A Compass Polling survey commissioned by One Nation found 62 per cent of respondents supported the proposed “Super Pay Boost”, while 28 per cent opposed it.

According to Senator Hanson, support reached 60 per cent among Labor voters, 67 per cent among Liberal voters and 55 per cent among Greens voters.

The party also said almost three-quarters of voters aged 25 to 34 supported the proposal.

Under the policy, Australians paying rent or a mortgage on their home would be able to choose to receive one-quarter of their compulsory super contributions as additional take-home pay for up to three years.

One Nation says employers would continue to contribute the full 12 per cent Superannuation Guarantee, with 9 percentage points remaining in super and 3 percentage points paid to the worker, subject to the applicable concessional superannuation tax.

The existing superannuation balance would not be affected, according to the party, and workers would have the option of making additional contributions to their superannuation later.

The Superannuation Guarantee is currently 12 per cent, following the scheduled increase from 11.5 per cent on 1 July 2025. ⁠

Senator Hanson said the polling showed Australians wanted greater flexibility over their superannuation.

“Jim Chalmers claimed our policy would ‘end superannuation as we know it’. Australians are telling him they want the choice.”

She argued that households facing mortgage, rental and grocery costs needed greater access to their income, and criticised the Albanese Government’s economic policies.

Hanson also linked the proposal to concerns about inflation and interest rates, saying the government should focus on controlling expenditure rather than placing the burden on households.

The proposal comes amid a broader debate over the purpose and future of Australia’s compulsory superannuation system.

The Federal Government has recently increased the Superannuation Guarantee to 12 per cent and introduced reforms requiring employers to pay superannuation on payday from 1 July 2026.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the Government have argued that compulsory superannuation is designed to strengthen retirement incomes.

Recent government reforms have also increased support for low-income workers through the Low Income Superannuation Tax Offset and changed taxation arrangements for very large superannuation balances.

The Compass polling figures cited by One Nation measure support for the party’s proposed temporary withdrawal mechanism; they do not establish whether the policy would improve or reduce individual retirement outcomes.

The proposal is therefore likely to remain part of the broader political debate over whether compulsory superannuation should remain locked away for retirement or whether workers should have greater flexibility to access a portion of future contributions during periods of financial pressure.

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During a press conference at the United Nations in New York on Monday, Bourke asked Albanese whether he felt uncomfortable accepting the award, pointing to criticism of the government’s response to the Bondi massacre and Labor’s latest polling figures.

“Don’t you feel like a bit of a fraud accepting this award when, at home, you screwed up the response to the worst massacre since Port Arthur?” Bourke asked.

She also referred to Labor’s primary vote falling to 27 per cent and Albanese’s net approval rating reaching a new low.

Albanese responded with a single word: “No.”

He then moved on to questions about Australia’s campaign for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2029–30. The Prime Minister said he was looking forward to the awards ceremony on Wednesday, where Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape is expected to introduce him.

The Atlantic Council announced earlier this month that Albanese is one of four recipients of its 2026 Global Citizen Awards. The organisation says the award recognises his role in deepening Australia’s alliances and partnerships and promoting security and stability across the Indo-Pacific. The awards dinner is scheduled for 23 September in New York during UN General Assembly week.

The exchange came as Labor’s primary vote fell to 27 per cent in the latest Newspoll, its lowest level since 2012, according to reports. Albanese’s net approval rating was reported at -27.

The Prime Minister is in New York leading Australia’s delegation to the UN General Assembly, where the government has formally launched its campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council for 2029 and 2030. The government says the campaign is intended to strengthen Australia’s influence on international issues affecting Australians, including security, climate, digital technology and global instability.

The exchange also drew a political response from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

Hanson said Albanese had “jetted off to New York” to receive an award while Australians were dealing with cost-of-living pressures, housing affordability and interest rates.

“While he collects a trophy from elites on a world stage, Australians’ lives are only getting worse,” Hanson said, arguing that the Prime Minister should instead be focused on domestic economic pressures.

Hanson also praised Bourke for confronting Albanese over the award, saying the journalist had challenged the Prime Minister over the contrast between his international role and domestic political difficulties.

Albanese’s response was notably brief, with the Prime Minister rejecting the premise of Bourke’s question before continuing with the press conference.

The Global Citizen Award ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday evening in New York.

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The latest Australian Financial Review/RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll puts the Coalition on 29 per cent, One Nation on 25 per cent, Labor on 24 per cent and the Greens on 15 per cent.

The survey of 2,371 Victorians was conducted between September 1 and 14 and carries a reported margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

Labor’s primary vote rose one point from the previous RedBridge poll, while One Nation gained three points and the Coalition slipped one. The changes for Labor and the Coalition are within the poll’s margin of error, meaning the more important finding is the persistence of a fragmented three-way contest rather than a dramatic movement from one survey to the next.

On the poll’s respondent-allocated two-party-preferred measure, the Coalition leads Labor 56–44. Labor leads One Nation 53–47 in a hypothetical head-to-head contest.

Those figures should not be read as a seat forecast.

Victoria’s election will be decided across 88 individual Legislative Assembly districts under preferential voting, and the rise of One Nation complicates traditional statewide two-party measures. A party or coalition requires support in at least 45 seats to command a lower-house majority. The election is fixed for Saturday, November 28.

The poll nevertheless represents a stark change from the political landscape at the 2022 election.

Labor secured 37.03 per cent of lower-house first preferences in 2022 and won 56 of the 87 seats decided on election night, while the Liberals won 18, the Nationals nine and the Greens four. One Nation received just 0.22 per cent statewide at that election and won no lower-house seats.

One Nation has since announced plans to contest all 88 lower-house seats in November, dramatically expanding its Victorian campaign.

That makes the current 25 per cent RedBridge result particularly notable.

The party’s rise has continued despite scrutiny of Victorian leader Warren Pickering, who recently acknowledged using illicit drugs and losing his licence for drink driving when he was younger. Pickering has said he has changed significantly since that period of his life.

RedBridge and Accent Research have described Victoria as increasingly resembling a three-party contest, with Labor, the Coalition and One Nation all attracting substantial blocs of voters.

A separate Resolve Strategic poll released this week points in the same broad direction, though with different numbers.

That survey has the Coalition on 28 per cent, Labor on 25 per cent, One Nation on 23 per cent and the Greens on 12 per cent. It also places Opposition Leader Jess Wilson on 28 per cent as preferred premier, compared with Carroll on 20 per cent and Pickering on 8 per cent, with 44 per cent undecided.

The existence of two separate polls showing Labor in the mid-20s and the Coalition narrowly ahead adds to the pressure on Carroll, who was sworn in as Victoria’s 50th premier on July 28 after replacing Jacinta Allan following a bruising internal Labor leadership crisis.

Carroll immediately attempted to establish distance between his government and the previous leadership.

His first major decision was to call a royal commission into alleged corruption and criminality in Victoria’s construction sector, including the state’s major infrastructure program.

The government has since moved to strengthen IBAC’s powers and establish a special prosecutor capable of acting on evidence uncovered by the royal commission.

Carroll has also tried to refocus the government on what he calls “the basics”, particularly roads, crime, cost of living and outer-suburban infrastructure.

In recent weeks, Labor has announced an additional $352 million for pothole repairs, with a target of fixing 500,000 potholes, and another $550 million towards the Western Freeway upgrade between Melton and Caroline Springs.

But the government continues to face a difficult fiscal backdrop.

Victoria’s 2026-27 budget forecasts general government net debt increasing from $175.6 billion in 2026-27 to $199.3 billion by June 2030, although Treasury forecasts net debt as a share of the state economy will begin declining over the forward estimates.

The government argues its fiscal plan is working, pointing to a forecast operating surplus of $1 billion in 2026-27 and $2 billion by 2029-30.

But polling suggests debt and government spending remain politically damaging issues.

Roy Morgan research last month found the main concerns voters associated with a possible Labor government included corruption and integrity, financial management and state debt, crime and what respondents viewed as the continuation of problems from the Andrews and Allan governments. Concerns about a Coalition government included public-service cuts, internal instability, a lack of policy detail and the possibility of greater One Nation influence.

The Coalition is attempting to capitalise on voter dissatisfaction after 12 years in opposition.

Wilson says the Liberals and Nationals can govern without One Nation support and has ruled out an alliance with the party. In an August interview, she said the Coalition believed it could win without relying on a One Nation preference arrangement.

Labor, however, has made the possibility of a Liberal-One Nation arrangement a central part of its campaign messaging.

When Carroll became premier, he warned voters about what he called the risk of a “Liberal-One Nation Government”, arguing such an arrangement would threaten public services.

The Coalition rejects that framing.

The more immediate electoral question is how preferences behave where Labor, the Coalition and One Nation are all competitive.

One Nation’s decision to field candidates across Victoria creates the possibility of three-cornered contests in outer-suburban and regional electorates where the traditional Labor-versus-Coalition contest is disrupted.

That makes statewide primary votes harder to translate directly into seats.

ABC analysis last month noted that Victoria’s 88-seat chamber means the Coalition would need to substantially increase its lower-house representation to govern in its own right, while One Nation’s presence adds another layer of uncertainty in marginal districts.

RedBridge director Kos Samaras has argued that three-way contests may advantage the Coalition in some electorates if Labor falls into third place on primary votes, because Labor would then depend heavily on Greens and other preference flows to remain competitive.

That is an analyst’s interpretation rather than an election result, and there are still more than two months of campaigning remaining.

The latest RedBridge poll also shows that fewer than half of respondents described their voting intention as firm, underscoring how much movement is still possible before November.

The rise of One Nation is also politically complicated for both major parties.

For Labor, Hanson’s party is attracting support in outer-suburban and working-class communities that have historically helped underpin Labor majorities.

For the Coalition, One Nation competes directly for conservative voters while also potentially providing preference flows in contests against Labor.

Wilson has tried to keep her campaign focused on the Coalition rather than One Nation, while Hanson and Pickering have argued Victorians are rejecting both traditional major parties.

The poll comes amid an accelerating policy contest.

Carroll has shifted Labor’s position on several issues since becoming premier, including announcing a construction royal commission, expanding road spending and this week backing broader police powers to search for knives under a Victorian version of “Jack’s Law”.

The Coalition has campaigned heavily on crime, debt, road maintenance and government accountability.

One Nation has focused on migration, energy, cost of living and opposition to established political institutions while seeking to convert its unusually high polling into a permanent Victorian parliamentary presence.

The electorate also appears deeply unsettled about major infrastructure projects.

The separate Resolve survey found 49 per cent of respondents favoured pausing or cancelling the Suburban Rail Loop, compared with 27 per cent who wanted it to proceed as planned.

The project, state debt, crime and road conditions are all expected to feature heavily during the campaign.

Labor’s challenge is particularly striking when compared with its position four years ago.

The party won a landslide in 2018 and another comfortable majority in 2022. It has governed Victoria continuously since 2014 and for most of the period since 1999.

Carroll now has only a short period to convince voters that his leadership represents more than a change of personnel.

His government has repeatedly argued that the new premier is changing direction where necessary while protecting Labor policies on health, education, TAFE and cost-of-living support.

The Coalition is asking voters to treat the election as a judgment on 12 years of Labor government rather than Carroll’s few months as premier.

One Nation is asking them to reject both.

The September polling suggests all three messages are finding an audience.

What it does not establish is the November result.

With preferential voting, One Nation contesting every lower-house district, a large undecided vote and many individual seats likely to behave differently from the statewide numbers, the Victorian election remains considerably more complicated than a conventional Labor-versus-Coalition race.

But the message for Labor from the latest surveys is clear: after dominating Victorian politics for more than a decade, it is now fighting an election in which its primary vote is sitting behind both of its principal rivals in at least one major poll — and Ben Carroll has little more than two months to change that picture.

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The policy would represent one of the most dramatic changes to Australia’s migration system in decades, and places further pressure on both Labor and the Coalition as immigration, housing and population growth become central political battlegrounds.

Under the plan released by Senator Hanson, One Nation says Australia’s temporary migrant population would be returned to roughly 2017 levels over a three-year “reset”, before net overseas migration was capped at 130,000 a year.

The party says the temporary visa categories targeted in its modelling would fall by about 766,000 people, although it has rounded the overall policy commitment to “more than 750,000”.

The distinction is important: the policy does not mean cutting annual immigration by 750,000 people. It proposes reducing the number of people already in Australia across selected temporary visa categories, bridging visas and people without a valid visa over three years.

One Nation says the reset would produce net-negative overseas migration during the three years, meaning more people meeting the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition of an overseas migrant would leave Australia than arrive.

After that reset, the party proposes a net overseas migration ceiling of 130,000 a year.

Australia’s official net overseas migration figure was 301,000 in the year to December 2025, down 8.9 per cent from a year earlier and more than 45 per cent below the post-pandemic peak, according to the ABS.

Senator Hanson said the policy was intended to ease pressure on housing, hospitals, infrastructure and living costs.

“I know Australians are doing it tough,” Hanson said.

“Families are competing with hundreds of people for rental accommodation. Patients are stuck in ambulances because there are not enough hospital beds.

Young Australians are being locked out of home ownership while wages and infrastructure fail to keep up.”

She accused successive Labor and Coalition governments of allowing temporary migration to become a pathway towards long-term settlement.

“A larger economy on paper means nothing if Australians are poorer per person and cannot afford a home, find a hospital bed or get ahead,” Hanson said.

International students would be among the groups most affected.

According to One Nation’s policy document, the number of people in Australia on student visas would be targeted to fall from about 589,923 to 350,000 over three years, a reduction of almost 240,000.

The party proposes limiting the main student visa stream to about 100,000 grants a year, while establishing a separate high-value postgraduate pathway focused on PhDs and selected research degrees in fields including science, engineering, frontier technology and healthcare.

The policy material indicates the combined annual student allocation could be around 115,000 when the proposed research stream is included.

Universities that provide accommodation for international students would receive priority, along with regional institutions and providers whose graduates demonstrate stronger post-study outcomes.

One Nation also proposes requiring new student visa applications to be made from outside Australia, apart from a transition arrangement for applications already lodged.

The policy would sharply curtail the ability of students to move from one temporary visa to another while remaining in Australia.

The party argues this would end what it describes as “visa hopping”.

Under the proposed rules, students would generally be required to leave after completing their studies unless they qualified for the new targeted graduate pathway.

Graduate visa holders could move into an eligible employer-sponsored skilled visa, but would not be permitted to obtain another graduate visa or switch back to a student visa from within Australia.

