How much longer can Anthony Albanese afford to overlook One Nation while maintaining the illusion that he isn’t sidelining a significant portion of the Australian electorate?
This is the dilemma currently facing the Prime Minister as he continues to withhold the same parliamentary resources from Pauline Hanson’s party that are extended to other minor parties.
According to a newly released RedBridge poll, One Nation has surged to 31 percent in the primary vote, surpassing Labor at 28 percent and leaving the Coalition trailing at 20 percent.
In terms of a two-party-preferred calculation, Labor holds only a slight edge over Hanson’s party, with a tight 51 to 49 percent lead.
It’s no surprise, then, that over the weekend Hanson discussed her ambitions to transition to the House of Representatives and her readiness to take on the role of Prime Minister.
Given these polling numbers, it’s clear that such aspirations are no longer far-fetched.
The RedBridge numbers don’t exist in a vacuum either. They reflect exactly what Roy Morgan polling revealed weeks ago.
And for a long time now One Nation’s primary vote has surged, consistently outperforming the Coalition over the past year.
How much longer can Albanese justify denying Pauline Hanson the parliamentary resources minor political parties are entitled to?
When you combine this sustained polling momentum with actual electoral breakthroughs, like winning the Farrer by-election – a seat the Coalition had never lost – the message is undeniable.
The old political class can sneer and mutter about populism, but the voters are telling the major parties something they desperately want to ignore.
One Nation is no longer just a Senate irritant. With four senators and two lower house MPs, when you add Barnaby Joyce’s defection into the mix, it boasts six federal parliamentarians, clearing the five member threshold for official minority party status.
Under the established framework of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act, minority parties of this size are allocated additional staffing resources and party rooms so their representatives can function properly.
That has not been the case for One Nation.
Faced with this undeniable political surge, how much longer can the Prime Minister justify denying Hanson’s party such resources?
He is playing political games using his discretion to deny Hanson extra resources that other minor parties – believe me – have always got.
In the process, Albo is trashing a basic democratic principle.
Albanese is playing political games using his discretion to deny Hanson extra resources
The PM is perfectly entitled to campaign against One Nation. If he decides Labor will put it last on its how-to-vote cards, that is his prerogative as a party leader.
But using his institutional power as PM to deliberately and ideologically deny a parliamentary party the resources ordinarily associated with its status is a disgrace.
It is a simple misuse of prime ministerial institutional power, as well as a show of contempt for voters registering increased support for One Nation.
Not that any of us should be surprised by that. If you have enough contempt for voters to lie ahead of an election about the specifics of what you will or won’t do, only to break those promises less than 12 months later, the sky is the limit when it comes to acting dishonourably.
When the Greens or the Australian Democrats became recognised parliamentary forces, the system accommodated them with party rooms and additional staff for their leaders.
When rural independents demanded extra resources to serve their constituents, as part of their deal to prop up the Gillard government, guess who was supporting them, as the Leader of the House overseeing things? Albo, of course.
Now that the party in question is One Nation, the rules have conveniently become optional, a denial of extra resources suits the PM’s low-brow game-playing.
The Greens benefit from additional resourcing – but One Nation is not so lucky
Albo’s show of contempt is impossible to separate from partisan self-interest. He refuses to normalise One Nation because Labor’s strategy depends on portraying it as a fringe outfit.
He denies Hanson the machinery to operate effectively because he fears she might actually use it against Labor now, not just the Coalition.
That may be clever politics, but it is rotten democracy.
Defenders of Albo’s political game playing will cite taxpayer costs. Give me a break. Canberra is awash with public money for consultants, reviews, and political theatre.
The sudden concern for fiscal restraint only appears when voters elect people the government dislikes. This isn’t exactly a government focused on spending less of your money!
The procedural hardball Albo is playing with his prime ministerial discretion exposes a deeper, more dangerous pattern of behaviour.
The PM is treating Parliament not as a democratic forum, but as a tool to protect Labor from uncomfortable competition.
Parliament isn’t there to entrench the Greens when they are useful to Labor’s left in the Senate, and starve One Nation of institutional oxygen when they start to threaten Labor as a government.
Hanson is pictured with her team in the Senate, above
Voters decide legitimacy, not Anthony Albanese.
You don’t need to support One Nation to see the danger here. The test of democratic principle is whether you apply it when voters produce an outcome you find distasteful.
If One Nation is as unserious as its critics claim, give it the resources attached to its parliamentary status (just like everyone else) and let it be judged on its performance.
By rigging the institutional playing field, Albo is feeding the very grievance on which One Nation thrives.
He is confirming their central message: the system is stacked, and the establishment has contempt for anyone outside its approved ideological boundaries.
Why hand Hanson that argument gift-wrapped? It will produce the same outcome if the media cuts One Nation and its leader out of debates and election coverage, now that it shares the stage equally according to the polls.
Democracy requires the acceptance that institutions must function beyond immediate partisan advantage. Albo likes to present himself as a defender of democratic norms, but those norms are easy to uphold when they benefit only your side.
The real test comes when a party you despise wins seats, captures a massive primary vote, and demands treatment consistent with its standing.
On that test, Albo is utterly failing. He’s not just insulting One Nation, he is insulting the millions of Australians using it to send a message that the major parties refuse to hear. The PM doesn’t have to agree with Pauline Hanson, but he should respect the voters.
And the more One Nation rises, the worse that contempt looks.
