The little coastal corner of Perth sending shivers through Australian politics

August 30, 2026 — 8:18am

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One Nation is no longer just a headache for the conservative side of Australian politics – it poses a clear and present danger to Labor too.

That is the message sent loud and clear at the Secret Harbour byelection on Saturday night from the sleepy little coastal electorate in the mortgage belt about 50 kilometres south of Perth’s CBD.

By 10.30pm, the populist right-wing party candidate, gym owner Luke Herdegen, had sealed his victory as the first-ever lower house One Nation MP in WA parliament with a primary vote swing of 30 per cent, carved from both Labor and the Liberals.

It was a stunning loss for Labor, which has firmly held various iterations of the seat since the 1980s, and confirms suspicions that One Nation has made inroads into outer suburban Australia and can draw votes away from Labor heartlands.

With a caveat that byelections often draw votes away from incumbent governments when the stakes around who will actually govern the state aren’t as high, this result has serious lessons for the state and federal MPs whose electorates........

© WA Today