‘I didn’t change. Labor did’: Meet the voters One Nation is stealing from the major parties

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The rise of the One Nation voter is disrupting Australian politics. Crikey speaks to seven former Labor and Coalition voters about why they're turning to Pauline Hanson. The post…

Keith Marriott, now in his 60s, worked in Northern Territory mines to fund his training as a pilot, a career that led him to the captain’s seat of a Qantas 747. He grew up in a lower-middle-class family, describing himself as “basically the original working-class man”.

A long-time Labor voter, Keith backed Anthony Albanese in 2022, having always hoped the ALP would bring about “an egalitarian Australia that took everyone along”, one that “didn’t penalise big business for doing well, didn’t penalise people that had succeeded for doing well”.

“That was the promise that they failed to deliver,” he told me. “One of the things that really rankles me is that the average person hasn’t done very well out of the policies of the Labor Party. They’re idealistic, but completely misguided in application.”

Jill, 73, has been widowed twice, and now works as a volunteer, living in the northern Sydney beachside suburb of Manly. She said she was once a “very loyal supporter” of the Liberals and “a banner girl for Tony Abbott” (she’d still be voting Liberal if they’d kept him, she said).

Keith and Jill are among seven former Labor and Coalition voters Crikey spoke to who are now looking to One Nation. None match the redneck caricature that has followed the party since Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech in 1996, and many claim the parties they supported for years have deserted them.

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They are part of the recent rise in One Nation voters disrupting Australian politics. In the latest Newspoll, taken between October 26 and 29, One Nation’s primary vote was at 28%, up from 6.4% at the 2025 federal election. That puts it ahead of Labor on 27% and the Coalition on 21%.

A survey of 1,014 One Nation voters by Utting Research found that 70% had voted for another party at the 2025 election or not voted at all.

Chris Runner, a retired firefighter from Bondi in his 50s, comes from a left-wing family, with his grandfather a former member of…

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