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 in Australia 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%.
‘Legitimate Concerns’
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has accused One Nation and the Coalition of seeking to “benefit” from people’s “legitimate concerns” about the economy, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson told ABC that she has the ability to lead Australia as prime minister but admits she was shocked by a poll that suggested One Nation had pulled ahead of Labour.
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 the younger Australians it aims to benefit.
One Nation’s Presence
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 distributed 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.
(with inputs from Reuters)
