{"id":84463,"date":"2026-09-01T00:58:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/84463\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T00:58:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:58:43","slug":"secret-harbour-by-election-data-reveals-one-nation-threat-to-western-australian-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/84463\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Harbour by-election data reveals One Nation threat to Western Australian seats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A booth-by-booth analysis of Saturday\u2019s by-election won by One Nation spells major trouble for prominent Labor and Liberal MPs, and points to Labor potentially losing a host of seats in the Western Australian parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Booths inside the electorate held by federal Resources Minister Madeleine King \u2013 the most senior WA MP inside the Albanese government \u2013 showed massive swings away from Labor to One Nation, while booths inside leading Liberal Andrew Hastie\u2019s Canning electorate similarly showed huge movements in support away from his party towards One Nation.<\/p>\n<p>Those shifts, if replicated at a federal election, would almost certainly cost each of them their seats, although election analysts have cautioned against extrapolating from the by-election result.<\/p>\n<p>One Nation\u2019s <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/nation\/labor-hastie-rocked-as-massive-swing-delivers-one-nation-historic-victory-in-perth\/news-story\/5847beaf5cc00986fd51cf3c1788c91e\" target=\"_self\" data-tgev=\"event119\" data-tgev-container=\"bodylink\" data-tgev-order=\"5847beaf5cc00986fd51cf3c1788c91e\" data-tgev-label=\"nation\" data-tgev-metric=\"ev\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luke Herdegen on Saturday defeated Labor candidate Georgia Tree<\/a> to <a class=\"body-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/nation\/how-one-nation-shattered-a-labor-stronghold-in-the-secret-harbour-byelection\/news-story\/88b1bb52b11508bc27f444a51e2c0a49\" target=\"_self\" data-tgev=\"event119\" data-tgev-container=\"bodylink\" data-tgev-order=\"88b1bb52b11508bc27f444a51e2c0a49\" data-tgev-label=\"nation\" data-tgev-metric=\"ev\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">win the seat of Secret Harbour<\/a> on Perth\u2019s southern fringe. Labor suffered a 22 per cent swing against it, just five years after the party won with more than 83 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote.<\/p>\n<p>At the two Secret Harbour voting booths inside Ms King\u2019s seat of Brand, Labor\u2019s share of the vote fell from between 40 per cent and 44.6 per cent at last year\u2019s federal election to between 24.9 per cent and 28 per cent. <\/p>\n<p>One Nation\u2019s share of the vote more than doubled.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the Liberal vote at the six Secret Harbour booths in Mr Hastie\u2019s Canning electorate more than halved. The biggest drop came in Lakelands, where the Liberals went from 38.5 per cent of primaries at the federal election to just 14.8 per cent on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Ms King described the Secret Harbour by-election campaign as \u201cdifficult\u201d and said the result was a reminder of the need for Labor MPs to meet the community where they are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTimes are tough and people are struggling, but federal Labor has put in a lot of policies that have helped people in the southern suburbs that I\u2019m really proud of, like more bulk-billing places for healthcare, better funding of schools,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I get it \u2026 that that is sometimes taken as read and not always acknowledged and there is always more work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hastie, meanwhile, in an email to his supporters on Sunday seeking donations warned them that the division in his support base had created a \u201creal risk\u201d that he could lose Canning to Labor.<\/p>\n<p>The booth-by-booth breakdown from Secret Harbour showed that One Nation support was at its highest in the southern two-thirds of the electorate, suggesting that Labor-held seats to the south of Secret Harbour could be most at risk.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Herdegen has named the seats of Baldivis, Rockingham and Kwinana to the north of Secret Harbour as part of a new \u201cOne \u00adNation heartland\u201d, although One Nation\u2019s support was noticeably weaker at the booths closest to those electorates.<\/p>\n<p>Voters at Rockingham Lakes Primary School, a few hundred metres from the boundary with Baldivis and 2km from Mark McGowan\u2019s former electorate of Rockingham, recorded a vote for One Nation of just above 30 per cent, far lower than the 39 per cent first-preference vote for Mr \u00adHerdegen.