Australia's far-right party leads in national poll for first time

May 31, 2026 11:05 PM EDT

Campaign signs depicting One Nation candidate David Farley and former Australia soldier Ben Roberts-Smith are displayed outside a pre-polling centre ahead of the Farrer by-election in Albury, Australia, May 6, 2026. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

SYDNEY, June 1 (Reuters) - Australia's ‌far-right populist ​party ​One Nation overtook the ruling Labor party in a national opinion poll for the first time, buoyed ‌by voter discontent over the centre-left government's recent budget ⁠measures.

• Primary support for One Nation rose four percentage points to 31% ‌from a month earlier, ‌according to a closely watched poll by Redbridge Group and Accent Research.

• The ruling centre-left Labor party polled at ​28%, down three points.

• Support for the conservative coalition opposition fell two points to 20%.

• The polling comes after ⁠the government's May 12 budget introduced the biggest changes to property taxes in decades, ​to tackle intergenerational inequity.

• The results suggest the proposed measures failed to win over voters, and were ​especially unpopular with the Gen ‌X and Baby Boomer cohorts.

• But it also appeared unpopular among younger Australians it aims to ⁠benefit.

• Just 26% of Millennials and 13% of Gen-Z voters believed the budget would be good for them, it showed.

• Labor was ⁠still ahead of One Nation 51% to 49% on a two-party-preferred basis, ​when respondents distribute preferences under Australia's ranked-choice voting system.

• The poll of 1,005 voters, with an error margin of 3.4%, was held between May ‌25 and May 28.

• Since its 1997 launch, One Nation, led by Pauline Hanson, has ‌had only a peripheral presence in Australia's parliament.

• But its recent ⁠resurgence came after it ‌tapped into voter anxieties ​over high living costs, economic uncertainty and anti-immigration sentiment.

(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Clarence ‌Fernandez)



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