The scale of the proposal would be significant for the education sector.

Temporary students were the largest group of migrant arrivals in 2024-25, accounting for about 157,000 migrant arrivals, according to the ABS.

One Nation nevertheless argues Australia maintained a substantial international education industry before the recent migration surge and says universities should compete primarily on education and research rather than post-study migration opportunities.

“We should be exporting education, not selling migration,” the party’s policy document says.

The proposed changes to post-study work rights are even more dramatic.

One Nation says the existing subclass 485 graduate visa system would be replaced with a single graduate visa capped at around 20,000 grants a year.

The party’s target is to reduce the number of graduate visa holders in Australia from approximately 269,674 to 40,000 within three years — a reduction approaching 230,000.

The new visa would last 18 months and would not be renewable.

Priority would initially be given to graduates from the proposed high-value research visa, followed by applicants in areas such as science, engineering, frontier technology and healthcare.

One Nation argues broad post-study work rights have encouraged students to remain in Australia for years after graduating even where their employment bears little connection to their qualification.

Critics are likely to argue such a reduction could make Australia significantly less competitive against countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand in attracting international students.

Skilled workers could come — but generally without family

One Nation would maintain an employer-driven temporary skilled migration program but sharply restrict visas for accompanying family members.

Its policy document puts the current temporary skilled visa population at about 263,489, including 123,042 dependants or family members.

The party wants that total reduced to around 160,000 over three years.

It says approximately 70,000 primary temporary skilled visas could continue to be granted annually depending on employer demand.

However, new secondary visas for accompanying dependants would generally end.

Existing visas would remain valid until expiry but would not be renewed under the same arrangements.

One Nation says exceptions would apply in limited circumstances, particularly for families attached to high-value research students.

The party argues temporary skilled migration should be targeted at genuine shortages, including nurses, aged-care workers and construction workers, rather than becoming what it calls a parallel family migration program.

Bridging visas targeted as part of crackdown

The proposal would also target Australia’s unusually large bridging visa population.

One Nation says the number of bridging visa holders could be reduced from around 412,533 to 300,000 over three years.

That would be achieved largely by preventing more temporary visa holders from making successive applications while remaining in Australia.

The Albanese government has itself identified the growth of bridging visas as a problem.

The cohort has risen to more than 400,000 people, roughly double pre-pandemic norms, and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has been preparing reforms aimed at reducing long-term temporary stays.

Three months to leave for people without valid visas

One Nation estimates there are around 80,000 unlawful non-citizens in Australia and proposes bringing that number to zero.

Under its plan, people without a valid visa would initially be given three months to leave voluntarily.

Those who departed during that period could potentially apply for another Australian visa in the future.

Those who refused to leave would face immigration enforcement and, under One Nation’s proposal, potentially a lifetime ban on returning.

The policy also proposes stronger penalties for deliberate overstaying, including a three-year re-entry ban for some overstays exceeding one month and a lifetime ban for more prolonged deliberate overstaying.

Employers found deliberately using unlawful workers would face stronger penalties and enforcement.

Backpackers and Pacific workers carved out

Despite proposing net-negative migration during the reset period, One Nation says the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility program and Working Holiday Maker program would continue.

That carve-out reflects the heavy reliance of farming, food processing and regional industries on those workers.

The National Farmers Federation nevertheless warned on Monday that severe migration reductions could create labour shortages and increase food prices.

NFF president Hamish McIntyre said about one in seven farm workers was a working holiday maker and warned farmers could decide not to plant crops if they could not be confident of finding workers to harvest them.

Hanson has responded that backpackers and PALM workers are not being targeted by the proposal.

Labor says plan would ‘smash’ construction and care sectors

The Albanese government has attacked One Nation’s proposal as economically dangerous.

Health Minister Mark Butler warned the reduction would hit sectors already experiencing severe labour shortages.

“This is going to smash industries like construction,” Butler said on Monday.

“It would devastate the health sector and aged care and disability.”

Labor argues that reducing migration too abruptly would deprive Australia of workers needed to build homes and care for an ageing population.

The government says it is already bringing migration down without imposing the scale of reductions advocated by One Nation.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in June that net overseas migration had fallen to 301,000 and temporary visa migration was down sharply from the post-COVID peak.

“We are bringing migration down with a sensible, measured approach to provide the skilled workers Australia needs, while addressing exploitation and rorts,” Burke said.

“The numbers of temporary visa holders and international students also continue to fall, as we prioritise the skills that we need to care for our sick and elderly and build homes.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has now described 225,000 a year by 2027-28 as the government’s net overseas migration target.

“We’ve finalised our numbers. We’re headed to 225,000 in two years,” Albanese said last month.

Treasury’s current forecasts put net overseas migration at 295,000 in 2025-26, 245,000 in 2026-27 and 225,000 from 2027-28.

The government has yet to publish the full package of measures it intends to use to achieve those numbers.

Albanese has previously accused the Coalition and One Nation of throwing migration figures around “like confetti” without explaining how the numbers would be achieved, while arguing skilled migrants remain necessary in aged care, agriculture and construction.

Coalition also wants lower migration — but rejects One Nation’s numbers

The Coalition is pursuing its own substantial migration reduction but has also rejected One Nation’s newly announced figures.

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume said on Monday that several years of net-negative migration would produce a major economic shock.

“Simply saying we’re going to have negative migration for several years, negative NOM, well, that would be a real shock to the economy, and it would make all Australians poorer,” Hume said.

“My concern here is that these numbers have simply been plucked out of thin air, that there isn’t any modelling behind them.”

She said migration policy needed to consider not only total numbers but the mix of workers entering Australia.

“Getting that right to make sure that you don’t push the country into recession is really important,” she said.

The Coalition’s own approach is to formally link migration to housing construction.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has pledged that a Coalition government would cap net overseas migration at no more than the number of new homes completed each year, with migration initially set “well below” that cap to allow housing supply to catch up.

The Coalition has not yet specified a fixed annual migration number because it says the cap should move with housing completions.

Taylor argues Australia’s recent migration intake has moved too far ahead of the country’s capacity to provide housing, roads, hospitals and schools.

The Coalition has also proposed tougher visa character requirements, more aggressive action against abuse of the visa system and a stronger emphasis on what it calls Australian values.

That leaves all three major political forces calling for migration to come down — but disagreeing sharply over how far and how fast.

Housing remains central to One Nation’s argument

One Nation has made housing the central economic case for its policy.

The party argues Australia cannot build homes quickly enough to accommodate recent population growth and says reducing demand is therefore necessary.

It rejects the argument that the answer is simply to build more housing.

The Coalition makes a similar connection between housing supply and population growth but proposes linking migration to construction rather than forcing net migration into negative territory.

Labor counters that Australia needs migrants working in construction to help increase housing supply.

That circular problem — migration increasing housing demand while also supplying some of the workers needed to build homes — is one of the central difficulties in the national debate.

One Nation points to Canada

Hanson has cited Canada as evidence that migration can be reduced sharply without collapsing the economy.

Canada has moved to substantially reduce temporary migration, particularly among international students and some temporary workers, after rapid population growth intensified pressure on housing and services.

One Nation argues Canada’s experience demonstrates economic activity can continue while population growth slows.

But Australian critics say the two countries’ labour markets, visa systems and industry structures are not identical and warn a sudden net-negative migration policy could have very different consequences.

A major shift from One Nation’s previously unclear policy

The document also represents an attempt by One Nation to clarify earlier confusion over exactly what its longstanding 130,000 migration figure meant.

Last month, One Nation MP David Farley suggested the party’s effective migration rate could be above 230,000 once skilled workers were included.

Hanson publicly corrected him, insisting 130,000 referred to the party’s proposed total net overseas migration target.

ABC analysis at the time noted there had been considerable confusion within the party over the distinction between visa grants, migrant arrivals, temporary visa holders and net overseas migration.

The new policy goes considerably further by setting out individual targets across student, graduate, temporary skilled and bridging visa categories.

Its table proposes reducing the selected visa populations from approximately 1.616 million to 850,000, a reduction of about 766,000.

That includes approximately:

• 240,000 fewer student visa holders
• 230,000 fewer graduate visa holders
• 103,000 fewer temporary skilled visa holders and dependants
• 113,000 fewer bridging visa holders
• 80,000 fewer unlawful non-citizens

The party says its broader objective is to reduce Australia’s total temporary migrant population to around 2.1 million to 2.2 million, roughly the level recorded in 2017.

Migration becoming defining political battle

The announcement comes as One Nation enjoys historically high polling support and immigration becomes one of the clearest points of competition between Hanson, Albanese and Taylor.

One Nation has recently recorded around 30 per cent primary support in some national polls, overtaking both Labor and the Coalition in individual surveys.

Labor is trying to demonstrate it has regained control of post-pandemic migration while avoiding cuts severe enough to damage universities, construction, agriculture, aged care and other labour-dependent industries.

The Coalition is trying to move substantially below Labor’s numbers without embracing One Nation’s net-negative reset.

And Hanson is now offering voters the most aggressive numerical reduction of the three.

The economic consequences would be substantial.

International education, healthcare, construction, hospitality, agriculture and numerous service industries depend heavily on temporary migrants.

At the same time, the rapid post-pandemic increase in migration has intensified political pressure around housing availability, rents, congestion and public infrastructure.

Official figures show net overseas migration has already fallen substantially, from a financial-year peak of 538,000 in 2022-23 to 306,000 in 2024-25 and 301,000 in the year to December 2025.

The argument is therefore no longer about whether migration should fall.

Labor, the Coalition and One Nation all say it should.

The dividing line is now how far Australia can reduce migration without creating a labour shortage, damaging universities or pushing the economy backwards — and whether lower population growth can deliver the housing and living-standard relief voters increasingly demand.

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The Legislative Council voted 18 to 17 on Thursday to refer the bill to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny, effectively pushing debate on the proposed laws beyond the current parliamentary term.

The motion was moved by Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Jeff Bourman, who argued the legislation required greater examination because of concerns from employer groups about additional costs, red tape and restrictions on workplace flexibility.

“There are a lot of employer associations that are concerned that the extra burden and extra problems that this may cause will make it harder for businesses to flourish and even harder to start,” Mr Bourman said before the vote.

“There’s a lot of extra bureaucracy. A lot of extra time and effort … and businesses are nervous. We’re still coming out of the COVID period.”

Mr Bourman said the referral was not intended to permanently block the legislation, noting the government could recall parliament for an additional sitting if it wanted the bill reconsidered before the election.

However, Mr Carroll later indicated he was unlikely to do so.

The Premier said when asked whether the government would bring MPs back for an additional sitting period,

“I’ve already added one week to the parliamentary sitting”

The result represents a major setback for Labor, which had expected the bill to clear the upper house after making a series of concessions in response to strong opposition from business groups.

The legislation was originally announced by former premier Jacinta Allan at Labor’s state conference in 2025 as part of a plan to give eligible Victorian workers a legal right to work from home.

Ms Allan had pledged to have the protections in place before the 2026 state election.

The proposal quickly became politically contentious, with business groups warning the laws could create new compliance costs, reduce flexibility for employers and discourage investment.

Legal experts also questioned how the state-based proposal would interact with existing federal workplace laws.

After becoming premier, Mr Carroll sought to reset Labor’s relationship with the business community and delayed the planned commencement of the work-from-home laws by almost a year to allow further consultation.

The government had hoped those changes would be enough to secure parliamentary support.

Instead, the bill was referred to a committee that will examine its economic impact on Victoria, meaning it is now unlikely to return to the chamber before voters go to the polls in November.

The decisive vote was assisted by independent MP Adem Somyurek, the former Labor minister who returned to parliament after a lengthy absence and supported the referral.

Following the vote, Mr Carroll lashed out at Opposition Leader Jess Wilson and those who voted to delay the legislation.

“What we have seen tonight is anti-family [and] anti-worker,” he said.

The government has argued that formal work-from-home protections would give workers greater certainty and help families better manage caring responsibilities, commuting times and the cost of travelling to work.

Business groups, however, welcomed the upper house decision.

Property Council of Australia Victorian executive director Cath Evans described the referral as “the only correct choice”.

“The Victorian Parliament has seen sense,” she said.

“Instead of forcing rushed legislation through parliament, it has made the right call by sending the bill to a committee to properly examine its operation, implications and legal validity.”

Ms Evans said the government should instead focus on housing, jobs, investment and restoring business confidence.

“This decision should be the clearest signal: the Victorian government needs to be focused on the things that will actually drive growth — building more homes, creating jobs, attracting investment and restoring confidence in the state.”

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black went further, urging Labor to abandon the policy entirely before the election.

“This referral should be the final nail in the coffin for this economy-wrecking legislation,” Mr Black said.

“The bill is not needed, it hurts jobs and adds costs to businesses at the worst time.”

The Victorian Greens criticised Labor from the opposite direction, accusing the government of failing to deliver on its promise to workers.

Greens leader Ellen Sandell called on Mr Carroll to recall parliament and push ahead with the laws.

“Workers were promised a right to work from home. Labor delayed it, gutted it and then completely botched getting it through Parliament,” Ms Sandell said.

“Labor had the opportunity to pass a bill, and through sheer political incompetence and kowtowing to big corporations, they’ve now left workers with nothing.”

The defeat leaves work-from-home arrangements set to become another major election issue, with Labor likely to campaign on its promise to legislate protections while the opposition and business groups argue the policy would impose unnecessary burdens on employers.

The political stakes are particularly high for Mr Carroll, who has made rebuilding Labor’s relationship with the business sector one of his priorities since taking over as premier.

The referral gives the government an opportunity to argue the policy needs further consultation, but it also means one of Labor’s most prominent workplace promises is effectively on hold until after the election.

Unless parliament is recalled, Victorian voters will now likely decide the future of the proposal at the ballot box in November.

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The latest News24/YouGov Pulse poll, conducted between September 1 and 8, puts One Nation on 30 per cent, up four percentage points from the previous survey.

Labor has fallen three points to 26 per cent, while the Liberal-National Coalition has dropped to 18 per cent. The Greens remain on 12 per cent. The poll surveyed 1,510 voters.

The result means One Nation has a four-point primary-vote lead over the governing Labor Party and a remarkable 12-point advantage over the Coalition.

However, the figures do not mean One Nation would necessarily win a federal election.

Australia’s preferential voting system means primary support must ultimately be converted into individual electorate victories, and the same poll continues to show Labor ahead in hypothetical head-to-head contests.

Labor leads the Coalition 52–48 on the poll’s respondent-allocated two-party-preferred measure and leads One Nation 53–47.

