Pauline Hanson’s surging One Nation could win up to 59 seats in federal election, new polling suggests
One Nation would win as many as 59 seats if an election were held today, pushing Labor deep into minority government and wiping out the Coalition in all but three states and territories.
That’s the worst-case scenario for the major parties in a large-scale analysis of voter intentions conducted by Redbridge Group and Accent Research that underlines the seismic shift in Australian politics since the last election.
Pauline Hanson would be the undisputed Opposition leader if an election was held now. Alex Ellinghausen
The new seat-by-seat research, titled A Fragmented Electorate, found that the Coalition would not retain a single seat in its former strongholds of Queensland and Western Australia, and would have no seats in South Australia and Tasmania, if votes go to One Nation in the worst-case simulation.
It would be left with just seven seats nationally, spread across NSW, Victoria and the Northern Territory. All the Nationals would be wiped out. Opposition leader Angus Taylor and his putative rival Andrew Hastie would be among the casualties.
The probability of Hastie losing his WA seat of Canning to One Nation is 100 per cent and 98 per cent for Taylor similarly losing his NSW seat of Hume to Pauline Hanson’s surging party.
The scenarios are contained in a new AFR Weekend/Redbridge Group/Accent Research MRP poll, which sampled 6015 voters between April 29 and May 14. Most of the research was conducted before the May 12 budget. The poll is based on a large number of simulations, and produces a range of scenarios based on the margin of error. The worst-case scenario is considered possible but less likely than median scenario.
Unlike a standard opinion poll, MRP, or Multilevel Regression with Post-stratification research, presents a much more granular seat-by-seat snapshot. It does so by sharing information across electorates, with voters assumed to behave in a related way to other voters with shared characteristics in similar divisions.
However, while MRP polling is effective at identifying how macro trends might be expressed at the local level, it does not factor in the strengths or weaknesses of individual candidates.
Days before the last election, an MRP poll by YouGov came closest to predicting the outcome, with the most likely result being Labor winning 84 seats and the Coalition reduced to 47 seats.
According to the new Redbridge Group/Accent research, entitled A Fragmented Electorate, Labor’s primary vote nationwide was 31 per cent, followed by One Nation on 28 per cent, the Coalition on 21 per cent, the Greens 11 per cent and others on 9 per cent.
But the projections based on applying the MRP methodology say that if an election were held now, Labor, which won a record 94 seats at the election just over a year ago, would be reduced to between 70 seats and 82 seats, with the median of 76, giving it a one-seat majority.
House of Representatives composition
2025 ResultsActual election outcome
PredictedModel projection
150 seats
| Party | 2025 | Predicted | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | 94 | 76 | ▼ -18 |
| One Nation | 0 | 53 | ▲ +53 |
| Coalition | 43 | 12 | ▼ -31 |
| Independent | 10 | 8 | ▼ -2 |
| Katter's Australian Party | 1 | 1 | — |
| Greens | 1 | 0 | ▼ -1 |
| Centre Alliance | 1 | 0 | ▼ -1 |
Source: Redbridge – Accent Research
Seat predictions by party
| Party⇕ | Median seat prediction⇕ | Low estimate⇕ | High estimate⇕ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | 76 | 70 | 82 |
| One Nation | 53 | 46 | 59 |
| Coalition | 12 | 7 | 21 |
| Independent | 8 | 5 | 9 |
| Katter's Australian Party | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Greens | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Centre Alliance | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Source: Redbridge – Accent Research
One Nation, which currently has two seats, would win between 46 and 59 seats, with a median of 53, while the Coalition, currently on 41 seats, would be left with between seven seats and 21 seats, with a median of 12.
Under the seven-seat and 12-seat scenarios for the Coalition, there would be no Nationals MPs left.
In total, up to 62 seats would change hands. The Coalition would lose 37 seats to One Nation, while picking up five from Labor. These five seats include the two NT seats of Solomon and Lingiari, as well as Menzies, Deakin and Aston in Victoria.
Seats changing hands
2025 ResultsPredictedLabor94Labor76One Nation53Coalition12Coalition43Independent10IndependentKAPKAPCentre AllianceGreens
Note: Centre “ribbons” reveal where seats are going or staying. For example, Labor is predicted to retain 73 seats, with 16 Labor seats moving to One Nation and 5 to the Coalition.
Source: Redbridge – Accent Research
Labor would lose 16 seats to One Nation while picking up the South Australian seat of Mayo from independent Rebekha Sharkie and the Brisbane seat of Ryan from the Greens.
The biggest One Nation surge would be in Queensland, where it could win up to 21 seats, 18 of which have a probability of 90 per cent or higher.
The Queensland rout would include the Nationals seat of Capricornia, which Hanson and Nationals leader Matt Canavan, both Senators, might contest should they choose to move to the lower house at the next election, due by May 2028.
It would be one of up to 16 Queensland Coalition seats to fall while Forde, Leichhardt, Petrie and Dixon, all of which Labor took from the Coalition at the last election, could also fall to One Nation.
In NSW, One Nation would swoop on as many as 14 seats, comprising nine Coalition seats, including Taylor’s seat of Hume and those of five Labor MPs.
Labor would take the seat of Fowler from independent Dai Le and the Liberals would take back Bradfield from teal independent Nicolette Boele.
When One Nation started surging in the polls soon after last year’s election, the orthodox view was that Australia’s system of compulsory preferential voting would act as a handbrake because it kept politics centred. But high-profile recruit Barnaby Joyce said that would at best slow the march of One Nation because it was increasingly being regarded as mainstream.
Hanson concurred: “They now have a licence to vote for One Nation, it’s not a wasted vote,” she told AFR Weekend.
How it works
Multilevel Regression with Poststratification (MRP) is a statistical technique that estimates local public opinion using a single national poll.
Instead of relying on respondents from every electorate, MRP analyses how traits such as age, gender and religion estimate opinions nationwide. It then takes those insights and combines them with census data to reconstruct a picture of the area.
This MRP data comes from a survey of 6015 Australian voters conducted between April 29 and May 14. It works by sharing information across electorates, with voters with similar traits assumed to behave in a related way to other voters with shared characteristics in other divisions.
It is broadly accurate but can miss idiosyncrasies. The first preference vote shares from the MRP are used to simulate instant run-off elimination estimating two-candidate preferred results, seat level win probabilities and national seat projections.
“A wide gap — like the Coalition’s 7 to 21 — means the result is genuinely uncertain and could swing a long way in either direction. A narrow gap — like Labor’s 70 to 82 — means we’re more confident about where the party will land,” said Dr Shaun Ratcliff, principal at Accent Research.
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Redbridge director Tony Barry said not only was One Nation taking most of the Coalition’s political real estate, it was also complicating Labor’s path to majority government at the next election.
“We still don’t know whether One Nation’s vote will run up against some form of a ceiling and where its floor is, but the mood sentiment holding up their vote is underpinned by economic anxiety and frustration with the current political model, which means it could be enduring,” he said.