One Nation's Farrer Win Sparks Questions Over Party Control

A new ABC Four Corners documentary has turned a spotlight on One Nation's sudden rise in regional Australia, examining the party's recent byelection triumph and raising questions about how it is run behind the scenes.

The program centres on the result in the New South Wales seat of Farrer, a Coalition stronghold held since 1949. At the last general election One Nation polled just 6.6 per cent there. At the byelection, triggered after former Liberal leader Susan Ley resigned the seat, the party's vote surged to roughly 40 per cent, delivering victory to candidate David Farley.

Farley, a former chief executive of a major agribusiness company, was preselected by party members ahead of the contest. Local voters told the program they switched allegiance after years of backing the Liberal or National parties, citing frustration with major-party representation and a sense the farming region had been neglected.

Among them was a longtime local business owner who had always voted Liberal or National before this year. He said he admired Pauline Hanson's persistence through decades of political setbacks and felt the major parties had stopped listening to people like him.

Water policy emerged as a flashpoint in the agricultural seat. Farmers pointed to the cost of water buybacks, including one figure put at $321 million in a single council area, as evidence that policy had tilted too far toward environmental outcomes at the expense of irrigators.

Immigration also featured prominently, even though the Riverina food bowl electorate depends heavily on migrant labour. Farley indicated he would face pressure from within the party to back a pause on immigration, a stance that sits awkwardly alongside an economy reliant on overseas workers.

Beyond the Farrer result, the documentary examines concerns raised by former party figures about how One Nation operates internally. Ex-insiders allege Pauline Hanson effectively holds the leadership for life with little independent oversight, describing a structure they say lacks the checks and balances expected of a democratic organisation. The program also notes the party has shown limited appetite for media scrutiny of its own workings.

Polling cited in the documentary suggests the party's growth reflects broader voter anger at the major parties rather than enthusiasm for any single policy, with support increasingly functioning as a protest vote against the political establishment.

Commentators have described the Farrer result as a warning for both the Coalition and Labor, showing that long-held rural seats are no longer automatically safe from a minor party that spent decades on the fringes of federal politics. With accountability now a live question for the party itself, the documentary asks whether One Nation's internal structure can withstand the scrutiny that comes with genuine electoral power.