Despite One Nation having only two House of Representatives seats, politically-savvy observers now believe it is possible the insurgent party could be the de facto opposition that Labor faces in 2028.

Two Redbridge polls have carried this message.

The first, a seat-by-seat mapping of the country, published by the Australian Financial Review earlier this month, suggested that in an election held now, the Coalition would be almost wiped out by the One Nation surge.

The latest poll, taken in the wake of the budget and published by the AFR on Sunday, has One Nation ahead of Labor (for the first time) and the Coalition continuing to languish. One Nation’s primary vote was 31% to Labor’s 28% with the Coalition at 20%.

One Nation, it seems, is the party that’s received a “bounce” from an unpopular budget, up four points in a month, while both Labor and the Coalition went backwards.

As preferred prime minister, Pauline Hanson trails Anthony Albanese 25% to 31%, with Angus Taylor on 14%.

The day Taylor set foot in parliament in 2013, or indeed before that, he was seen as a potential leader, a possible future prime minister. When Pauline Hanson arrived in the House of Representatives in 1996, she was regarded as a political outsider, disendorsed by the Liberals for racist........

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