We’ve all thought Pauline Hanson’s biggest challenge in the lower house was going to come from Barnaby Joyce.
It may end up being the person sitting next to him.
David Farley is never going to challenge her for the leadership, obviously, but he presents a different kind of leadership challenge – because since he has been elected he has seemed completely determined to prove Hanson’s critics right.
A popular view among the few remaining Liberal supporters is that Hanson may be fun and fiesty, but she’s not actually ready to run an entire nation.
And clearly One Nation wants to prove this wrong, with Hanson addressing the National Press Club and unveiling a gas policy in recent weeks.
But that work could well be undone if Farley continues finding himself in headlines for all the wrong reasons.
On Wednesday, he accidentally voted with the Greens and the Teals in a division to cap fuel tax credit rebates for large mining companies.
He blamed a shortage of staff for the error.
But it doesn’t take a series of advisors to tell you that if you are a One Nation MP and Nicolette Boule is moving a motion, your mouth should start the process of saying the word “no”, preferably loudly.
Everyone makes mistakes, of course.
But Farley’s are mounting.
Earlier this week, he appeared on ABC radio to say that Australia “is multicultured… but it is Australia.”
Which isn’t exactly what his boss was going for in her calls for an Australian “monoculture”.
Before then, we saw him miss a vote in his first week of Parliament because he was distracted by a meeting – do we elect politicians to vote or meet?
And before that, he promised he would fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag alongside the Australian flag in his electorate office because “we all live in three worlds”.
Again, quite a distance from Hanson’s promise that she would only ever fly the Australian flag.
And before that – before he was even an MP – he said 306,000 migrants is “probably not” too many for Australia.
He then clarified his party would cap immigration at 130,000; there’s just a casual 176,000 migrant disparity between those two numbers.
All of that in two months.
It’s concerning for One Nation that every time Farley has departed from the party position on a topic, he’s done so by taking a more left-wing stance.
Where does he, in his heart of hearts, sit on the political spectrum?
But there is a bigger problem here.
Every time we think we have reached the peak of this One Nation surge, they keep climbing.
The Liberals are years away, and maybe multiple leaders away, from getting back on top of One Nation in the polls.
Barring a miracle, the next election will be a battle between Labor and One Nation.
Hanson has got as far as she has by standing up for disillusioned voters wanting to rail against the political class.
It shows how many people fit into this demographic that she’s still rising.
But the next big demographic to win over are the people who wouldn’t mind a shakeup at the top, but still feel wary about giving an outsider the keys to the country.
To win them over, One Nation needs to show it is a party of government.
It needs to show it can be a party of 76 MPs.
All of them voting in unison, all of them representing their voters, all of them behind their leader.
And if Hanson can’t even get one of her two MPs to be across the party’s voting platform – that’s an issue.
And let’s not forget, she hasn’t been able to fully get the other MP across the platform either.
I’m sure Farley points to Joyce’s howler on Sky News – where he promised to boot hundreds of thousands of permanent residents out of their homes before minutes later saying he’d let them keep them – and tells himself he is not alone.
But Farley’s mistakes are more jarring, and are not going anywhere.
He needs to be better.
Every time he gets a vote wrong, his boss needs to spend valuable time addressing the controversy and clarifying the party’s position.
Sussan Ley can tell anyone who would listen how sustainable that situation can be for a leader.
And every time he flubs, he gives Hanson’s critics more ammunition that she is not ready to lead a nation, and One Nation is not a party of government.
The Farrer byelection was a tremendous victory for One Nation.
If Farley keeps going the way he is, it might turn into a defeat.
James Bolt is a SkyNews.com.au Contributor