That is nevertheless a significant tightening of Labor’s advantage.

In the previous YouGov Pulse survey in late August, Labor was on 29 per cent, One Nation on 26 per cent and the Coalition on 21 per cent. Labor led One Nation 56–44 and the Coalition 53–47 on the respective two-party measures.

The latest result therefore suggests the immediate movement has been strongly towards One Nation, at the expense of both major parties.

YouGov director of public data Paul Smith said the Coalition’s position was particularly serious.

He told News24 that if an 18 per cent primary vote translated directly into electoral outcomes at the 2028 federal election, the Coalition could be reduced to fewer than 11 members of the House of Representatives — “less than a cricket team”.

Such a projection should be treated cautiously.

National vote shares do not translate evenly into seats, particularly for a party such as One Nation whose support is distributed differently across metropolitan, outer-suburban and regional electorates.

Candidate quality, preference flows and local campaigns would also determine whether a national surge delivered dozens of lower-house seats.

Even so, the scale of the change since the 2025 federal election is striking.

At that election, Labor won 34.56 per cent of the House primary vote and 94 of the 150 seats.

One Nation secured only 6.40 per cent, while the Liberal, National, LNP and Country Liberal parties collectively accounted for almost 32 per cent of first preferences and won 43 seats.

Measured against that election result, the latest YouGov poll has One Nation at almost five times its 2025 primary vote.

Labor is around nine points below its election result, while the Coalition is roughly 14 points below the combined vote achieved by its constituent parties in 2025.

The AEC has determined that the next federal election will again be fought across 150 House of Representatives seats.

The latest poll does not stand entirely alone.

Other recent national polling has also recorded One Nation at historically high levels, although the exact ranking of the parties varies considerably between pollsters.

A Newspoll/Pyxis survey with fieldwork ending August 28 put One Nation on 30 per cent, Labor on 29 and the Coalition on 19.

A RedBridge/Accent poll over a similar period recorded Labor on 29, One Nation on 28 and the Coalition on 22.

Essential had Labor and the Coalition tied on 26, with One Nation at 23, while the latest Roy Morgan survey put Labor narrowly ahead on 27, One Nation on 26.5 and the Coalition on 21.5.

The variation shows why individual polls should not be read as election predictions.

But collectively, the surveys point towards the same broader development: One Nation is currently attracting support at levels far above anything it achieved at the last federal election, while the Coalition is struggling to re-establish itself as the dominant alternative to Labor.

YouGov itself has recorded that shift over several months.

On July 1, the pollster had One Nation on 30 per cent, Labor on 29 and the Coalition at a then-record low of 17 per cent.

Two weeks later, One Nation fell to 26 as Labor moved to 28 and the Coalition recovered to 20.

By late August, Labor was back on 29, One Nation 26 and the Coalition 21.

The new September result has One Nation returning to 30 while both major parties retreat.

This volatility suggests a sizeable group of voters remains willing to move between parties rather than having permanently realigned.

But One Nation has also received an important real-world boost from Western Australia.

On August 29, One Nation won the previously Labor-held state seat of Secret Harbour in Perth’s south, its first lower-house victory in Western Australia.

Candidate Luke Herdegen secured 39.1 per cent of the primary vote, up more than 30 percentage points on One Nation’s result at the 2025 WA state election.

Labor’s primary vote collapsed to 24.1 per cent, while the Liberals received 17.2 per cent.

After preferences, One Nation defeated Labor 57.2–42.8, producing an 18.7-point two-candidate-preferred swing away from Labor.

Although a state by-election cannot be directly applied to federal voting intentions, the Secret Harbour result provided concrete evidence that One Nation’s polling strength can translate into votes in outer-suburban electorates.

It also demonstrated the potential danger to both major parties.

Labor lost a seat it had previously held comfortably, while the Liberal candidate finished a distant third.

The latest federal poll contains further evidence of One Nation’s growing ownership of one of the most politically charged issues in the country — immigration.

According to analysis of the YouGov survey published by Poll Bludger, 36 per cent of respondents nominated One Nation as the party best able to manage immigration, compared with 18 per cent for Labor and 18 per cent for the Coalition.

That result helps explain the strategic challenge facing Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.

The Coalition has traditionally relied on issues including immigration, border protection, national security and economic management to consolidate conservative voters.

It now faces a party to its right attracting voters who once regarded the Liberal and National parties as their natural political home.

The latest polling comes as One Nation is increasingly attempting to broaden its platform beyond immigration and cultural issues.

The party this week proposed allowing workers paying rent or a mortgage to redirect up to a quarter of their compulsory superannuation contributions into take-home income for as long as three years.

Senator Hanson has presented the policy as immediate cost-of-living relief.

Labor has attacked it as a threat to retirement savings, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers warning that Australians would ultimately lose substantially more through foregone compound returns than they would gain in short-term disposable income.

The debate illustrates the next stage of One Nation’s political strategy: turning heightened support over immigration, housing and dissatisfaction with the major parties into a broader economic pitch.

For the Coalition, the problem is different.

At 18 per cent, its latest primary vote is lower than the 20.7 per cent received by the Liberal Party alone at the 2025 election, before votes for the Nationals and Queensland LNP are even included.

The Coalition entered the current parliamentary term with 43 seats after suffering a heavy defeat in 2025. Labor won 94 seats, giving Anthony Albanese an overwhelming House majority.

If the Coalition remains in the high teens, its challenge would not merely be defeating Labor.

It would first have to prevent One Nation from replacing it as the principal force on the non-Labor side of federal politics.

A previous YouGov survey in July prompted Smith to suggest that, on those numbers, One Nation could become the official opposition while the Coalition fell to single figures.

The latest poll again raises that prospect, although there remains a long distance between national polling numbers and actually winning enough individual electorates to become the second-largest parliamentary party.

One Nation currently does not have anything resembling the nationwide lower-house infrastructure of Labor or the Coalition.

It would need competitive candidates across scores of electorates, substantial campaign resources and strong preference flows to turn a national primary vote of around 30 per cent into a large House presence.

The leadership numbers also provide Labor with some reassurance.

Despite the fall in Labor’s primary vote, Anthony Albanese remains ahead of both opposition alternatives as preferred prime minister.

Against Angus Taylor, Albanese leads 43 per cent to 39 per cent, with 18 per cent unsure.

Against Pauline Hanson, the Prime Minister leads 51 per cent to 40 per cent, with 9 per cent unsure.

Albanese’s personal ratings remain weak, however.

The latest YouGov figures put satisfaction with his performance at 36 per cent and dissatisfaction at 59 per cent.

Taylor’s satisfaction rating has risen to 36 per cent, with 48 per cent dissatisfied.

The juxtaposition is politically unusual.

Labor is no longer the leading party on primary votes in this survey, yet remains favoured to beat either of its major competitors after preferences, while Albanese retains the advantage as preferred prime minister.

One Nation, meanwhile, has the highest primary vote but still trails Labor in a direct two-party contest.

And the Coalition, traditionally one of the two pillars of Australian federal politics, is currently running third.

The numbers also reinforce a wider collapse in traditional party loyalty.

At the 2025 federal election, Labor and the Coalition parties together attracted more than two-thirds of House first preferences.

The new YouGov poll puts their combined support at just 44 per cent — 26 for Labor and 18 for the Coalition — meaning a majority of respondents are currently choosing One Nation, the Greens or other parties and independents.

That fragmentation is likely to make preference flows increasingly important.

In 2025, One Nation preferences generally flowed strongly towards the Coalition. For example, in Victoria, 75 per cent of One Nation preferences in the formal Labor-Coalition two-party count flowed to the Coalition.

If One Nation begins finishing ahead of Coalition candidates in large numbers of electorates, however, the direction of Liberal and National preferences towards One Nation could become decisive instead.

That would create difficult strategic decisions for the Coalition over preference recommendations and how aggressively it campaigns against Senator Hanson.

Taylor has recently described One Nation as unfit to govern, while individual Coalition MPs are simultaneously under pressure from a growing One Nation vote on their right.

For Labor, the danger is different.

Its 2025 landslide gives it a substantial parliamentary buffer, but recent results suggest One Nation can appeal in outer-suburban and working-class electorates that Labor has traditionally relied upon.

Secret Harbour was one such warning.

Recent polling in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Queensland electorate of Rankin has also shown a sharp increase in One Nation support, although Labor would still be favoured to retain the seat after preferences.

The next federal election is not due until 2028, meaning the political landscape has considerable time to change.

Economic conditions, interest rates, housing affordability, immigration, global events and the performance of all three major political forces could substantially alter voter sentiment before Australians return to the polls.

Polling two years out from an election is therefore better understood as a measure of current dissatisfaction than a reliable seat forecast.

But the September YouGov result is difficult for either major party to dismiss.

For Labor, losing the primary-vote lead after its overwhelming 2025 victory is a warning that a large portion of its electoral coalition is unsettled.

For the Coalition, 18 per cent represents something potentially more serious: the possibility that its status as Australia’s automatic alternative government can no longer be taken for granted.

And for Pauline Hanson, a national primary vote of 30 per cent — reinforced by a string of other strong polls and an actual lower-house by-election victory — places One Nation in political territory it has never previously occupied at the federal level.

The key question now is whether that support represents a temporary protest against the major parties or the beginning of a lasting realignment of Australian politics.

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Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has hosted a roundtable with Indian community representatives and business leaders, promising to stand with one of the state’s fastest-growing communities as concerns over racism, cost of living, small business pressures, crime and infrastructure become increasingly prominent ahead of the November state election.

The meeting brought together community figures and business representatives for a direct discussion with the Premier about the contribution Indian Victorians make to the state and the issues affecting families, professionals and entrepreneurs.

Mr Carroll used the gathering to deliver a clear message to the community.

“Victoria’s Indian community contributes so much to our state, to our economy, our culture and to the success of modern Victoria,” he said.

“You are small business owners, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs and community leaders — helping to build the Victoria we’re all proud to call home.

“We trust Victoria’s Indian community.

“We respect you.

The political importance of the Indian-Australian community in Victoria has grown rapidly alongside its population.

Victorian government data based on the 2021 Census records 371,901 Victorians with Indian ancestry, including more than 258,000 people born in India. More than half of the community arrived in Victoria between 2011 and 2021, with large populations now established across Melbourne’s west, north and south-east.

Indian Victorians are heavily represented in healthcare, technology, education, professional services, transport, hospitality and small business, while Victoria’s economic ties with India have also expanded. Merchandise trade between Victoria and India reached $3.67 billion in 2023-24, according to the state government’s India Strategy.

But the roundtable comes at a time when sections of the community have become increasingly vocal about feeling targeted in the wider migration debate.

Anti-Indian rhetoric has emerged as a serious concern both online and in public places.

Earlier this year, the announcement of a proposed Little India precinct in Melbourne triggered a wave of racist commentary on social media, including threats directed at the Indian community. Indian Victorians interviewed by The Australia Today spoke about racism in rental housing and fears that highly visible community initiatives could become targets for abuse.

Those concerns have also reached the Victorian Parliament.

MPs have reported Indian and South Asian residents raising incidents involving racial slurs, threats and anti-immigration abuse in Melbourne. One parliamentary contribution described racism and xenophobia against Indian Victorians as a concern being raised “consistently” both online and on the streets.

The issue became particularly visible during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Melbourne visit in July.

Victoria has since strengthened its anti-vilification laws, with new civil protections applying from April this year and criminal provisions targeting serious vilification already in force.

Cost of living and the cost of doing business are another major concern.

Indian-Australian families are concentrated in rapidly growing mortgage-belt suburbs including Tarneit, Truganina, Point Cook, Werribee, Craigieburn, Mickleham, Cranbourne, Clyde and Pakenham, where housing costs, fuel prices, commuting expenses and access to services can have an outsized impact on household budgets.

The Victorian Government itself acknowledged that household budgets remained under pressure in its 2026-27 Budget, announcing measures including cheaper public transport.

For business owners, the challenges are broader.

Many Indian Victorians operate restaurants, grocery stores, professional services, construction businesses, transport companies, franchises and other small enterprises.

Business Victoria says award wages rose 4.75 per cent from July, adding to labour costs, while businesses are also preparing for changes including payday superannuation.

The 2026 Victorian Budget drew criticism for offering relatively little new targeted relief for small businesses, despite businesses dealing with many of the same inflationary pressures affecting households.

For Indian business leaders, this creates a straightforward question for the government: how does Victoria remain attractive for investment and entrepreneurship while operating costs, taxation and regulation continue to rise?

Community safety is another politically sensitive issue.

Many Indian families live in outer suburban communities where concerns about home burglaries, car theft and youth offending have dominated local conversations over recent years.

The latest statewide figures show a more complicated picture than the political debate sometimes suggests. Recorded offences fell 1.9 per cent in the year to March 2026, and criminal incidents declined 1 per cent, while youth alleged-offender incidents fell 6 per cent. However, retail theft continued to rise, and overall alleged-offender incidents increased.

For households and businesses, perceptions of safety can remain deeply personal regardless of statewide trends, particularly when families have experienced burglary, theft or threatening behaviour themselves.

Infrastructure pressures are equally important because so much of Victoria’s Indian population is concentrated in Melbourne’s growth corridors.

The west in particular has experienced rapid population growth while residents have repeatedly called for better roads, rail capacity, schools and hospitals.

The government has recently announced another $550 million towards widening the Western Freeway between Melton and Caroline Springs, adding to $1 billion in federal funding. The project will expand sections of the freeway to three and four lanes and upgrade major interchanges.

Those projects are likely to be welcomed, but the challenge for governments remains keeping services ahead of population growth rather than continually attempting to catch up.

There are also calls for stronger recognition of the community’s cultural infrastructure.

Victoria has funded plans for Indian community centres in Melbourne’s west and south-east, while Melbourne City Council is pursuing a Little India precinct in Docklands.

Community leaders have argued such projects are not simply about festivals or cultural symbolism. They can provide permanent spaces for seniors, young people, language programs, community support services and cultural organisations.

Mr Carroll’s roundtable also carried a clear electoral message.

The Premier used the meeting to warn Indian Victorians about the prospect of One Nation having greater influence after the November election.

“A Liberal-One Nation Government will hurt working people,” he said.

“Labor will always back our multicultural and multi-faith communities.”

That characterisation is contested politically.

Victorian Liberal Leader Jess Wilson has previously ruled out an alliance with One Nation, although debate about preference arrangements and the possibility of a hung parliament continues as One Nation seeks to increase its representation.

