle Milthorpe detailing views on the new site Albury hospital.

You could tell, on the ground, all day, that the momentum was behind One Nation. Barnaby Joyce, Pauline Hanson and David Farley seemed to be everywhere, and their volunteer numbers were huge. I hope that this is a wakeup call for the Liberal Party and for the Country, as we see the impact of a disenfranchised regional electorate. Progressive voters I talked to this week are considering leaving Farrer, and most are hoping that, like 70 per cent of elected ONP politicians, Farley defects from the party within his first term of parliament.

In March, I wrote that “This election will be the first test of the Liberal Party” against the One Nation threat at a federal level. The LNP failed spectacularly, with around a 31-percentage-point fall in their vote. Yet other candidates could not stop the surge of the populist either. Independents and Nationals who had a genuine opportunity to win failed to convince the electorate, and the primary vote for the Greens fell, as progressive voters placed Milthorpe first out of fear of ONP.

We now live in a world where One Nation’s significant presence in parliament is no longer a ludicrous prospect. We’re past the days of cheap, racist stunts. We’re looking down the barrel of a significant hard-right movement, and I for one hope that Australia chooses to fight, rather than roll over and accept the hateful culture-war politics of Pauline Hanson.