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/739288debada5b1a18286ab689549bbc.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"\u2018They didn\u2019t see it coming\u2019: Luke Herdegen smashes Labor at by-election\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>University of Notre Dame executive dean and professor of politics and international relations Martin Drum told The Australian that the higher One Nation vote towards the southern end of the electorate, plus the support for One Nation at last year\u2019s state election, suggested Labor seats to the south of Secret Harbour could be particularly vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>Secret Harbour had one of the highest One Nation votes of any seat at last year\u2019s state election with 8.43 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>The seat of Mandurah to the south was one of the few with a higher One Nation vote, at 8.84\u00a0per cent, suggesting that Mandurah MP Rhys Williams could be in jeopardy.<\/p>\n<p>Other Labor-held seats with higher than average One Nation votes last year tended to fit the outer metro and regional profile generally considered the most vulnerable to One Nation.<\/p>\n<p>Pilbara (8.7 per cent), Thornlie (8.3 per cent), Baldivis (8.2 per cent), Armadale (8.2 per cent), Darling Range (8.1 per cent), Butler (7.8 per cent), Swan Hill (7.9 per cent) and Dawesville (6.97 per cent) all had elevated levels of support for One Nation last year and could be vulnerable if its current support holds.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/02505c6fe5a6da997cd27ce8a21da2f3.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"One Nation claims Secret Harbour by-election in major blow to Labor\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Professor Drum said the Secret Harbour result broadly aligned with what would be expected from public polling data, which showed a five-fold increase in support for the party in WA in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMandurah and Secret Harbour were the top two (for One Nation) at the last election, and there were still some decent votes in outer metro areas,\u201d he said. \u201cLabor MPs there should be on \u00adnotice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>WA Premier Roger Cook, whose seat of Kwinana is among those on One Nation\u2019s radar, on Monday said there was no complacency within his team in the face of the threat from One Nation. \u201cAll my team are working hard, making sure they stay in deep connection with their community \u2026 Always working to make sure they spend time in their community, understand their concerns, their aspirations, and respond to that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously the by-election on the weekend fed into a lot of issues, some within our control, some outside our control. Those things that we will control, we can continue to work to make sure that everyone has a job, that we are investing in health and that people do have a roof over their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read related topics:<a class=\"topic_tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/topics\/one-nation\" data-tgev-container=\"story-topic-links\" data-tgev-label=\"One Nation\" data-tgev-order=\"1\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev=\"event10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">One Nation<\/a><a class=\"author-content_image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/author\/paul-garvey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-content_image_img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/paul_garvey.png\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" alt=\"Paul Garvey\"\/><\/a><a class=\"author-content_name g_font-title-s\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/author\/paul-garvey\" data-tgev=\"event10\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev-order=\"1\" data-tgev-label=\"Paul Garvey\" data-tgev-container=\"author-all\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Garvey<\/a>Senior Reporter<\/p>\n<p class=\"g_font-body-s author-content_bio\">Paul Garvey is an award-winning journalist with more than two decades&#8217; experience in newsrooms around Australia and the world. He is currently the senior reporter in The Australian\u2019s WA bureau, covering politics, courts, billionaires and everything in between. He has previously written for The Wall Street Journal in New York, The Australian Financial Review in Melbourne, and for The Australian from Hong Kong before returning to his native Perth. He was the WA Journalist of the Year in 2024 and is a two-time winner of The Beck Prize for political journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A booth-by-booth analysis of Saturday\u2019s by-election won by One Nation