One Nation eyes Jim Chalmers' Queensland seat amid cost-of-living fury

Treasurer Jim Chalmers may be facing a political threat few would have considered possible a year ago, with new polling suggesting his Logan-based electorate of Rankin could be vulnerable to a One Nation surge at the next federal election.

Political analyst Dr Paul Williams told 4BC Breakfast the scenario is no longer something to dismiss. "Twelve months ago, we would have all laughed at that," he said. "Of course it's not — it was technically a safe seat." Chalmers holds Rankin on a 15 per cent after-preference margin and came within a handful of votes of winning outright on first preferences at the last election. The seat has been in Labor hands since it was created in the 1980s.

But Williams says something has shifted. New polling points to as many as 19 Queensland electorates potentially in One Nation's firing line, with Rankin among the seats attracting attention. He draws a parallel with the recent Secret Harbour by-election in Western Australia, where One Nation recorded a strong result in a demographically similar area — a fringe suburb seat, heavy with blue-collar workers, tradespeople and families carrying mortgages.

"It's a very material seat," Williams said. "The voters there aren't terribly concerned with things like the Voice or clean energy. They're much more concerned about paying the rent, keeping interest rates low, and grocery prices."

He noted that in most states One Nation draws disproportionately from the Liberal and National parties, but Queensland is different. At the state level, Labor has been a bigger loser to One Nation on primary vote — and Williams says that pattern is now bleeding into federal contests as well. While LNP-to-One Nation movement in Queensland has been tempered somewhat by the profile of David Crisafulli, that buffer appears to be narrowing.

"I don't think there would be a seat in Queensland where One Nation doesn't get into double digits," Williams said, including inner-city seats like Brisbane and Griffith. He was quick to add that winning 19 seats is an entirely different proposition to threatening them — but the direction of movement is clear.

The political pressure on Chalmers extends beyond the ballot box. His government's controversial property tax changes have become a flashpoint for cost-of-living frustration across south-east Queensland. Treasury modelling had forecast the changes would push median rents up by roughly two dollars a week. Critics argue rents have already climbed far faster than that, even before the measures fully take effect on 1 July next year, while capital city property values have fallen around 3.7 per cent in just three months.

Chalmers has urged the public not to judge the modelling until the changes are in place, but business figures including former Shark Tank investor Steve Baxter have joined calls for the government to reconsider before further damage is done. Whether that political pressure, combined with shifting voter sentiment in outer-suburban Queensland, is enough to rattle a seat as historically safe as Rankin remains to be seen — but the conversation alone marks a significant moment for the Treasurer heading into an election cycle.