For Indian Victorians, however, the roundtable is likely to be judged less by the political warnings exchanged during the campaign and more by what follows from the meeting.

Community concerns are increasingly practical: families want to feel safe in their homes and on the street; business owners want relief from escalating operating costs; commuters want roads and trains that keep pace with population growth; professionals want their skills recognised; and community organisations want protection from racism alongside meaningful representation in government decision-making.

There is also a growing expectation that politicians engage the community beyond festivals, election campaigns and ceremonial events.

The Indian diaspora is now too large, economically active and geographically concentrated to be treated as a peripheral multicultural constituency.

For Mr Carroll, who grew up in Melbourne’s west and has made working families and outer-suburban communities central to his pitch as Premier, the roundtable was an opportunity to make that acknowledgement explicit.

“As Premier, I will always stand with you.”

With Victoria heading to the polls on 28 November, Indian Victorians will now be watching closely to see how that promise translates into policy on the issues affecting their homes, businesses and communities.

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The development comes as Mr Pickering and federal One Nation leader Pauline Hanson are already under pressure over separate historical allegations made by his former partner, including claims of illicit drug use during their long-term relationship — allegations Mr Pickering has rejected.

According to State Revenue Office notices obtained by The Australian, Mr Pickering was investigated over a first home owner grant associated with a property built in Mernda, in Melbourne’s outer north. A final notice dated January 4, 2010 reportedly demanded immediate repayment of $13,500 and warned that recovery action, potentially including proceedings in the Magistrates’ Court, could follow if the amount was not paid.

The State Revenue Office declined to discuss Mr Pickering’s individual circumstances with the newspaper because of taxpayer confidentiality.

There has been no public confirmation of whether Mr Pickering subsequently repaid the $13,500, and both he and One Nation reportedly declined to answer questions from The Australian about the status of the debt.

The reporting does not establish criminal wrongdoing by Mr Pickering. The issue is that a State Revenue Office demand was issued and the question of whether the money was later repaid remains publicly unanswered.

The reported dispute concerned a house constructed after land in Mernda was purchased in November 2005. The State Revenue Office later raised questions about previous property interests held by Mr Pickering’s then-partner, Jo Scott, according to the documents reported by The Australian.

That issue matters because Victorian first home owner grant eligibility rules do not look solely at the person whose name appears on an application.

The legislation in force around that period included eligibility tests relating to property previously owned by an applicant or their partner. Under the First Home Owner Grant Act, an applicant could be ineligible where either the applicant or their partner had previously held certain interests in residential property, depending on when the property was owned and whether it had been occupied as a home.

The State Revenue Office’s current guidance similarly requires applicants to disclose their spouse or partner and says a partner’s previous property ownership can affect eligibility even where that person is not named on the property title or grant application.

The existence of a previous property interest, however, does not automatically establish ineligibility in every case. The dates, nature of the ownership and whether the property was occupied are relevant under the legislation.

According to the newspaper’s report, the State Revenue Office wrote to Mr Pickering in September 2009 after identifying previous property interests associated with Ms Scott and later issued the $13,500 final demand.

Ms Scott has claimed Mr Pickering did not intend to repay the money and, to her knowledge, had not done so. That claim has not been independently established, and the State Revenue Office has not publicly disclosed what occurred after its 2010 demand.

The grant issue has surfaced during an already difficult week for Mr Pickering following a series of allegations made by Ms Scott about their relationship.

Ms Scott, who was Mr Pickering’s partner for about 18 years, has alleged that he regularly used illicit drugs, including crystal methamphetamine, during parts of their relationship.

The Australian reported that she supplied statutory declarations and what she said were handwritten letters and text messages from Mr Pickering to support her account. A separate person from their former social circle was also reported to have provided a statutory declaration alleging they witnessed Mr Pickering using ice on multiple occasions.

The material reportedly includes correspondence attributed to Mr Pickering referring to drug use and behaviour he described at the time as “sexual deviance”.

Mr Pickering has categorically rejected Ms Scott’s allegations.

In a statement issued before the reports were published, he described the claims as false and hurtful and challenged the reliability of his former partner’s account. One Nation’s lawyers also disputed the allegations and linked them to a long-running and difficult family dispute.

Mr Pickering has not publicly provided detailed answers addressing each of the reported letters, messages and drug-use allegations individually. However, One Nation has posted a statement on its social media.

The controversy has also raised questions about what One Nation knew before Senator Hanson elevated Mr Pickering to lead the party’s Victorian election campaign.

One Nation formally announced Mr Pickering as its Victorian state leader in August, with the party saying he would lead its campaign focused on crime, cost of living, energy, housing and health. He is also One Nation’s candidate for the lower-house seat of Pakenham.

The ABC reported when his leadership was announced that Mr Pickering, already One Nation’s Victorian state president, said the party intended to govern and planned an extensive field of candidates across the state.

But The Australian reports Ms Scott had contacted Senator Hanson’s parliamentary office well before that appointment.

According to the report, Ms Scott emailed Senator Hanson’s office in September 2025 with concerns about Mr Pickering. The office reportedly responded the following day asking her to resend an attachment that had been omitted.

Ms Scott reportedly contacted Senator Hanson’s office again in May 2026, this time raising the State Revenue Office correspondence concerning the first home owner grant.

She said she did not receive a substantive response to the second approach.

Those contacts have intensified questions about One Nation’s candidate-vetting process and whether Senator Hanson or senior officials examined the allegations before Mr Pickering was appointed Victorian leader.

Federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called on One Nation to disclose its correspondence with Ms Scott and explain when the party became aware of her claims.

Mr Taylor said Victorians deserved answers about when One Nation received the correspondence, what it did in response and how Mr Pickering was ultimately selected to lead the state campaign.

Senator Hanson has largely sought to draw a line under the controversy.

Speaking in Canberra, she described the allegations as a “personal matter” and said they had been put to Mr Pickering and denied.

She repeatedly declined to provide further details about the party’s vetting or say whether she had personally investigated the specific claims before his appointment.

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has taken a somewhat different approach, emphasising the possibility that people can move on from mistakes in their past.

After speaking with Mr Pickering, Mr Joyce told The Australian that he believed in “the redemption of the human spirit” and said people who acknowledged mistakes and changed their lives deserved recognition for doing so.

Mr Joyce and Senator Hanson have also pointed to Mr Pickering’s subsequent Australian Defence Force service.

Mr Pickering joined the Army and served as a combat engineer, and One Nation figures have argued his ability to enter and serve in the Defence Force should be considered when assessing his character.

Senator Hanson said the Defence Force conducts vetting and noted that Mr Pickering had been accepted and remained associated with the military. Mr Joyce similarly pointed to his Army service when questioned about his suitability for political leadership.

However, military recruitment or security vetting does not determine whether a political party has adequately investigated matters relevant to selecting a candidate or leader, and the controversy has continued despite those defences.

One Nation federal director James Ashby has also defended Mr Pickering, with comments suggesting people should not necessarily be permanently judged for mistakes made earlier in life. That position has attracted attention because Mr Pickering himself has denied the central allegations rather than acknowledged past drug use as described by Ms Scott.

The issue is politically sensitive because Mr Pickering is not simply another candidate.

One Nation selected him to front its Victorian campaign as the party seeks to expand its presence in state parliament. The party already has representation in Victoria’s upper house and has been campaigning heavily in outer-metropolitan and regional electorates.

Pakenham, where Mr Pickering is contesting the Legislative Assembly, is viewed as an important battleground. The outer south-eastern Melbourne electorate is being targeted by One Nation amid acute cost-of-living and mortgage pressures.

The controversy has consequently spilled into the broader Victorian election campaign.

Victorian Labor has sought to use the allegations to put pressure not only on One Nation but also on the Liberal Party over what could happen if neither major party secures a majority in November.

Labor ministers have argued voters should know whether the Liberals would negotiate with or rely on One Nation in a hung parliament.

The Victorian Liberals have rejected Labor’s attempt to link them to the controversy, saying their objective is to form a majority government. Liberal frontbencher Evan Mulholland has accused Labor of trying to distract voters from its own record.

The latest revelations come only weeks after Senator Hanson publicly launched Mr Pickering as the face of One Nation’s Victorian campaign.

One Nation’s own campaign material describes him as the leader who will take the party into the election and says it intends to campaign on restoring law and order, reducing living costs, changing energy policy, addressing housing affordability and reforming government.

That positioning means questions surrounding Mr Pickering’s background, the first home owner grant and the party’s vetting are likely to remain politically relevant rather than being confined to a private dispute.

There is currently no public evidence showing whether the $13,500 demanded by the State Revenue Office in 2010 remains outstanding.

Similarly, the drug-related allegations remain allegations strongly denied by Mr Pickering. No material cited in the current reporting establishes that he was convicted of a drug offence arising from the conduct alleged by his former partner.

What is established through One Nation’s own material is that Senator Hanson appointed Mr Pickering Victorian state leader on the eve of a campaign in which the party hopes to substantially increase its influence.

The Victorian Electoral Commission has confirmed the state election will be held on Saturday, 28 November 2026, with almost 4.7 million Victorians expected to be eligible to vote.

With fewer than three months until polling day, the immediate questions for Mr Pickering and One Nation are now straightforward: whether the first home owner grant repayment was ultimately settled, what party officials knew about the allegations before his elevation, and whether One Nation will release the correspondence that has become central to the dispute.

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Under the policy announced by One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson on Monday, eligible Australians would be able to take the equivalent of 3 per cent of their wages from future employer super contributions as additional take-home income, while the remaining 9 per cent would continue accumulating for retirement.

Employers would still be required to make the full 12 per cent compulsory super contribution, with the worker’s superannuation fund responsible for redirecting the elected portion to their nominated bank account.

The proposal is aimed squarely at households struggling with mortgages, rents and other living expenses and immediately opens a political fight over whether Australians should sacrifice some future retirement savings to ease financial pressure today.

“People are working hard and still struggling to get ahead,” Hanson said in announcing the policy.

“Interest rates keep rising. Rents keep climbing. Groceries, power bills, petrol and insurance are taking more and more out of the family budget.”

“One Nation wants to give people some breathing room.”

How the 3 per cent plan would work

The proposal would be voluntary and apply only to future superannuation contributions. Workers would not be permitted to withdraw their existing super balance.

A worker who opts in would effectively split their 12 per cent employer contribution:

• 9 per cent would remain in super
• 3 per cent would be redirected to the worker
• The arrangement could operate for a maximum of 36 months
• The worker could end the arrangement earlier
• Changing jobs or super funds would not restart the three-year entitlement.

The diverted amount would retain the concessional tax treatment it would ordinarily receive within super. One Nation says that for most workers this would mean a 15 per cent tax rate, rather than having the payment taxed again as ordinary salary.

Australia’s compulsory Super Guarantee rate is currently 12 per cent.

Hanson said the policy was about giving Australians greater control over their own money.

“If you are doing it tough now, paying a mortgage or rent, you should have the choice to use some of your own money to help stay afloat,” she said.

Who would qualify?

According to One Nation’s policy document, the option would be available to Australians receiving compulsory super who are paying either rent or a mortgage on the home in which they live.

Investment properties would not qualify.

Eligibility would be established directly with a person’s super fund using evidence such as a lease, rental statement or mortgage statement.

The party says a husband, wife or partner who genuinely contributes towards household rent or mortgage payments could also qualify even if their name was not formally listed on the lease or mortgage.

Super funds, rather than employers, would administer the scheme.

Under the proposal, employers would continue making their normal contributions and would not need to know whether an employee had elected to receive the 3 per cent payment.

Hanson says worker on $90,500 could get $44 extra a week

One Nation estimates a median full-time worker earning $90,500 could receive about $2,300 a year after the proposed concessional tax treatment, equivalent to roughly $44 a week.

For a couple earning a combined $168,000, the party estimates the benefit at about $4,300 annually, or $82 a week.

An individual earning $120,000 could receive approximately $3,060 a year, while a household earning a combined $240,000 could receive about $6,120 annually under the party’s calculations.

Those estimates broadly correspond with the mechanics of redirecting three percentage points of wages and applying the proposed 15 per cent tax treatment.

Hanson said the money could make a tangible difference to households struggling with everyday expenses.

“That’s a real boost to help you pay the rent or the mortgage, leaving more room for groceries, power bills and the costs of raising a family,” she said.

“Your existing super won’t be touched. Not one dollar.”

One Nation MP and Treasury spokesperson Barnaby Joyce has thrown his support behind the proposal, arguing the retirement system should recognise the immediate financial pressures confronting households.

“There’s no point telling a family they’ll be better off in retirement if they can’t afford the mortgage or their rent payment today,” Joyce said.

“A good retirement starts with keeping a roof over your head.”

Joyce also challenged the government’s approach to superannuation, arguing workers should have greater control over money held on their behalf.

“Labor calls your money in super a ‘national asset’. Jim Chalmers wants to treat it like it is his, when it most definitely is yours,” he said.

Speaking on Monday, Joyce said the policy was fundamentally about giving people access to their own money and argued Australians were capable of assessing the trade-off between immediate financial relief and their retirement savings.

The proposal has already drawn strong criticism from the Albanese government.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek argued people who participated could ultimately retire with thousands of dollars less.

“It’s obvious One Nation wants you to raid your super instead of getting a pay increase,” she said.

“We support higher wages and better super when you retire.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has gone further, describing the proposal as a “dangerous risk” to workers’ financial security and arguing it would result in Australians having less superannuation available in retirement.

That criticism points to the central economic question surrounding the proposal: while redirecting contributions would put additional cash into household budgets immediately, workers would lose not only those contributions from their retirement accounts but also the investment returns those contributions might have earned over subsequent decades.

For younger workers in particular, the effect of lost compound returns could substantially exceed the amount initially redirected.

The Coalition has taken a more cautious position.

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume said the proposal deserved examination if One Nation could provide sufficient detail, while arguing that addressing inflation and government spending was a bigger part of tackling cost-of-living pressures.

“If there’s any more substance behind it, of course, everybody should be interested in looking at it and what it might mean both for your retirement and to whether you can pay your rent and pay your mortgage,” Hume said.

The debate comes amid broader political arguments over the purpose of Australia’s compulsory superannuation system and how much flexibility workers should have to use retirement savings before reaching retirement age.

Australians can already access super early in limited circumstances, including severe financial hardship and certain compassionate grounds, but the One Nation proposal would create a much broader mechanism specifically tied to housing costs.

One Nation’s proposal represents a fundamentally different approach to cost-of-living assistance.

