South Australia could be the testing ground for a new political shake-up, as One Nation’s surge in popularity shifts voter support from conservatives. Political editor Constance Siasios speaks with four academics and a supporter ahead of today’s state election (Image: Doug Barber, aerial view of Adelaide, via WikiMedia Commons, CC BY-SA; jfish92, Pauline Hanson, via WikiMedia Commons, CC0).
By Constance Siasios | @constance.siasios
“It’s the nativism and the far-right aspect of [One Nation]’s platform that I think is the real danger,” political researcher and Monash University senior lecturer Dr Benjamin Moffitt says.
One Nation, founded by Pauline Hanson, has recently gained traction in SA by climbing in opinion polls ahead of today’s state election.
Formed in 1997, the party spent much of its early years on the margins of Australian politics.
The Electoral Commission of South Australia shows One Nation only secured one seat at the state election in 2022.
One Nation’s lead SA upper house candidate in 2026 is Cory Bernardi, who has policy promises on health, gun laws, coal and nuclear power.
Bernardi was contacted but did not respond before publication.
A recent YouGov poll, reported by The Advertiser, shows One Nation polling at 22 per cent in South Australia, three points ahead of a historically low result for the Liberal Party.
It echoes results from the last South Australian state election, where the Liberal Party held just 16 of the 47 lower house seats, short of the 24 needed for a majority.
Recent polling suggests the Liberals could again lose multiple seats, with ABC reporting the party is staring at a significant electoral loss as support for One Nation grows.
One Liberal insider told the ABC “anything more than four or five [seats] would be considered a win” while another was holding hope the party would “come close to double digits.”
Experts say the surge is less about One Nation changing and more about the decline of its competitors.
“So much of it is because of the failure of the coalition… and One Nation’s been able to capitalise on that,” Dr Moffitt says.
Over the past four years, the SA Liberal Party has had four different leaders.
“I’ve been watching [One Nation] now pretty carefully for decades, and they haven’t done anything particularly novel or different to explain where this massive rise has come from,” Dr Moffitt says.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance Dr Emily Foley says the party’s rise is driven by a combination of political and social factors.
Dr Foley agrees with this, describing the surge as stemming from the “complete annihilation of the coalition.”
At Adelaide University’s Bragg Theatre on Thursday night, recently retired ABC election analyst Antony Green said, “specifically in Europe, the emergence of anti-migrant, right-wing, populist parties are becoming very apparent.”
The Liberal Party’s poor result at last May’s federal election saw them lose all metropolitan seats in South Australia.
Writing on his blog, Green said that this, combined with recent polling showing the Liberal primary vote collapsing while One Nation’s support rises, could signal another difficult outcome for the Liberals during today’s state election.
So, who are the voters driving this surge?
Dr Foley says, “there tends to be a higher support for One Nation for individuals who have not completed tertiary education.”
Adelaide University student and One Nation volunteer Angus Organ says, “One Nation is the only party addressing the mass immigration policies of the Left and speaking on the impact they have had on housing prices and the strain on the healthcare system.”
“From the authoritarian handling of COVID in Australia to the Labor Party’s mass immigration policy … Australians have had enough and are looking for an alternative to put their trust in,” he says.
Retired economic geographer and sociologist Dr Sally Weller highlights that the strongest supporters of One Nation are often not the least privileged voters, but those concerned about losing their financial security.
“The research says that the people who are the strongest supporters of the One Nation type parties globally are not the people who are poor, but they’re the people who fear becoming poor,” Dr Weller says.
“It’s an important distinction.”
According to the 2025 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, more than one in four households spend over 30 per cent of their disposable income on housing-related costs, regardless of income level.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in December 2025 that living costs increased for all household types over the past year, driven primarily by housing, food, non-alcoholic beverages, recreation and culture.
“So, you’ll get people who are probably earning very high wages but can still be supporting One Nation because of the vulnerability of the position that they’re in,” Dr Weller says.
Flinders University senior lecturer in government Dr Josh Holloway notes “some prior research has also shown One Nation to be a magnet” for attracting fringe groups including “anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, and varied conspiracy theorists.”
However, overall, Dr Foley says the “underlying feature” uniting One Nation supporters is “an enhanced sense of nativism.”
“From Pauline Hanson, down to the party’s leaders and members, are unapologetic and authentic Australians who believe in complete equality and embracing Australian culture,” Organ says.
One Nation’s policies reflect this focus on exclusionary nationalism, with proposals to cap immigration at 130,000 for all visa categories, including international students, with the stated goal of reducing demand for housing.
However, Dr Moffitt warns that the party’s “exclusionary nationalism… endangers … social cohesion and multiculturalism.”
He adds that it’s “pro-people, anti-elite framing” that helps soften controversial ideas and make some of those things acceptable.
Media and social media also play a key role in One Nation’s visibility.
“Voting behaviour is complex … the media also has broader, less direct effects around agenda-setting power and legitimising certain factors,” Dr Holloway says.
“Certain social media platforms have been shown to algorithmically promote or favour the issue positions taken by One Nation.
“This isn’t a pattern specific to Australia either, we see it replicated for other populist radical right parties across comparable democracies,” he says.
In an interview with the ABC, One Nation SA leader Bernardi said he stands “100 per cent” by comments he made almost 14 years ago linking gay marriage to the social acceptance of bestiality.
“There’s a broad expectation that One Nation’s candidates will have outlandish, controversial, or outright reprehensible views on a range of matters, though, it’s important to note Bernardi was a Liberal Senator at the time [of the initial statement],” Dr Holloway says.
Dr Moffitt explains that the party’s messaging is suited to the contemporary social media landscape, given how their controversial messaging creates online outrage.
“You can see the appeal of that to someone who’s just gone, all politicians are the same, I hate all politicians, this is refreshing, this is funny, this is taboo, and that’s where I think can cut through to certain constituencies,” he says.
Dr Holloway agrees, stating “there are many reasons behind this party’s system change, the erosion of party loyalty or ‘identification’ … the perception of overly similar policy positions [and] the inability of major parties to effectively generate coalitions of diverse voters.”
“The major parties haven’t responded to in a way that satisfies voters, which minor parties then centre in their positioning, such as climate change, immigration, and housing,” he says.
Organ believes One Nation’s best policies include lowering immigration, repealing the SA Voice to Parliament, better utilisation of minerals and resources, and removing material that the party describes as “politically biased” from education.
Dr Foley notes that young people’s disillusionment, particularly around housing, may drive support despite a “lack of genuine policy offerings.”
With election results approaching, all eyes are now on South Australia.
Dr Moffitt believes Bernardi has had a sizeable media and political career, and South Australia is the first test case of this perceived rise in the polls.
“I think this is going to be treated as kind of a bellwether… this state election there’ll be a lot of people watching it closely for this reason, even the rest of Australia might be watching a little more closely than it would usually be,” he says.
As Dr Moffitt notes, One Nation’s success so far is less about doing something new and more about capitalising on failures elsewhere.
The state election results will reveal whether this is a fleeting moment or a sign of deeper shifts in Australian politics.
The South Australian state election is being held today, Saturday, March 21, 2026.