‘Tidal wave’ of conservative politics surges after shock election results

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Something happened last night that should send a shock wave through the major parties in this country. For the first time ever, One Nation has won a lower house seat at an election. Sky News chief election analyst Tom Connell declared David Farley the winner before 8:00. A swing of nearly 35 points toward One Nation. And at the same time, the Liberal Party collapsed to just over 12% of the primary vote. and a swing against them of 31 points. A seat held by the coalition for 77 years gone. Not to Labor, not to a Teal Independent, to One Nation.

[00:00:40]>> It's a powerhouse between me and Barnaby in the lower house. But it's it's the next big stepping stone for One Nation.

[00:00:46]But it's but it's Australia. It's Australia talking. You know, it's the constituents that are turning it around.

[00:00:52]We're the party, but it's the constituents that are actually telling the nation what we want.

[00:00:57]And let's not forget just over 12 months ago less than 7% of Farah voted for One Nation and this time they won in a landslide. Pauline Hansid said she was emotional when the result was declared.

[00:01:11]>> When I was walking out of here earlier and I looked up and I saw Sky called that we won the seat.

[00:01:19]>> Yeah.

[00:01:20]>> I actually got a tear in my eye. You have no idea how proud I feel. I'm seeing the sea of this proud Australian's faces here in front of me.

[00:01:28]Hundreds of you. But millions are watching on their TVs now. And I believe it's giving them hope.

[00:01:37]>> Yes. People are here to represent you, the people, to get our country back.

[00:01:43]>> And this isn't just one bad night in a regional seat in New South Wales. The results from the UK council elections have told the exact same story. Ciri Starama's Labour suffered a humiliating defeat as Reform UK made sweeping gains, claiming over 1,400 seats. Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, put it plainly.

[00:02:07]Reform is currently leader of the pack in an increasingly multi-party system and just as importantly, top dog on the right of British politics, having taken seats from the Conservatives as well as Labor.

[00:02:22]Sound familiar? Well, a tidal wave of conservative politics is coming from the UK to Farah. The same anger of voters feeling they've been ignored for too long and now choosing the loudest option on the ballot box. One Nation focuses on issues that voters are screaming about like mass immigration, energy costs, industrial jobs, agriculture, housing, the cost of living. What happened in Farah didn't come out of nowhere. This seat had been a coalition stronghold since its inception in 1949.

[00:02:58]But after the bruising 2025 election loss, months of infighting saw their primary vote collapse. Now, I don't believe the result in Farah can be pinned primarily on Angus Taylor or Matt Canavan. Both are new leaders that have been left to pick up the pieces of decades of Liberal and national leadership ranks who allowed their connection with regional Australia to erode. Angus Taylor said there are some lessons to be learned from this result.

[00:03:27]>> This bi-election was always going to be a mountain to climb for the Liberal Party. We have to take away some hard lessons from this. For too long, uh, we have been a party of convenience, not of conviction.

[00:03:43]And that must change. And over the last year or so, the coalition hasn't done what it should do, been united and stable and strong.

[00:03:53]The focus for the Liberals shifted to inner city concerns, to teal challenges, to political positioning, and became Labour light along the way. And in doing so, they lost touch with the communities that once formed their base. Susan Lee, who long focused on holding off a climate 200backed independent, now carries a far more difficult legacy, becoming the Liberal who handed One Nation its first lower house seat. Miss Lee, who was away during this campaign, tried to minimize the blame with a statement urging the party leadership to accept the result with humility, saying, "The Cedar Farah was created in 1949 until tonight at every one of the 30 elections since through different and challenging circumstances. It has been held without exception by the Liberal and National Parties. It would be an error to reduce both the scale and significance of tonight's defeat to a coalition split which occurred months ago or to misattribute it to the date the vote was held. I urge the Liberal leadership to accept this result with humility because the voters never get it wrong. On the day the leadership spilled in February, the new leader said the Liberal Party needed to change or die.

[00:05:12]Three months later, the result in Farah demonstrates that statement to be far truer today than it ever was then.

[00:05:20]But calling for humility rings hollow when a seat like Farah was left without the attention it deserved. While this result was a disaster for the coalition, Labour shouldn't be sitting back with confidence either. The Albani government has a budget landing on Tuesday. And if that budget is built on broken promises and doesn't speak to the cost of living crisis that Australians are actually facing, they could be next. For the Teals and Climate 200, last night was its own kind of reality check. There is now a new protest vote option in the market, and this one is drawing from a far bigger pool than they ever did. So, what does the coalition do now? or Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume said on Sunday agenda, it starts with rebuilding faith in the party.

[00:06:11]>> We really know that we need to take the messages of last night's result and that is that we need to reflect on what it is that the people of Farah and even right around Australia are telling us that we need to rebuild trust. Trust has been lost by the coalition. It was lost with two splits to the coalition in just 12 months. It was lost when we abandoned all of our policies and people didn't know what it was that we stood for. Now it's up to Angus Taylor and I now to start rebuilding that trust because as Angus said last night, trust can be lost in an instant, but it takes time to rebuild. That rebuild has already begun.

[00:06:46]Well, Angus Taylor delivers his budget in reply on Thursday. The timing, as it happens, is fortuitous because the coalition needs to do what it has not done well since the 2025 election. stop talking about itself and start talking about the government. Stop attacking One Nation. That strategy is finished and it did not work. Every attack on Pauline Hansen and David Farley reinforces the story that the establishment is threatened. It hands them the oxygen they want. The coalition needs to rediscover what it stands for. serious economic management, policies that reward hard work, and a message that gives younger Australians a sense of aspiration that they still have a shot at getting ahead. Because if they don't find it and find it fast, Victoria could be next. And after that, this stops being about one seat in regional New South Wales and becomes a question about whether the Liberal Party has a future.

[00:07:48]Across the world, established parties are learning the hard way what happens when you stop listening to the people who built your majorities. That wave has now reached Australia. And for a growing number of voters, One Nation is no longer a protest vote. It's a vote of hope, a belief that someone finally is listening and might just pull this country back to its foundations. The question now is, can the Liberals become that party