In Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall, Paul Pennyfeather observes that the world is divided into the dynamic and the static. The dynamic, he notes, cause most of the trouble. Australian politics has spent the better part of three decades treating Pauline Hanson's One Nation as static, a regional irritant that flares occasionally before subsiding into irrelevance. The latest polling suggests the irritant has learned to move.
TLDR
The latest Resolve Political Monitor shows One Nation's primary vote has moved ahead of the Coalition, with Labor dropping to 29%. The surge coincides with escalating conflict in the Middle East and domestic cost-of-living pressures. One Nation is drawing voters from both major parties, suggesting the realignment is not simply a protest vote but a more fundamental shift in how Australians view the political establishment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The Resolve Political Monitor, conducted from March 9 to 14 as war in the Middle East escalated beyond Iran and Israel into broader regional conflict, shows One Nation's primary vote has pushed ahead of the Coalition. Labor dropped three points to 29%. Neither major party seems capable of arresting the drift.
Where the votes are coming from
The easy explanation is that One Nation takes Coalition votes, pulling the conservative base rightward while Labor benefits from preference flows. This was true in earlier iterations of Hanson's movement. It is less true now. The March 2026 figures show Labor haemorrhaging support to One Nation in outer suburban and regional seats that Labor held comfortably a decade ago.
These are the seats where housing costs have risen fastest relative to incomes. Where immigration has visibly changed neighbourhood composition. Where petrol prices bite hardest and public transport doesn't exist. The voters leaving Labor for One Nation are not ideological conservatives. They are people who feel the system has stopped working for them and have concluded that neither major party intends to fix it.
The Coalition's losses follow a different pattern. One Nation appeals to voters who once trusted the Liberals on economic management but now see both parties as captured by the same corporate and bureaucratic interests. The Culture War talking points that once energised the Liberal base have lost their charge. When everything is an outrage, nothing is.
The Middle East factor
The timing of the polling, during the escalation of conflict following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is not incidental. One Nation has positioned itself as the party most willing to question Australian involvement in American-led interventions. This is not pacifism; Hanson's foreign policy instincts are nationalist rather than internationalist. But the distinction matters less to voters who simply do not want their petrol prices determined by wars they did not choose.
Neither Labor nor the Coalition has offered a coherent alternative. The Albanese government has maintained alliance commitments while hoping the conflict resolves itself. The Dutton opposition has criticised the government's rhetoric while supporting substantively identical policies. Voters who want a different approach find One Nation waiting.
The independent complication
One Nation's surge is not the only force fragmenting Australian politics. The 2022 federal election demonstrated that well-funded independents could take Liberal seats in wealthy urban areas. The 2025 Victorian and 2026 South Australian state elections showed the model spreading. Independents now compete effectively in seats across the political spectrum.
The result is a political landscape where major parties can win government only through preference negotiations with movements they cannot control. Labor needs Green preferences in inner cities and cannot afford to lose One Nation-leaning voters in the outer suburbs. The Coalition faces the inverse problem. Both parties are pulled in directions that make coherent governing coalitions harder to assemble.
What the majors are missing
The standard response from major party strategists is that One Nation voters will return when the alternatives appear too risky. This assumes voters weigh One Nation's policies and find them wanting. The evidence suggests something different: many One Nation voters do not care about policy specifics. They are voting against a political class they have concluded does not represent them.
This is not a complaint that can be addressed with better messaging or targeted announcements. It reflects a deeper legitimacy crisis. When the Reserve Bank raises rates and petrol prices surge simultaneously, voters in mortgage stress do not distinguish between parties that both supported the policies leading to their predicament. They look for someone who at least sounds angry about it.
One Nation provides that anger. Whether it provides competent governance is a different question, one that many voters have decided they no longer care to ask. The major parties spent decades telling voters there was no alternative. Now there is one, and telling voters it is unfit for government has stopped working.
What happens next
Polling this far from an election has limited predictive value. But the direction of movement matters more than the specific numbers. One Nation's vote share has risen in every Resolve survey this year. The trend suggests a structural shift rather than a temporary protest.
If the next federal election produces a hung parliament with One Nation holding the balance of power, the major parties will face choices they have spent careers avoiding. Governing with One Nation support would compromise both parties' claims to represent mainstream Australia. Governing without that support may be impossible.
The dynamic has started moving. Where it stops is no longer something the major parties control.
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