The One Nation conundrum: details don’t matter and their voters are OK with that

August 28, 2026 — 5:00am

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“Shut up about immigration,” George Christensen warned David Farley this week, apparently not for the first time. For those catching up, Farley is One Nation’s recently elected member for Farrer. Christensen is the former LNP parliamentarian who is now part of the One Nation machinery and helped Farley get elected.

Christensen keeps telling Farley to shut up because Farley keeps saying very un-Hanson-like things. We can surmise it was not a mistake this week when Farley declared on Insiders that One Nation’s migration intake would be “not too different” in size to what the Albanese government’s proposing.

Meanwhile, this masthead published the results of a survey of 1000 One Nation supporters, showing about half of them are still available to be won back by the establishment parties, and that slashing immigration is overwhelmingly the way to do it. Here, some caution is advised. This survey was conducted online. Other research shows surprisingly little emphasis on immigration in this cohort, and even that some are decamping to One Nation despite its immigration policies. But it’s also true that polls have emphatically shown One Nation to be the most trusted party on the issue. I expect that to continue, even as One Nation’s actual policy unravels under scrutiny.

Farley is dissenting from Hanson because the businesses in his electorate rely so much on migrant labour. These are the people picking fruit and cotton, working in the........

© Brisbane Times