Australia catches Europe’s right-wing populist wave

Australia’s populist One Nation party surged past the ruling Labor party to lead a nationwide opinion poll for the first time, highlighting voter disappointment with last month’s budget and reinforcing signs of a fracturing of the conservative side of politics.One Nation’s primary vote advanced 4 percentage points to 31 per cent from a previous poll conducted ahead of the May 12 budget, while the centre-left government slipped 3 points to 28 per cent, according to a Redbridge Group/Accent Research survey published in the Australian Financial Review. The poll sampled 1,005 voters between May 25 and May 28 and has a margin of error of 3.4 per cent.The traditional centre-right Liberal-National coalition has hammered the centre-left government over the budget’s broken election promises, including a clampdown on tax breaks for property investors. Yet it has failed to reap any benefits, with the coalition’s primary vote slipping to 20 per cent from 22 per cent.Copies of Australia’s 2026-2027 Budget Papers pictured at a printing facility before being delivered to Parliament House in Canberra last month. Photo: AAP/dpaThe surge in polls for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation mirrors the rise of the populist right in Britain and Europe, as voters turn away from the traditional post-World War II parties that form government. One Nation claimed its first seat in the lower house of parliament in a recent by-election for the seat of Farrer, a rural electorate in the southwest of New South Wales state.