Albanese Holds Record Majority as One Nation Surges in Polls

In May 2025, Anthony Albanese led Labor to the biggest election win in Australian history, taking 94 of the 150 House of Representatives seats. Pauline Hanson's One Nation won none. Sixteen months on, News Poll has One Nation on 30% of the primary vote and Labor on 27%.

The gap between those two pictures is the story: a government with overwhelming parliamentary strength and a sharp fall in public support.

Albanese's position on paper

Albanese became prime minister in 2022 with a two-seat majority. His 2025 result was the most seats any party has won at a federal election. Labor kept every seat it already held, and he became the first prime minister to be re-elected since John Howard in 2004. The next election is not due until 2028. Under Labor's rules, removing a sitting Labor prime minister requires the backing of 75% of the party's MPs and senators. In August 2026 he passed Paul Keating's time in office, making him the longest-serving prime minister since Howard.

Popularity is another matter

The May 2026 budget restricted negative gearing to newly built homes and changed the capital gains tax discount. Labor had ruled out both at the 2025 election, and the ABC reported that Treasurer Jim Chalmers conceded the promise had been broken. Cost-of-living pressure followed. A war involving the United States and Iran pushed up global oil and Australian fuel prices, and the Reserve Bank raised rates four times in 2026, taking the cash rate to its highest level since 2011.

News Poll's September survey of 1,244 voters put Labor's primary vote at 27%, its lowest in that poll since 2012 and down from 37% a year earlier. Albanese's net approval fell to minus 27, the worst of his time in office. Other pollsters were kinder: a Redbridge-style Dem AU poll had Labor up two points to 28%, and Roy Morgan estimated Labor would still beat One Nation 54 to 46 after preferences.

One Nation's rise

Hanson entered federal parliament in 1996 and founded One Nation in 1997. The party won almost 23% of the vote and 11 seats at the 1998 Queensland election, then collapsed. Hanson lost her federal seat, was jailed for electoral fraud and had the conviction overturned on appeal. She spent more than a decade losing elections before returning to the Senate in 2016.

At the 2025 election One Nation grew from two senators to four. The pace then picked up. Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce left the Nationals and joined the party in late 2025. In early 2026 News Poll had One Nation ahead of the Coalition for the first time. In March it won four lower house seats at the South Australian state election, and in May David Farley won a federal seat, the party's first ever House of Representatives win by election. By September News Poll had it in first place on 30%.

Pollsters disagree

Not every survey shows the same height. A September Dem AU poll had One Nation on 26%, and a mid-September Roy Morgan survey on 25.5%. News Poll also found 51% of voters disapprove of Hanson personally. And polling is not seats: One Nation holds two of the 150 House seats, including Joyce's New England, alongside its four senators.

A state-by-state split

News Poll's quarterly breakdown of 4,967 voters, surveyed between July and September, shows sharp regional differences. In Queensland One Nation was on 36%, 11 points ahead of Labor, and voters there preferred Hanson to Albanese as prime minister 52 to 48. In New South Wales One Nation edged Labor 31 to 30. In Western Australia Labor led by a single point, and in Victoria Labor led 29 to 25.

Roy Morgan's late-September survey shows the same pattern, with One Nation strongest in Queensland at 32.5%. It also put the party weakest in South Australia at 18.5%, the state where it won four seats in March, though that sample was only 228 people and should be treated with caution.

The facts, then, are a record Labor majority, falling Labor polling and a real One Nation surge. Whether that translates into seats, and whether it lasts to 2028, remains an open question.