Rather than providing a government payment or requiring employers to increase wages, it would allow workers to redirect part of money already being contributed for their retirement.

For Hanson, the argument is about choice: Australians facing financial pressure should be able to decide whether having more money today is more valuable than having a larger super balance decades later.

For critics, the concern is that cost-of-living pressures could push workers into sacrificing retirement savings when they have little practical choice.

That battle — money in Australians’ pockets today versus more money in retirement tomorrow — is now shaping up as another major dividing line in the national debate over the future of Australia’s multitrillion-dollar superannuation system.

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Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has announced a $40 million, four-year Victorian Rural Health Workforce Incentive Scheme, designed to help regional hospitals recruit and retain health professionals in areas struggling with critical workforce shortages.

Under the proposal, eligible workers could receive up to $10,000 in upfront financial assistance when taking a regional position.

They could then qualify for further incentives of up to $10,000 for each year they remain in the role, creating a financial incentive not only to move to regional Victoria but to stay.

The assistance could take the form of direct payments or support for relocation and accommodation expenses.

The Coalition says the model would be based on a workforce incentive program operating in New South Wales and would cover doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.

“Regional Victoria is a fantastic place to live, work and build a career, and we want to create more opportunities for our brightest health professionals to do just that,” Ms Wilson said.

“More doctors, nurses and midwives in our regions means stronger local hospitals, better care closer to home and less pressure on our entire health system.”

The announcement comes ahead of Victoria’s November election, with access to healthcare and shortages of doctors and other health professionals continuing to be major concerns across regional communities.

The Coalition argues there is a mismatch in Victoria’s health workforce, with some professionals competing for positions in Melbourne while regional hospitals struggle to recruit staff.

Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier said the policy was intended to better connect available health workers with communities where vacancies were most acute.

“We want to better connect our growing health workforce with the rural and regional hospitals that need them,” Ms Crozier said.

“This is about filling critical vacancies today, while building a strong and stable regional health workforce for the future.”

Housing included in regional health push

The Coalition has also identified housing availability as a barrier to recruiting workers outside Melbourne.

Under the proposal, dedicated health-worker accommodation would be considered as part of new regional hospital developments where appropriate.

The Coalition specifically identified the proposed West Gippsland Hospital and Mildura Base Public Hospital developments as locations where worker accommodation could be incorporated.

Housing shortages and rental availability can make recruiting professionals to regional communities difficult even where employment is available, particularly for workers who need to relocate quickly or are unfamiliar with the area.

The Coalition argues combining financial incentives with accommodation support could make regional positions more attractive and improve retention.

Shadow Mental Health Minister Emma Kealy said regional communities needed greater access to mental health professionals as part of the wider workforce push.

“This is a great chance for some of Victoria’s best and brightest health professionals to get ahead by setting themselves up in regional Victoria,” Ms Kealy said.

“Regional Victorians are crying out for a fair share and deserve to have the same mental health resources available to those living in metropolitan areas.”

NSW scheme provides model

The Coalition says its Victorian proposal draws on a health workforce incentive scheme used in New South Wales.

NSW Health operates Rural Health Workforce Incentive Schemes for eligible positions in rural and regional areas, with packages that can include recruitment and retention incentives, relocation assistance, professional development and other benefits.

The Victorian Coalition’s proposal differs in its announced funding and payment structure, with $40 million committed over four years and incentives of up to $10,000 initially and up to a further $10,000 for each year an eligible worker stays.

However, important details are yet to be outlined, including exactly which locations and occupations would qualify, how long annual retention payments could continue and the criteria used to determine the value of individual incentive packages.

Those details would determine how many workers could ultimately benefit from the $40 million program.

Regional health emerges as election issue

Health workforce shortages are not unique to Victoria, with governments across Australia using financial incentives, training programs and relocation support to attract professionals outside major cities.

The challenge is particularly acute because recruiting a worker does not necessarily mean retaining them over the longer term.

The Coalition’s proposed annual retention payments are designed to address that problem by providing an ongoing financial reason for workers to remain in regional communities after receiving their initial relocation assistance.

The policy also gives the opposition another health commitment to take into the November state election, pitching the program as a response to what it says is an imbalance between employment opportunities in Melbourne and workforce shortages elsewhere.

For regional patients, the Coalition argues the intended outcome would be fewer vacancies, shorter journeys for treatment and greater access to doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health and mental health professionals closer to home.

The Liberals and Nationals say the $40 million scheme would be established if they win government in November, putting regional health workforce recruitment firmly into the contest over which side can deliver better access to healthcare outside Melbourne.

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The Coalition plans to introduce an Australian National Symbols and Heritage Protection Bill later this year, with serious public desecration of the Australian national flag potentially carrying up to 12 months in prison.

The proposed legislation would also introduce penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment for deliberately damaging, defacing, desecrating or destroying war memorials and other significant monuments.

Taylor said Australians were free to criticise their country and government but argued publicly burning the national flag crossed a line.

“People are welcome to make political statements on Australia, and they can criticise Australia all they like, but burning the flag goes a step further,” Taylor said.

“It is a symbol, it is part of our nation and our heritage that really matters.”

Taylor described burning the flag as “sacrilege” and said a maximum penalty of one year in prison was appropriate.

The announcement puts questions of patriotism, protest and national identity firmly on the political agenda, while Labor has accused the Coalition of pursuing the issue as it battles One Nation for conservative voters.

What would the proposed flag-burning law cover?

The Coalition proposal would not appear to criminalise every instance in which an Australian flag is damaged or destroyed.

According to details reported on Sunday, the offence would apply to serious public desecration where a person is reckless as to whether their conduct could incite hatred or violence, threaten public order or cause a public disturbance.

Taylor said the Coalition’s position was about defending Australia’s way of life, not its political competition with One Nation.

“We are about protecting our way of life and fixing the economy. And if we’re going to protect our way of life, we need to stand up for Australia,” he said.

Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has also backed stronger protections, arguing there is a distinction between political speech and acts directed at national symbols.

The legislation is also expected to form part of a wider Coalition push around Australian national symbols and heritage, including reinforcing January 26 as Australia Day. Reports say the proposal would seek to require a national vote before the date could be changed.

War memorial vandals could face 10 years

The second major element of the Coalition proposal concerns war memorials.

People who deliberately damage or desecrate protected memorials could face penalties of up to 10 years in prison under the proposed federal regime.

Vandalising memorials is already prohibited under various state and territory laws, meaning the Coalition’s proposal would enter an area where criminal offences already exist but penalties differ between jurisdictions.

The push follows a series of incidents involving national monuments and symbols, including damage to Melbourne’s historic Pioneer Monument and Australian flags being burned during protests.

Supporters of tougher laws argue such incidents demonstrate that existing protections are inadequate and that monuments commemorating Australia’s war dead deserve stronger national protection.

Opponents are likely to question whether new federal offences are necessary where vandalism, property damage and conduct threatening public order can already be prosecuted.

The Coalition’s announcement is not occurring in a legislative vacuum.

Two separate flag-protection proposals were introduced into the House of Representatives in February.

Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie’s Criminal Code Amendment (Flag Protection) Bill 2026 proposes making it an offence to intentionally or recklessly burn or desecrate the Australian national, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander flags. Parliamentary records list the bill as before the House.

Nationals MP Pat Conaghan also introduced the Flags Amendment (Protection of Australian National Flags) Bill 2026, which proposes prohibiting burning, destroying, desecrating or otherwise seriously dishonouring the Australian national flag or Australian Red Ensign.

The new Coalition proposal would therefore add another attempt to settle a question that has repeatedly surfaced in federal politics.

One of the biggest obstacles is likely to be Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.

Australia does not have an American-style constitutional right to free speech. But the High Court has recognised an implied freedom of political communication arising from Australia’s system of representative government.

Importantly, the Parliamentary Library says that freedom is not an individual personal right. Instead, it operates as a restriction on government power. A law burdening political communication can remain valid if it pursues a legitimate purpose and the burden imposed is proportionate.

That distinction could become central to any legal challenge.

Burning a flag during a protest can plainly carry a political message. A court could therefore have to consider whether criminalising the conduct burdens political communication and, if it does, whether the restriction is constitutionally justified.

There is precedent for concern.

When Parliament’s human rights committee considered an earlier flag-related criminal proposal, it warned that the offence risked being excessively broad and disproportionate and raised concerns about compatibility with freedom of expression under international human rights law.

Constitutional experts have again warned that a broadly drafted prohibition could face scrutiny in the High Court.

Labor has indicated it will oppose the Coalition push.

Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said existing criminal laws already provided mechanisms to deal with conduct such as incitement to violence and questioned whether another offence was necessary.

He also invoked former Liberal prime minister John Howard, who opposed making flag burning a criminal offence when the issue arose during his government.

Howard’s position was that while he strongly disliked flag burning, banning the act was difficult to reconcile with political expression in a liberal democracy.

That gives Labor an unusual political argument: opposition to the Coalition proposal can be framed not simply as a progressive free-speech position, but one previously shared by one of the Liberal Party’s most successful conservative prime ministers.

Coalition denies it is chasing One Nation

The politics surrounding the announcement are nevertheless difficult to separate from the Coalition’s competition with One Nation.

Taylor’s opposition has increasingly placed Australian identity, national values and law and order at the centre of its political pitch.

Labor has characterised the flag proposal as an attempt by the Coalition to win back voters attracted to One Nation.

Taylor rejects that interpretation, saying the policies should be judged on whether they are good for the country rather than their electoral consequences.

The debate now presents Parliament with two distinct questions.

The first is whether deliberately burning Australia’s flag or desecrating its war memorials deserves stronger punishment than existing laws provide.

The second — and potentially more difficult — is how far Parliament can go in protecting national symbols without criminalising political expression.

With the Coalition preparing to put legislation before Parliament, that argument is likely to move from political rhetoric to a test of where Australia draws the line between protest and desecration.

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Premier Ben Carroll announced the state commitment ahead of November’s Victorian election, saying the project would deliver about 30 kilometres of new traffic lanes, with sections of the freeway expanded to as many as four lanes in each direction.

The Victorian funding comes on top of $1 billion already committed by the federal government to upgrades between Melton and Caroline Springs.

The Commonwealth says more than 86,000 vehicles use the corridor each day, with that number forecast to reach about 113,000 by 2031 as Melbourne’s western suburbs continue to grow.

Under Labor’s plan, the Ferris Road, Leakes Road and Hopkins Road interchanges would be upgraded, while a new half interchange would be built at Mount Cottrell Road to provide local motorists with direct access to and from the freeway.

The government says the upgraded sections would also have a consistent 100 kilometres per hour speed limit.

Mr Carroll said the announcement reflected his government’s renewed focus on basic infrastructure.

“I said as a new premier my first task is to listen to what Victorians’ needs are,” he said.

“They told me very clearly they wanted a relentless focus on the basics and there was nothing more important than getting our road infrastructure right and making sure hard-working Victorians can spend less time in traffic and get to spend more time with their families.”

Federal government already committed $1 billion

The project has been in development for years.

The federal government announced its $1 billion commitment for the Melton-to-Caroline Springs section in March 2025 as part of a broader $1.1 billion investment in the Western Freeway.

At the time, the Commonwealth said the exact upgrades would be determined with the Victorian government following completion of a jointly funded business case.

A further $50 million in federal funding for pre-construction work was announced in May this year.

That work includes detailed planning and design, ground investigations and environmental and planning studies before major construction begins.

Mr Carroll said that planning meant the project was already moving forward and the new $550 million commitment represented Victoria “coming to the table as well”.

The announcement would bring the combined state and Commonwealth commitments for the Melton-Caroline Springs upgrade to about $1.55 billion, although the final scope, staging and construction timetable will depend on planning and funding arrangements.

Population boom putting pressure on roads

The announcement comes amid growing pressure on governments to provide infrastructure at the same pace as housing and population growth in Melbourne’s west.

The City of Melton describes itself as Australia’s fastest-growing municipality and says its population is forecast to almost double to about 456,000 over the next two decades.

The Victorian government has also set the municipality a target of another 109,000 homes by 2051.

Melton recorded annual population growth of 6.61 per cent in 2022-23, according to council data.

That expansion has increasingly exposed the gap between new housing development and transport infrastructure.

Melton City Council said in July that years of underinvestment had left residents dealing with congested roads, overcrowded trains and long daily commutes.

It has made transport one of its major issues ahead of November’s election, calling on political parties to commit to upgrades to the Western Highway and Hopkins Road, as well as electrification and duplication of the Melton rail line.

Council has previously warned the Western Highway was not equipped for the scale of development planned along the corridor, arguing additional lanes and upgraded interchanges were needed to accommodate population growth while maintaining freight movements.

Hopkins Road among major pressure points

The proposed upgrade of the Hopkins Road interchange is likely to be particularly important for residents around Truganina, Tarneit, Mount Cottrell and surrounding growth areas.

Melton council has repeatedly identified Hopkins Road as requiring urgent investment, including duplication to address congestion and safety concerns.

The Western Freeway is also more than a suburban commuter route.

It forms part of the main road connection between Melbourne and Adelaide and connects with major Victorian freight routes including the Midland, Sunraysia, Pyrenees, Henty and Wimmera highways.

The federal government has described the corridor as critical to both passenger travel and freight productivity.

Transport becomes election battleground in Melbourne’s west

Labor’s announcement comes as transport infrastructure in Melbourne’s west emerges as a major battleground ahead of the state election.

The Liberal-Nationals opposition this week pledged $1.7 billion for 25 hybrid-electric trains for the Melton and Wyndham Vale corridors if it wins government, arguing western suburbs commuters have waited too long for suburban-quality rail services.

Labor, meanwhile, is seeking to demonstrate that road and rail infrastructure in the west will be a priority under Mr Carroll’s leadership.

The government has already highlighted the opening of the new Melton Station and other works along the Melton rail corridor, while the federal and Victorian governments have committed $152.7 million for development work supporting future electrification of the Melton line.

But the scale and speed of population growth means infrastructure remains a potent issue for western suburbs voters.

Melton City Council says housing growth cannot occur in isolation from transport investment, warning that residents are already experiencing congestion, safety concerns, long travel times and inadequate public transport.

For Labor, the $550 million Western Freeway commitment is therefore both an infrastructure announcement and an election pitch to communities that have spent years arguing roads and public transport have failed to keep pace with Melbourne’s expansion.

Mr Carroll said the objective was straightforward: increase capacity and allow residents to spend less time stuck in traffic.

For voters in Melton and Melbourne’s rapidly expanding outer west, the question heading into November will be whether the latest commitments can finally close the gap between population growth and the infrastructure needed to support it.