spells major trouble for prominent Labor and Liberal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61996,132066,138163,97582,138171,135558,37496,138190,105099,138184,40867,37048,37018,138148,46254,138204,121037,138167,138222,138223,138225,138216,138140,138173,138178,138158,77633,138200,138191,41991,38151,138208,99566,46898,56557,43625,92030,37670,138143,9259,22,21,138155,132086,138165,138159,138206,138174,42580,1011,30146,138161,6589,36917,138218,138214,136043,138195,138149,138179,13627,138146,138213,107529,138186,130093,15156,132073,138199,91383,138197,138211,110498,138154,67935,138157,138193,138168,138188,138221,138144,156,132098,45166,56801,47209,138164,138203,38447,15877,72310,138152,138209,3880,138150,35037,138145,119244,37045,138224,55925,40450,138201,40960,118240,102036,35625,86539,138215,1955,138185,71414,138166,138202,3121,7350,335,4864,17611,149,138220,138147,138160,138189,138182,35047,138192,138196,5475,16821,138194,972,47255,34209,138141,138207,65503,138180,19816,4381,7572,138198,36878,43941,138219,138162,52832,138212,37538,138205,42380,39125,119811,138176,138142,138177,42123,46412,138187,38444,37786,138181,138170,94088,37011,40795,50867,97669,76164,138172,138217,61803,138210,43418,71784,37634,138153,138175,78548,73963,37073,138169,138156,48341,43823,138151,138183,13297,41481,3921,353],"class_list":["post-84463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-difficult","tag-s-by-election","tag-s-canning-electorate","tag-s-federal-election","tag-s-former-electorate","tag-s-luke-herdegen","tag-s-seat","tag-s-secret-harbour-state-by-election-win","tag-s-share","tag-s-southern-fringe","tag-s-state-election","tag-s-support","tag-37018","tag-2km","tag-38-5","tag-6-97","tag-7-8","tag-7-9","tag-8-1","tag-8-2","tag-8-3","tag-8-43","tag-8-7","tag-8-84","tag-a-22","tag-a-booth-by-booth-analysis","tag-a-federal-election","tag-a-few-hundred-metres","tag-a-higher-one-nation-vote","tag-a-host","tag-a-lot","tag-a-new-one-nation-heartland","tag-a-real-risk","tag-a-reminder","tag-a-vote","tag-a-warning","tag-all-kinds","tag-an-email","tag-any-seat","tag-armadale","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-average-one-nation-votes","tag-baldivis","tag-better-funding","tag-between-24-9","tag-between-40","tag-booths","tag-both-major-parties","tag-brand","tag-butler","tag-by-election-blowback","tag-canning","tag-cent","tag-cent-and-44-6","tag-cent-first-preference-vote","tag-cent-swing","tag-cent-the-seat","tag-darling-range","tag-dawesville","tag-donations","tag-election-analysts","tag-electoral-threats","tag-federal-labor","tag-federal-resources-minister-madeleine-king","tag-harbour","tag-healthcare","tag-herdegen","tag-higher","tag-his-party","tag-his-secret-harbour-victory-coming","tag-his-support-base","tag-his-supporters","tag-huge-movements","tag-international-relations","tag-its-current-support","tag-its-highest","tag-jeopardy-other-labor-held-seats","tag-just-14-8","tag-just-above-30","tag-just-five-years","tag-labor","tag-labor-candidate-georgia-tree","tag-labor-mps","tag-labor-seats","tag-labor-held-seats","tag-labor-the-booth-by-booth-breakdown","tag-lakelands","tag-last-year","tag-leading","tag-levels","tag-liberal-andrew-hastie","tag-major-trouble","tag-mandurah","tag-mandurah-mp-rhys-williams","tag-mark-mcgowan","tag-martin-drum","tag-massive-swings","tag-monday","tag-more-bulk-billing-places","tag-more-than-83","tag-more-work","tag-mr-herdegen-incoming-wa-one-nation-mp-luke-herdegen","tag-mr-hastie","tag-mr-herdegen","tag-ms-king","tag-nation","tag-news24-host-paul-murray","tag-notre-dame-executive-dean-and-professor","tag-one-nation","tag-one-nation-by-election-analysis","tag-one-nation-support","tag-one-nation-pilbara","tag-one-nation-those-shifts","tag-part","tag-people","tag-perth","tag-play","tag-policies","tag-politics","tag-possible-wipe-out","tag-primaries","tag-prominent-labor-and-liberal-mps","tag-regional-profile","tag-risk-mr","tag-rockingham","tag-rockingham-and-kwinana","tag-rockingham-lakes-primary-school","tag-rubbish","tag-saturday","tag-saturday-on","tag-schools","tag-seats","tag-secret-harbour","tag-senior-labor-and-liberal-federal-mps","tag-senior-labor-and-liberal-mps","tag-senior-mps","tag-smear-tactics","tag-sunday","tag-support","tag-swan-hill","tag-the-39","tag-the-albanese-government","tag-the-australian","tag-the-biggest-drop","tag-the-booths","tag-the-boundary","tag-the-by-election-result-one-nation","tag-the-community","tag-the-division","tag-the-electorate","tag-the-federal-election","tag-the-few","tag-the-higher-one-nation-vote","tag-the-highest-one-nation-votes","tag-the-liberal-vote","tag-the-liberals","tag-the-most","tag-the-most-senior-wa-mp","tag-the-need","tag-the-north","tag-the-once-safe-labor-seat","tag-the-outer-metro","tag-the-outer-suburbs","tag-the-party","tag-the-result","tag-the-seat","tag-the-seats","tag-the-s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