One Nation’s David Farley has stormed to victory in the closely watched Farrer federal by-election in Australia with the incumbent centre-right Liberal Party losing the seat it has held since 2001.
The sprawling regional seat spans most of south-west New South Wales and has been held by either the Liberal or National parties—both Coalition partners—since 1949.
The final two-candidate preferred result showed 57.42 percent support for Farley, and 42.58 for Climate 200-backed Teal independent Michelle Milthorpe.
In terms of primary vote, One Nation won 39.45 percent support, about 38,919 votes—a major swing of 32.85 percent towards the conservative party.
While Milthorpe won about 28.39 percent of the vote, about 28,003 votes—a 8.43 percent swing.
The Liberal Party’s vote plunged to just 12.38 percent of the vote with their current tally at 12,215—a 31.03 percent swing away from them, while the Labor Party did not field a candidate this time, meaning its 14.75 percent at the last election went to other candidates.
The Nationals garnered 9,599 votes, winning 9.73 percent of the current vote—the Nationals do not usually field a candidate in their coalition partner’s seat.
The by-election was triggered by the resignation earlier this year of former Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
In response to the victory, One Nation’s Farley called for an end to net zero and high migration volumes.
“We want to get the cost of living down and our first target we need to stop [is] this damn net zero price,” Farley told supporters in Albury.
“We’ve got to address immigration it’s simple as that. We embrace (migrants) but we’re not going to entertain people to come here and live off our balance sheet, our purse and give us nothing,” Farley said.
Farley, 69, is an agribusiness consultant and irrigator who previously served as chief executive of the Australian Agricultural Company.
He has also chaired irrigation advocacy group Speak Up 4 Water and has worked across Australia, the United States, Africa and the former Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Milthorpe said One Nation’s victory was due to the community being “rightly fed up.”
“They will successfully reflect the anger we feel out here. But that is the easy part,” she said.
“The hard part is doing something about it. They need to prove to Farrer that they can work collaboratively and with integrity to deliver.”
Independent Pollsters Call Win Earliest
Political commentator Kevin Bonham called the election for One Nation at 7.46 p.m., noting that Milthorpe had suffered even in her “best booths”.
Just minutes later, fellow analyst Anthony Green also called it for One Nation.
“The trend is so clear now that Milthorpe is up on primaries but still trails One Nation by more than 10 percent and can’t make that up with preferences favouring One Nation,” he said.
Green noted Milthorpe had gained primary votes in Albury as expected, but had started regressing backwards on preferences.
“All the trends point to One nation finishing on around 41 percent and Milthorpe on 28 percent on which basis David Farley will win for One Nation,” he said.
RedBridge pollster Tony Barry told AAP that the result sends a clear signal of what could come in other regional electorates.
“If they cannibalise the Liberal and National Party vote as expected, then it’s a very safe conclusion to say that we’re going to see similar voting behaviours and patterns in other regional seats,” he said.