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Australia has passed a grim milestone. Gross government debt has surged past $1 trillion for the first time in our history.

For many in the Indian Australian diaspora who came to this country to build a better future — through small businesses, trades, healthcare, IT and professional work — this isn’t an abstract number. 

It’s a bill that lands on every taxpayer, including the thousands of Indian Australian- families running small businesses, working double shifts, and trying to get ahead in one of the most expensive cost-of-living environments in a generation. 

Interest repayments on this debt are now the fastest-growing single item in the federal budget. This financial year they will around $30 billion — roughly the entire annual bill for Medicare.  

That works out to about $2,300 a year in interest for every taxpayer. Money that isn’t going to hospitals, roads, schools or small business support. It’s going straight to servicing debt. And it’s only getting worse. Government debt is projected to keep growing under this government, reaching $1.25 trillion within three years. Worse still, interest rates on this debt are far higher than they used to be — around 5% today, compared to less than 2% a few years ago.

Recently in Parliament, I asked what the government’s strategy was to get this debt under control. The answer? There isn’t one.

This government talks constantly about “intergenerational fairness.” But there is nothing fair about saddling our children — many of whom are the next generation growing up in migrant families across this country — with a mountain of debt and a crushing interest burden they had no say in creating.

For the Indian Australian community who have built their lives on the values of hard work, saving, and building something for future generations, this should matter deeply.

Labor is steering Australia toward a high debt, low-growth economy. An economy restricted by heavy government spending, high taxes, excessive regulation, and a small business sector under real pressure.

Many of our community’s small business owners — in retail, hospitality, transport, IT services and beyond — are already telling me how hard it has become to stay afloat. 

That is why the next election matters so much. It will be our chance to change course before this economic mismanagement becomes irreversible, and before the bill gets handed to a generation that never agreed to it.

Contributing Author: Dave Sharma is Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Shadow Assistant Minister for International Development and the Indo-Pacific, and Senator for New South Wales

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The post $1 trillion in debt and counting: Who will pay the bill? first appeared on The Australia Today.

The extraordinary exchange comes as a new Newspoll puts One Nation ahead of both major political groupings on the national primary vote, intensifying pressure on Labor and deepening questions about the Coalition’s ability to hold conservative voters.

The latest Newspoll, conducted by Pyxis Polling & Insights for The Australian, puts One Nation on 30 per cent of the primary vote, Labor on 29 per cent and the Coalition on just 19 per cent. The survey involved about 1,243 voters.

The result follows One Nation’s historic victory in the Secret Harbour by-election in Western Australia, where Luke Herdegen captured a previously safe Labor seat and gave the party its first lower-house MP in the WA Parliament.

The combination of the by-election result and national polling has prompted Labor to dramatically sharpen its attack on Hanson and One Nation.

Speaking at the Queensland Labor State Conference in Brisbane on Sunday, Albanese warned delegates that “hard right populists” were advancing around the world and accused them of “peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest.”

“We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history,” Albanese told the conference.

The Prime Minister directly attacked One Nation’s policies and rhetoric, accusing the party of bending facts, spreading misinformation and turning Australians against each other.

“Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems,” Albanese said.

He pointed to debates surrounding working from home, domestic violence, multiculturalism and penalty rates as evidence that One Nation was not acting in the interests of working Australians.

Albanese also strongly defended multiculturalism.

“Delegates, we unequivocally support multiculturalism because we know it’s part of Australia’s strength,” he said, adding that Labor believed Australians were equal whether “Australian by birth or Australian by choice”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers separately warned the Labor conference about what he characterised as a possible future alliance between the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation.

Chalmers described it as a “dangerous and divisive coalition of chaos”, arguing that such an alignment represented a threat to Australia’s social cohesion, economy and working people.

It was that language which prompted Hanson’s furious response on Monday.

In a statement posted to X, Hanson accused Albanese and Chalmers of becoming increasingly desperate as One Nation’s electoral support rose.

“The attacks from Chalmers and Albanese on One Nation have become increasingly desperate. Yesterday they crossed a line,” Hanson said.

She argued that describing democratically elected political opponents as “dangerous” or a “threat to our country” risked encouraging people to view those politicians and their supporters as legitimate targets.

“Words have consequences. That is how political violence is incited,” Hanson said.

She also accused Albanese of hypocrisy, pointing to previous calls by the Prime Minister for Australians to lower the temperature of political debate.

Albanese has indeed repeatedly called for greater restraint in political discourse.

In January, while discussing heightened political tensions, Albanese said Australia needed to “lower the temperature of debate in this country across the board”, echoing warnings from ASIO director-general Mike Burgess about increasingly heated political discourse.

Following a bomb threat which forced his temporary evacuation from The Lodge in February, Albanese again called for political debate to be conducted respectfully and urged Australians to turn down the heat.

Hanson seized on that contrast.

“Anthony Albanese says we need to turn down the heat and violent rhetoric in our political discourse,” she said.

“Meanwhile, he and his Treasurer are pouring petrol all over it.”

Hanson said Australians should be free to support One Nation without being told their democratic choice constituted a danger to Australia.

“Australians are entitled to vote for One Nation without being told by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister that their democratic choice is a danger to the nation,” she said.

She then sought to turn Labor’s attack back towards the government’s economic record, arguing that the greater threat facing Australians was pressure on household finances.

“The real danger is that Jim and Albanese’s incompetent economic management will continue to push your rent, your mortgage and your bills even higher,” Hanson said.

“The real danger to Jim and Albanese is that the people of Australia are coming for their government… at the ballot box.”

Hanson also invoked the recent killing of veteran British politician Ann Widdecombe, arguing it demonstrated why politicians should be careful about language that portrays opponents as threats.

Widdecombe, a former Conservative cabinet minister who later became associated with the Brexit Party and Reform UK, was found dead at her home in Devon in July.

A 28-year-old man, Joshua Kerry, has been charged with her murder and remains before the courts. Prosecutors allege Widdecombe was subjected to a targeted hammer attack at her home.

Hanson’s use of the case as an example of the dangers of political rhetoric requires an important qualification.

British investigators have described Widdecombe’s killing as a targeted attack, and counter-terrorism police have been involved in the investigation, but authorities have not established publicly that she was murdered because of political rhetoric directed at her.

The Crown Prosecution Service said investigators were continuing to examine the accused man’s alleged motives, including a possible political or terrorist connection. Earlier in the investigation, police said there was no evidence at that stage establishing that her killing was politically motivated.

The criminal proceedings against Kerry remain active and no determination of guilt has been made.

The escalating rhetoric between Labor and One Nation comes amid a dramatic change in Australia’s political landscape.

The latest Newspoll gives Hanson’s party 30 per cent, one point ahead of Labor and 11 points clear of the Coalition.

It is a remarkable position for a party that for much of its history has operated on the fringes of Australia’s parliamentary system.

The poll also shows that Hanson’s growing party support has begun translating into stronger personal ratings.

Newspoll reportedly gives Hanson a net approval rating of about minus one, compared with Albanese at approximately minus 21.

But the Prime Minister maintains a substantial advantage when Australians are asked who they would prefer to lead the country.

Albanese is preferred prime minister by 46 per cent, compared with Hanson on 31 per cent and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor on 23 per cent.

When respondents are asked to choose directly between Albanese and Hanson, the Prime Minister leads 56–44.

Those numbers illustrate the unusual nature of the current political environment.

One Nation may lead on the primary vote, but that does not automatically mean it would form government.

Australia’s preferential voting system means the flow of preferences between Labor, the Coalition, One Nation, the Greens and independents would determine the final outcome in individual electorates.

A separate RedBridge poll released on Monday also offers a more cautious picture of One Nation’s rise.

That survey had Labor on 29 per cent, One Nation on 28 per cent and the Coalition on 22 per cent. When respondents’ preferences were applied in a Labor-versus-One Nation contest, Labor led 52–48.

The difference between the polls underlines the risks of treating any single survey as a prediction of an election result.

What is harder for Australia’s major parties to dismiss is the accumulation of evidence showing One Nation has developed a substantially larger electoral base than it held only a few years ago.

Saturday’s result at Secret Harbour provided a real-world demonstration.

Herdegen secured a dramatic victory in a seat Labor had held comfortably, with One Nation attracting close to 40 per cent of first preferences and ultimately defeating Labor after preferences.

The win gave One Nation its first lower-house seat in Western Australia and transformed growing polling support into an actual parliamentary breakthrough.

Hanson has argued the result gives Australians a “licence to vote” for One Nation because voters can now see the party is capable of winning seats rather than merely registering a protest.

That poses different problems for each major party.

For Labor, the threat is particularly acute in working-class, outer-suburban and regional electorates where frustration over housing, migration, energy costs and household expenses overlaps with One Nation’s political message.

For the Coalition, the challenge may be even more existential.

At 19 per cent in the latest Newspoll, the Coalition is now substantially behind One Nation on the primary vote, raising questions about whether Hanson is becoming the principal beneficiary of dissatisfaction with Labor rather than the Liberal and National parties.

Labor’s response appears increasingly aimed at making One Nation itself a central issue in future elections.

Albanese used the Queensland conference to remind delegates of One Nation’s first major electoral breakthrough in 1998, when it won 11 seats in Queensland before internal splits and defections quickly reduced its parliamentary presence.

“Every time they achieve any success, it leads to chaos and division,” Albanese said.

His argument is that voters frustrated by cost-of-living pressures should judge One Nation not simply on its criticism of government but on whether its policies could realistically improve their circumstances.

Hanson’s counterargument is increasingly focused on democratic legitimacy.

She argues that with millions of Australians prepared to support One Nation, Labor cannot simultaneously demand more civil political discourse while depicting those voters’ preferred party as dangerous to the country.

That disagreement is likely to become sharper rather than disappear.

Labor believes One Nation’s policies and political style should be aggressively challenged as divisive and economically risky.

One Nation believes attacks of that kind confirm the political establishment fears voters abandoning the major parties.

Meanwhile, the Coalition must find a way to distinguish itself from both.

The political consequences will be particularly important in Victoria’s November state election and the NSW election in March 2027, where One Nation is attempting to convert its national rise into additional lower-house representation.

The broader contest is also likely to shape the next federal election.

For now, Newspoll has delivered the headline neither Labor nor the Coalition wanted: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is sitting above both of them on primary support.

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The result represents a dramatic collapse in support for Labor in a beachside outer-suburban electorate south of Perth that was considered one of the party’s safer seats little more than a year ago.

ABC election analysts called the seat for Herdegen on Saturday night after results showed One Nation establishing an insurmountable lead over Labor candidate Georgia Tree. With about 74.5 per cent of votes counted in the ABC’s early Sunday tally, Herdegen was leading Tree 57 per cent to 43 per cent after preferences.

The Western Australian Electoral Commission has stressed that election-night figures remain indicative, with the full count to continue until eligible postal votes received by 9 am on September 3 are included and preferences are formally distributed.

But the remaining ballots are not expected to alter who wins the seat.

The scale of the shift is the most politically important part of the result.

On the latest ABC count, One Nation had secured 39.1 per cent of first preferences, up more than 30 percentage points from the party’s 8.4 per cent vote at the 2025 state election.

Labor’s primary vote collapsed from 46.6 per cent in 2025 to 24.4 per cent, a fall of more than 22 percentage points.

The Liberal Party also went backwards. Its candidate Ryan Robertson was sitting on 17.3 per cent, compared with the Liberals’ 25 per cent at last year’s election.

The Greens were on 7.5 per cent, with the remaining vote divided among a field of 16 candidates.

At the 2025 election, former Labor minister Paul Papalia had won Secret Harbour with 46.6 per cent of the primary vote and defeated the Liberals 61.5–38.5 after preferences.

One Nation was then a relatively distant fourth on 8.4 per cent.

Less than 18 months later, the party has transformed itself from a minor presence in the electorate into its new representative in the WA Parliament.

Herdegen told celebrating supporters the result should serve as a warning to politicians well beyond Western Australia.

“The people of Secret Harbour have sent a message, a message that will send shock waves across the entire country,” he said.

“There are no safe Labor seats in this state or in this country anymore.”

Herdegen described the result as the beginning of an “orange tsunami”, declaring:

“None of these MPs are safe.”

One Nation’s WA leader Rod Caddies went even further, saying the outcome demonstrated that voters no longer saw politics as a contest confined to Labor and the Liberals.

“You’re witnessing a result they said was impossible,” Caddies told supporters.

“Labor owned this part of Perth.”

He argued the traditional two-party system was “dead” and One Nation had demonstrated it could become a genuine alternative for working-class and outer-suburban voters.

Federal One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the result showed voters were looking for politicians they believed would listen to them and challenge the direction of government policy.

“They’re wanting someone who’s really going to listen to them and really go out and fight for them to change the direction this country is going in,” Hanson said.

The victory is particularly damaging for WA Labor because Secret Harbour was not considered a marginal electorate before Papalia’s retirement.

The seat was created for the 2025 election largely from the abolished Labor stronghold of Warnbro.

Papalia had represented the area through a succession of electorates since entering Parliament in 2007 and won Secret Harbour with a comfortable 11.5 percentage-point two-party margin last year.

His resignation in July, prompted by serious illness in his immediate family, created the by-election.

Labor entered the campaign well aware that One Nation posed an unusually strong challenge.

Premier Roger Cook repeatedly described the contest as a “fight for our lives”.

His party threw substantial resources into defending the seat.

According to ABC reporting, a senior Labor figure estimated the campaign cost about $400,000.

Cook said Labor volunteers had knocked on 19,000 doors, held around 8,000 conversations with residents, distributed 210,000 pieces of campaign material and erected about 1,000 signs.

It was not enough.

“This campaign has been a reminder that Western Australians are doing it tough,” Cook told Labor supporters as the scale of the challenge became apparent.

“People are concerned about their lifestyle and their futures.”

He promised Labor would continue talking to communities and responding to those pressures.

“We will double down,” he said.

The result suggests economic dissatisfaction was a central part of the revolt.

Secret Harbour sits between Rockingham and Mandurah and includes suburbs such as Port Kennedy, Golden Bay, Singleton, Lakelands and Karnup.

It contains large numbers of young working families, many with trade or vocational qualifications, living in rapidly expanding housing estates.

Income levels are relatively average but workforce participation is high, making the electorate particularly exposed to mortgages, rents, energy bills, transport costs and other cost-of-living pressures.

Housing, cost of living and access to local services featured heavily throughout the campaign.

