Barefoot One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen met 7.30 in a car park by the beach south of Perth just after 6 o'clock on a stormy Monday morning, starting a day of campaigning with a run and a swim while the major parties watched an outer-suburban seat tilt under the pressure of housing and cost-of-living anger.
Who Gets Heard
The ABC said this kind of access to One Nation is unusual because the broadcaster has been barred, along with The Guardian, from most of the party's events across the country. That shut door matters. It leaves the party to stage its own version of public life while the rest of the press gets kept outside, and it gives the campaign room to present itself on its own terms.
Campaigning alongside Herdegen, Western Australia's One Nation leader Rod Caddies said the party was being run differently. "Pauline doesn't restrict us on what we're allowed to do. Her decisions are her decisions, and I support her doing that because she obviously feels that she's not being treated the way she should be," he said. The line says plenty about the party's internal hierarchy. Decisions sit at the top. Everyone else adjusts.
Later, when Herdegen was questioned about Pauline Hanson's comments, including suggesting there are no "good" Muslims and labelling domestic violence a "two-way street," Caddies stepped in. "That's been done over and over about the good Muslim thing. I think that's coming back to that reason why Pauline hasn't let ABC in," Caddies said. Herdegen added, "It's not something that anyone is talking about in the community here. It's just not really an issue down here." He also said, "I don't think she does peddle racist messages and no-one in the party peddles racist messages."
Who Pays for the Game
Herdegen said his sister is among those who disagree with his decision to run for the party. He said she was not talking to him after he told her. "She sees Pauline Hanson and One Nation as racist, and I guess not sort of supporting the things that she supports," he said. "I love my sister. We're a close family, but yeah, like all families and all communities, not everybody agrees … we have to be able to disagree."
His campaign has also faced questions over his social media posts about using and then quitting cocaine. "I've certainly done some things in my past that I'm not particularly proud of, but I'm certainly proud of the person that I've become and the character that those things have built in me and the people that I've been able to inspire through that," he said. The polished language can’t hide the fact that the campaign is built on image management, family rupture, and a party structure that decides who gets access and who gets shut out.
Secret Harbour has always been a safe Labor seat, but outer-suburban seats like this, where housing and cost of living are front of mind, are considered the next frontier for One Nation. At Secret Harbour Beach, an older voter told the program, "It's the young ones I feel sorry for, trying to get off the ground away from Mum and Dad." A voter in his 20s said, "I'm building a house at the moment and prices of everything … it's just through the roof, and it's mainly because we're overpopulated." Those are the people carrying the weight while parties trade slogans and chase votes.
Others said they feel let down by the major parties. "I just think Labor and Liberal, they haven't done anything since they've been parties really, have they? Let's be honest," one man said. "I've always voted Labor, always, my whole life, because they were for the middle-class people, but now they're not," a woman said. The old promise of representation looks thin when people are still stuck with rising costs and shrinking options.
What the Ballot Machine Is Doing
Former journalist Peter Kennedy, who has covered politics for more than 40 years, said this by-election was the most significant in some time. "There are far fewer rusted-on voters now than there were, and in the outer suburbs, that's where that party loyalty, I think, is falling away," Kennedy said. "A big swing to One Nation in the Secret Harbour by-election would send shock waves through the major parties." He added, "One Nation potentially is becoming a force in Australian politics, and the reality then, for the major parties, is how do you deal with it? Do you ignore them or do you strike some sort of arrangement with them? And that's what's playing out at the moment."
Labor's candidate in Secret Harbour, Georgia Tree, said, "We're a microcosm here, and there's a lot of scrutiny on this seat because it's part of a broader movement that we've seen all over the world." She said, "So it's interesting for me to be in the Petri dish, as it were, and everyone's looking to see what happens." Tree added, "I never would've imagined that I'd be coming up against One Nation and the level of support that they do have. I'm in the fight of my life, that's for sure." She said, "But I will keep fighting, and that's why I am here, because I know that people in my community and this place that is my home will benefit from a WA Labor government."
At the WA state election last year, One Nation got less than 9 per cent of the vote in Secret Harbour, and Labor was ahead of the Liberals by 11.5 per cent. Now it's thought Labor and One Nation are neck and neck and support for the Liberals is waning. WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas has chosen to preference One Nation third on the ballot. "There is support for One Nation. Now for us to be disrespectful of that would be not acknowledging the current will of the people. So my approach has very much been to see One Nation's rise as an opportunity, not a threat," he said.
Parts of Secret Harbour sit within the federal electorate of Canning, held by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie. He is one of the Coalition's loudest voices against One Nation, and he has criticised his party in WA for not running hard enough against the party. "I don't think that we see eye to eye on the political strategy," Hastie told 7.30 on Monday. "I don't accept this idea that a win for One Nation is a win for the Liberal Party. We're fighting for our lives and we should be fighting for every single vote. You don't wave the white flag. Voters sense weakness, and they'll go to the strong horse if you signal weakness."
Zempilas denied the Liberal Party was running dead in the by-election. "What I know is what we've done, and that is not the case," Zempilas said. The parties keep talking about strategy, arrangements, and signals. Meanwhile, the people in Secret Harbour are left with the bill, the ballot, and the same old machinery asking for trust.