So did issues that would ordinarily receive little national attention, including the frequency of household red-bin collections.

Herdegen also linked local housing pressure to immigration and argued governments had allowed population growth to outpace infrastructure.

“They’re struggling with cost of living; there’s a major housing issue here with the mass immigration coming through and people have just had enough,” he said during polling day.

The result is therefore important because it shows One Nation attracting voters from both sides of the traditional political divide.

ABC chief elections analyst Casey Briggs said the available figures indicated One Nation had taken some votes from the Liberals but had apparently peeled away considerably more support from Labor.

He described the scale of One Nation’s win and the near-halving of Labor’s primary vote as remarkable.

The result, Briggs argued, would be studied closely by politicians in similar outer-suburban electorates across Australia.

That may be the most consequential aspect of Secret Harbour.

For decades, voters dissatisfied with Labor in working-class outer suburbs were largely expected to move towards the Liberal Party.

The by-election provides evidence that at least some of those voters are now prepared to move directly from Labor to One Nation without stopping at the Coalition.

That prospect will be particularly closely watched in Victoria, where voters go to a state election in November.

Melbourne’s outer north, west and south-east contain numerous seats with demographic characteristics that overlap with Secret Harbour — rapidly growing communities, comparatively high mortgage exposure, large numbers of tradespeople and working families, and frustration about housing and infrastructure.

Briggs said the Secret Harbour result represented a potential “warning shot” for MPs in comparable Victorian seats that have traditionally been safe for Labor.

New South Wales politicians will also be watching.

One Nation last week appointed former NSW senior trade commissioner Mike Newman to lead the party into the March 2027 state election, with the party targeting Labor and Coalition seats in regional and outer-suburban areas.

The Secret Harbour result gives the party something more valuable than favourable opinion polling: evidence that it can convert an increased primary vote into a lower-house victory.

The result is also deeply uncomfortable for the WA Liberal Party.

Robertson finished a distant third on first preferences despite the Liberals having been Labor’s main challenger in the seat just a year ago.

On the latest count, the Liberal primary vote had fallen almost eight percentage points to 17.3 per cent.

WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas had argued before polling day that any Labor loss could be viewed as a positive result for the Liberals because it would demonstrate anti-government sentiment.

But that proposition is complicated when the beneficiary of the anti-Labor vote is another party competing directly for conservative and dissatisfied working-class voters.

The question facing the Liberals is increasingly whether dissatisfaction with Labor actually helps them — or whether One Nation is becoming the preferred vehicle for voters wanting to register a protest against both major parties.

The by-election also carries a potentially significant federal warning.

Much of Secret Harbour lies within the federal electorate of Canning, held by senior Liberal MP Andrew Hastie.

One Nation has openly identified Canning as a potential target at a future federal election, and its state by-election victory gives it a substantial local organisational and electoral foothold inside Hastie’s territory.

The result also vindicates One Nation’s decision to nominate Herdegen despite controversy surrounding aspects of his past.

The 39-year-old owns several fitness businesses in Perth’s southern suburbs and moved to Western Australia in 2023.

Before politics he worked in jobs including concreting, traffic control and marketing and later built a career in fitness. One Nation says he operates gyms including one serving the Secret Harbour community.

During the campaign, an old social media post emerged in which Herdegen discussed heavy cocaine use and claimed associations with the Albanian mafia while living in London years earlier.

Herdegen said the story had been shared as part of an attempt to show how he had changed his life and to encourage others to live healthier lives.

The controversy ultimately failed to derail his campaign.

Labor had problems of its own.

Tree, a former political staffer who later worked in government relations at Woodside Energy, grew up in the area but did not live inside the electorate during the campaign.

Her campaign was also criticised after she did not speak at two consecutive media appearances, allowing political opponents to portray her as overly controlled by the party machine.

ABC analysis noted that each episode had an explanation but nevertheless allowed the issue to dominate parts of the campaign.

The lesson Labor will draw from the defeat is likely to extend beyond individual campaign errors.

The party has dominated WA politics since its landslide victory under Mark McGowan in 2017.

Even after losing ground at the 2025 election, Labor remained overwhelmingly dominant in the Legislative Assembly.

Secret Harbour demonstrates that incumbency, campaign resources and historically strong margins may not protect the government where voters believe living standards and local services are deteriorating.

Yet there are important reasons not to treat Saturday’s result as a blueprint for every election.

By-elections frequently produce larger swings against governments because voters know they are not deciding who will become premier.

Labor also promised to deliver its local commitments regardless of which candidate won, potentially reducing the perceived risk of casting a protest vote.

Local factors — including rubbish collection, development pressures and dissatisfaction with representation — were unusually prominent.

There is therefore no guarantee the swing will be replicated in a statewide or federal contest.

That will be tested over the coming months.

For One Nation, the challenge now changes.

Winning a protest vote is one thing; demonstrating that a first-term MP can deliver locally while the party withstands the heavier scrutiny that comes with electoral success is another.

For Labor, the warning is clearer.

A seat that returned a Labor primary vote of almost 47 per cent in March 2025 has, less than 18 months later, given One Nation almost 40 per cent of first preferences.

For the Liberals, there is an equally uncomfortable message: anti-Labor sentiment no longer automatically belongs to them.

And for politicians in outer-suburban electorates around Australia, Herdegen’s victory has turned One Nation’s polling surge from a hypothetical political threat into a tangible electoral result.

The final ballots are still being counted, and the WA Electoral Commission will not complete the formal process until after Thursday’s postal-vote deadline.

But the political result is already clear.

Labor’s safe harbour has turned orange — and Australia’s major parties will now be asking whether Secret Harbour was an isolated by-election revolt or the first sign of a much larger realignment.

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Newman, 54, will contest the Labor-held seat of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, while coal miner and cattle farmer Stuart Bonds will lead One Nation’s Legislative Council ticket.

The NSW election will be held on Saturday, 13 March 2027, with all 93 Legislative Assembly seats and 21 of the 42 Legislative Council positions up for election.

Announcing Newman’s appointment on Friday, One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson said his experience in finance, trade and international investment would bring a stronger economic focus to the party’s NSW campaign.

“Mike is another great addition to the One Nation team,” Hanson said in the party’s announcement.

“He has more than three decades’ experience in financial services across a range of industries including the defence, automotive and aerospace sectors in Australia, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom.”

Hanson also pointed to Newman’s previous role as NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for North Asia, covering Japan and South Korea.

Newman served in that position from 2021 until 2024 and was based in Tokyo. Before entering government trade promotion, he spent decades working in financial services and investment banking in Australia and Asia.

His career included senior roles at Macquarie Capital Securities Japan, HSBC Securities Japan and ABN AMRO, where his work covered sectors including automotive, aerospace and defence.

He is currently executive chairman and group chief executive of Ginga Vale Investments, an advisory business he founded after returning to Australia in 2015.

Newman’s appointment signals that One Nation intends to make economic management, business regulation and regional industry central themes of its NSW campaign.

“We’ll be focusing on the issues which matter in NSW like the cost of living, our housing crisis and the neglect of our regional communities and rural industries under Labor,” Newman said.

“We will also prioritise policy settings which create a much better environment for businesses so they can focus on what they do best: create jobs, grow the economy and increase prosperity in our state.”

“We need to make NSW competitive again.”

Within hours of his formal unveiling, Newman also outlined a broader economic and energy agenda that puts One Nation on a collision course with Premier Chris Minns’ Labor government.

Speaking in the Hunter, Newman said he wanted NSW to emulate places such as Texas and Florida, arguing that cheaper energy, lower taxes and less regulation could attract businesses and investment.

“We want to get cheap energy, just like Florida and Texas, back into New South Wales to help make businesses more competitive,” he said.

One Nation is proposing to eliminate payroll tax for businesses operating in regional NSW and halve it for metropolitan businesses.

Newman said payroll tax could discourage employers from taking on additional staff.

“The message we hear out in the market is always the same thing: ‘We’d like to hire more people, but we’re sort of playing off against how much payroll tax we may or may not have to pay,’” he said.

Energy is also shaping up as a major point of difference.

Newman has criticised the planned closure of the Eraring coal-fired power station, describing it as “economic suicide”, and wants coal and nuclear energy to remain part of the state’s electricity mix.

He has also said he would be prepared to consider both a nuclear power station and nuclear waste facility in the Hunter, subject to community consultation.

One Nation also wants to abandon NSW renewable energy zones.

Federal New England MP Barnaby Joyce, who has aligned himself with One Nation, used even stronger language at Friday’s announcement, saying the party wanted renewable energy zones “dead and buried”.

Any nuclear proposal would face substantial legal and political hurdles. Nuclear power generation is currently prohibited under Commonwealth legislation, meaning a NSW government could not simply begin building reactors without changes at the federal level.

Newman’s candidacy in Cessnock is nevertheless politically notable because One Nation has already demonstrated a substantial voter base there.

At the 2023 NSW election, Labor MP Clayton Barr won 48.73 per cent of first preferences.

One Nation candidate Quintin King finished second on 15.27 per cent, ahead of the Nationals on 11.13 per cent. After preferences, Labor defeated One Nation 73.4 to 26.6 per cent.

The seat therefore remains strongly Labor on its most recent election result.

Cessnock has also been held almost continuously by Labor since 1927, with the exception of a single Liberal term following the 1988 election.

But One Nation believes the political environment in regional NSW has changed markedly since 2023.

Recent polling has shown the party attracting levels of support far above its result at the last state election, particularly outside Sydney.

One recent statewide poll reported One Nation at about 25 per cent, compared with Labor on 29 per cent and the Coalition on 23 per cent, while other polling has indicated particularly strong One Nation support in regional NSW. Polling this far from election day remains volatile and does not necessarily translate directly into seats.

One Nation currently faces another challenge: it has no sitting MPs representing the party in the NSW Parliament, despite winning upper house representation at earlier elections.

Mark Latham and Rod Roberts entered the Legislative Council for One Nation after the 2019 election. Latham was re-elected in 2023, while former Labor MP Tania Mihailuk later entered the chamber to fill the vacancy created when Latham resigned his earlier term to contest a fresh eight-year term.

All three subsequently left One Nation.

That makes Newman’s campaign more than a conventional leadership contest.

If he wins Cessnock, he would become One Nation’s first lower-house MP in NSW under its current push and give the party a parliamentary leader in the chamber where governments are formed.

Newman was questioned on Friday about his connection with Cessnock after spending a substantial part of his professional life overseas.

He lived and worked in Japan for more than two decades and speaks Japanese, building much of his career around Australian-Japanese business relations.

Asked whether he would live in the electorate while campaigning, Newman said his role extended beyond one seat.

“I’m not working just for the seat of Cessnock,” he said.

“I’m working for the whole of NSW and rest assured we are going to bring prosperity to these regions by rational sensible economics.”

Pressed further, he said he was “living in the region” and meeting local residents.

Hanson has defended Newman’s international background, arguing it gives him economic and trade experience valuable to NSW.

Newman’s time as trade commissioner also gives him unusual credentials for a One Nation candidate.

NSW parliamentary records show he was selected in 2021 for the government’s senior trade commissioner position covering North-East Asia and Japan following a recruitment process involving senior NSW officials.

During his tenure, Newman worked on investment and trade links involving Japan and South Korea, including hydrogen, advanced manufacturing, energy and regional NSW industry.

In a public account of his time in the role, he cited work involving hydrogen partnerships with Tokyo and Fukuoka authorities, energy projects connected to the Port of Newcastle and efforts to strengthen commercial relationships between NSW and major North Asian investors.

Labor has already begun attacking his candidacy.

Regional Transport Minister and Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison accused Newman and One Nation of inconsistency over local manufacturing, particularly the Minns government’s multibillion-dollar plan to return train manufacturing to the Hunter.

“One Nation’s new leader wants to represent the Hunter, but Mr Newman and his party don’t seem to think there is a future for train manufacturing in the Hunter,” Aitchison said.

“They talk a big game about Australian jobs, but when we make the decision to bring jobs home, they want to send them back overseas.”

Newman rejected that characterisation.

He said his alternative would involve bringing foreign financing into the Hunter while ensuring the actual manufacturing took place locally.

“We could partner with the Korean government, as an example, and they could help fund the infrastructure, where they could provide extremely low-interest loans,” Newman said.

“But the manufacturing, 100 per cent of it would occur in the Hunter.”

Alongside Newman, Hanson has turned to Stuart Bonds to spearhead One Nation’s campaign for the Legislative Council.

Bonds, 40, is a coal industry worker and cattle farmer based in the Hunter.

“Our primary industries like mining and agriculture are under ever increasing pressure,” Bonds said in the party announcement.

“One Nation backs our miners and our farmers. We back our regional communities.”

“We’ll be campaigning hard on policies [that] support these industries and the communities which rely on them.”

Bonds has previously demonstrated substantial electoral support in the Hunter.

At the 2019 federal election, he contested the federal seat of Hunter for One Nation and received 22,029 first-preference votes, or 21.6 per cent, finishing narrowly behind the Nationals on 23.5 per cent.

Labor’s then MP Joel Fitzgibbon saw his primary vote fall by more than 14 percentage points in that election, although he ultimately retained the seat after preferences.

Bonds later split with One Nation over industrial relations policy and ran as an independent in 2022 before returning to the party for the 2025 federal election.

Hanson said the combination of Newman’s finance and international investment background with Bonds’ links to mining and agriculture would give the party a strong regional leadership team.

“Together, they will be a formidable team to lead our party at the NSW election,” she said.

The strategy makes the Hunter one of the clearest early battlegrounds of One Nation’s state campaign.

The region combines coal mining, agriculture, manufacturing and rapidly growing communities facing housing and cost-of-living pressures — issues that both Labor and One Nation are attempting to claim as their own.

For Premier Chris Minns, the challenge is substantially different from the one Labor faced at the 2023 election.

One Nation was then a secondary force in most NSW electorates and had no realistic prospect of forming government.

The party’s recent polling surge means it will now face much greater scrutiny over its candidates, economic policies and the practicality of its proposals, while Labor and the Coalition will have to decide how aggressively to respond to a party competing for many of the same working-class and regional voters.

For Newman, however, the first test is much more straightforward.

Before he can lead One Nation on the floor of the NSW Parliament, he must persuade voters in one of Labor’s longest-held seats to deliver a political upset.

The result in Cessnock on March 13 will provide an early measure of whether One Nation’s growing support in opinion polls can be converted into something the party has so far struggled to achieve in New South Wales — lower-house seats.

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Edwards confirmed on Thursday that she would not seek another term in Bendigo West, a seat she has represented since 2010. Her departure follows former premier and neighbouring Bendigo East MP Jacinta Allan, who announced earlier this month that she too would leave parliament at the November 28 election.

The double retirement means Labor will go to the election without either of the two long-serving MPs who have dominated state politics in the regional city for years.

Edwards told ABC Central Victoria she believed Labor could still retain both Bendigo East and Bendigo West and said candidates would be selected quickly.

“We will be extremely competitive,” she said, warning there was “a lot at risk”.

Edwards said her decision had been under consideration for a long time and followed the death of her husband, Steve Kolotylo, last year.

She rejected suggestions that she was leaving because Ben Carroll replaced Allan as premier in July, saying recent leadership changes had actually delayed the timing of her announcement rather than caused it.

Her retirement adds another senior departure to a substantial generational change taking place inside Victorian Labor ahead of an election in which the government is seeking a fourth consecutive term.

Senior Labor figures Lily D’Ambrosio and Harriet Shing announced last month that they would leave cabinet and parliament following Allan’s departure from the leadership. The Australia Today has also reported that retiring Labor figures include former ministers Danny Pearson, Mary-Anne Thomas and Gayle Tierney.

Edwards’ exit is particularly important because she is not merely a government backbencher.

She has served as Speaker of Victoria’s Legislative Assembly since August 2022, after spending five years as Deputy Speaker from 2017. She was the fourth woman in Victorian history to become Speaker and, after Labor’s 2022 election victory, became the first woman to be re-elected to the position.

Premier Ben Carroll paid tribute to Edwards, saying she had represented Bendigo West and served the Victorian Parliament with “integrity, humility and care”.

Carroll said Edwards had earned respect from MPs across party lines through an approach he characterised as patient, fair and firm.

“The truest measure of any Speaker is the respect they earn across the whole chamber,” Carroll said in a statement announcing her retirement.

The Premier also pointed to projects delivered during Edwards’ time as the local MP, including the redevelopment of Kalianna School and Castlemaine Secondary College, upgrades to Bendigo TAFE, the new Bendigo Law Courts and the Bendigo Hospital Day Rehabilitation Facility.

Edwards grew up in Maryborough as the daughter of factory workers and worked in local government in Maryborough and Benalla before entering parliamentary politics.

She later worked for 11 years as an electorate officer to former Bendigo West MP Bob Cameron, giving her extensive experience in the seat before she succeeded him at the 2010 election. She completed a Bachelor of Arts with honours from La Trobe University as a mature-aged student while raising a family and caring for her then terminally ill husband.

Edwards won Bendigo West in 2010 and retained it at the 2014, 2018 and 2022 elections.

At the last election she secured 46.47 per cent of first-preference votes, compared with 24.99 per cent for Liberal candidate Ken Price. On the conventional Labor-Liberal two-candidate count, Edwards finished with about 64.4 per cent, leaving Labor with a post-election margin of roughly 14.6 percentage points.

That history would ordinarily make Bendigo West a comfortable Labor seat.

But Edwards’ departure changes the political calculation.

The Nationals have already endorsed David Hutchings, a Lockwood South accountant, CFA volunteer and emergency responder, to contest Bendigo West. It is the first time the Nationals have run a candidate for the seat in 16 years.

Hutchings has argued Bendigo West has been taken for granted by Labor and is campaigning on state debt, roads, crime and cost-of-living pressures.

His candidacy was announced before Edwards confirmed her retirement, meaning the Nationals now have an established candidate campaigning against a Labor opponent who is yet to be selected.

The same problem confronts Labor next door in Bendigo East.

Allan represented that electorate for 27 years before confirming on August 14 that she would not seek re-election. She entered parliament in 1999 at 25, later becoming deputy premier and then Victoria’s second female premier following Daniel Andrews’ retirement in 2023.

Allan stepped down as premier in July after losing support within Labor’s parliamentary ranks, with then-deputy premier Ben Carroll taking over the leadership.

Her retirement from parliament followed soon afterwards.

The Nationals have already been positioning themselves to target the two Bendigo electorates. Publican Andrew Lethlean is contesting Bendigo East, while Hutchings is running in Bendigo West.

Monash University politics professor Zareh Ghazarian told the ABC that the two seats could become a test of Labor’s standing outside Melbourne.

He said Labor now faced the difficult task of selecting new candidates and introducing them to voters with only around three months remaining before polling day.

Bendigo East and Bendigo West could become a “litmus test” of sentiment across regional Victoria, he said.

The timing is particularly uncomfortable for Labor because statewide polling continues to show the government behind the Liberal-National Coalition.

A DemosAU/PremierNational poll of 1,007 Victorians conducted from August 6 to 11 put the Coalition on 32 per cent of the primary vote, Labor on 23 per cent, One Nation on 22 per cent and the Greens on 13 per cent.

On a two-party-preferred basis, the Coalition led Labor 55–45.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson also led Carroll as preferred premier by 43 per cent to 34 per cent, although Carroll performed better against Wilson than Allan had in the previous poll.

Polling is not a prediction of individual seat outcomes, and Bendigo has developed into strong Labor territory over several decades.

But the absence of two deeply established incumbents potentially gives Labor’s opponents an opportunity that has rarely existed in recent elections.

Bendigo West has been held by Labor continuously since Bob Cameron defeated Liberal MP Max Turner in 1996, while Allan transformed Bendigo East from what had once been a competitive regional electorate into a strong Labor seat during her 27-year career.

The challenge for Labor is therefore not simply replacing two names on ballot papers.

Both Allan and Edwards developed substantial personal profiles in the region over decades, while Edwards’ role as Speaker gave Bendigo West representation in one of Parliament’s most senior offices.

Former premier Allan, responding to Edwards’ retirement, described her as a close friend and praised her work during the deadly Harcourt fires earlier this year, saying Edwards had worked extensively to support the affected community.

Carroll similarly emphasised Edwards’ advocacy for regional communities and people with disability.

Before becoming Speaker, Edwards chaired parliamentary inquiries examining abuse in disability services, autism services and perinatal services. She also chaired the Bendigo Metro Rail Taskforce and the Bendigo Tech School project committee.

Her departure means the next parliament will also require a new Speaker regardless of which party forms government.

The Victorian election will be held on Saturday, November 28, with voters electing 88 members of the Legislative Assembly and 40 members of the Legislative Council. Election writs will be issued on November 3 and candidate nominations will close on November 9.

For Carroll, Edwards’ retirement adds urgency to Labor’s preselection process as his government attempts to reset after the internal upheaval that ended Allan’s premiership.

Carroll has spent his first weeks as Premier announcing changes on issues ranging from the Suburban Rail Loop to public-sector reform and cost-of-living measures, while seeking to convince voters Labor has changed direction under new leadership.

But in Bendigo, the party must now do something it has not had to do for decades: introduce voters simultaneously to new Labor candidates in both Bendigo East and Bendigo West.

Edwards insists the seats remain winnable.

The election will determine whether voters see the departure of two of Bendigo Labor’s longest-serving figures as simply a generational change — or an opportunity to redraw the political map of one of regional Victoria’s strongest Labor heartlands.

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The “rail improvement charge” added an extra 1 per cent to public transport fares each year on top of normal inflation-linked increases, with the Victorian Government planning to collect about $8 billion in net present value terms through to 2062.

The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office found 60 per cent of that revenue — about $4.8 billion — was intended to help fund the first stage of Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop, making the levy the project’s largest individual source of so-called value capture revenue.

Carroll announced on Thursday that he intended to abolish the charge, although the decision will still need to go through a formal cabinet process.

“I am a premier who levels with Victorians, and I’m going to level with Victorians today,” Carroll told reporters.

“I will abolish the rail improvement charge. There’ll be a proper cabinet process to come, but it’s my intention and the Treasurer’s intention to abolish that charge.”

Carroll said Victorians deserved both better public transport and transparency about how their money was being spent.

“The way this charge was created and implemented, there was a lack of transparency,” he said.

The decision comes after an Auditor-General’s investigation into the Suburban Rail Loop revealed the levy had been approved years before it appeared on commuters’ fares.

According to VAGO, the government first approved the charge in August 2021, when Carroll was Minister for Public Transport.

It was subsequently confirmed as part of the SRL funding package in December 2023 and again in November 2024.

The November 2024 decision is particularly damaging for the government’s transparency argument.

VAGO found the government approved a communications plan dealing with its SRL funding model but also approved excluding any reference to the rail improvement charge from public communications.

Instead, the government notionally allocated land tax revenue from areas surrounding SRL stations towards the project while retaining the fare levy as the new revenue stream needed to service project-related borrowings.

When the government publicly announced its SRL value-capture model in December 2025, it identified five funding mechanisms: land tax revenue in SRL precincts, windfall gains tax, developer infrastructure contributions, a future car parking levy and state-led property development.

The public transport fare charge was not mentioned.

VAGO concluded the announcement “lacked transparency” because the fare levy had already been introduced from January 1, 2025.

“The government and Transport Victoria did not acknowledge the new public transport fare levy in their public communications about the 2025 and 2026 annual fare increases,” the Auditor-General found.

“As at June 2026, they still have not announced it.”

Carroll was Public Transport Minister when the levy was initially approved in 2021, but said on Thursday that he was not involved in creating it.

He also declined to say exactly when he first became aware of the charge.

“I am not going to stand here and re-litigate the past,” Carroll said.

He said his premiership would put accountability and transparency “at the forefront” and revealed he had asked his department to check whether there were any other undisclosed charges.

Deputy Premier Gabrielle Williams was Public Transport Minister when the levy began appearing in fares in January 2025.

Williams said she was not a member of the cabinet budget and finance committee that made decisions about how the levy would be publicly presented and said she had only recently learned of a decision to deliberately exclude it from public communications.

“What I was unaware of was that, at any decision-making table, there had been any decisions taken about deliberately obfuscating the structure of our fare increases,” Williams said.

She acknowledged Victorians should have been told.

“This is clearly something that has not met the pub test,” she said.

“We want to do things differently.”

Treasurer Colin Brooks, who took over the portfolio this month, had earlier disputed the characterisation that the charge directly funded the Suburban Rail Loop.

Brooks said the money went towards public transport infrastructure and services more broadly, although he conceded the government should have been more transparent.

“That charge is not contributing directly to the Suburban Rail Loop,” he said on Wednesday.

“That charge is going back into … public transport infrastructure and services across the state.”

However, the Auditor-General’s report is explicit that the government planned to allocate 60 per cent of revenue from the levy to SRL East, and that it was expected to provide almost half of the overall value-capture revenue needed for the project.

VAGO said the levy was required to create the new revenue needed to service SRL-related borrowing.

The charge applied as an annual one per cent increase to public transport fares across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Although the original government approval referred to metropolitan heavy rail and excluded regional buses, VAGO found Victoria’s integrated fare structure meant the increase was, in practice, applied across public transport modes.

The financial effect was relatively small at first but would have compounded significantly over time.

VAGO modelling showed that without the charge, the nominal daily full fare for Melbourne Zones 1 and 2 was projected to reach about $13.90 in 2035. With the additional annual one per cent increase, it would rise to about $15.50.

By 2062, the modelling put the difference at $27.10 without the charge compared with $39.20 with it, although those figures are nominal future dollars and incorporate decades of inflation.

In today’s dollars, VAGO estimated the levy could eventually increase a $10.60 daily fare to about $15.50 by 2062.

The Department of Transport and Planning had also raised concerns that progressively higher fares could encourage some commuters to switch from public transport to cars, potentially increasing road congestion.

VAGO said advice to government warned the charge could create affordability problems for some public transport users.

Despite its long-term revenue target, the levy has so far generated far less money than initially forecast.

The Department of Treasury and Finance told VAGO that only about $6.2 million had been collected between January 2025 and the end of February 2026.

Public transport fare revenue across metropolitan Melbourne was running about 20 per cent below budget during the second half of 2025.

Government decisions to offer free and discounted public transport — including free travel for children, free weekend travel for seniors and widespread fare discounts during 2026 — have further reduced revenue.

Scrapping the charge nevertheless creates another complication for the financing of the Suburban Rail Loop.

The government’s long-standing funding model envisages SRL East being paid for approximately one-third by Victoria, one-third by the Commonwealth and one-third through value-capture measures.

SRL East is the 26-kilometre first stage of the orbital railway, connecting Cheltenham to Box Hill via Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley and Burwood, with passenger services targeted to begin in 2035.

The state’s publicly disclosed cost has been up to $34.5 billion.

But VAGO has raised serious doubts about both the funding and the cost.

The Auditor-General found the Victorian Government has actually approved $23.3 billion in state Budget funding for SRL East, despite having publicly announced only $11.8 billion.

An additional $11.5 billion in state funding was approved in December 2023 but was not publicly announced at the time or clearly identified in state Budget papers, VAGO found.

The Commonwealth has committed $6 billion, while Victoria has been seeking about $11.5 billion from Canberra.

That leaves a funding gap of approximately $5.5 billion, according to VAGO.

The gap means the state currently does not have sufficient approved funding to sign the contract for one of the major station construction packages.

The audit also challenged the government’s confidence that SRL East can be delivered within its previously announced budget.

VAGO concluded the project was “more likely than not” to exceed the publicly disclosed cost of up to $34.5 billion, citing unexpected ground conditions and contamination, higher-than-expected market prices and additional costs created by government decisions to slow spending as Victoria sought to manage its debt position.

The 2035 opening date is also under pressure.

One early works package finished around six months late, station procurement has slipped by about a year and the project’s remaining schedule buffer is limited.

VAGO said the available evidence suggested the commitment to start carrying passengers by the end of 2035 was at risk.

The findings landed only a day after Carroll announced a major reset of the project under his new premiership.

On Tuesday he said the government had identified approximately $1 billion in immediate savings, with another $1 billion to be sought through an independent technical review.

Carroll said “nice-to-haves” including some underground station interchanges, pedestrian bridges, car parking and other additions would be dropped or redesigned.

The government said the changes would bring the estimated investment down to about $33.3 billion, with the technical review targeting a further reduction to around $32.3 billion.

But the Auditor-General’s report raised questions about how much of those announced savings can genuinely be counted against the published $34.5 billion figure.

VAGO found that much of the estimated cost of underground connections between new SRL stations and existing railway stations was not included in the headline project budget in the first place.

The three proposed interchanges at Southland, Glen Waverley and Box Hill were estimated to cost around $1.7 billion, while only about $104 million had been included in the existing project budget.

The Glen Waverley and Box Hill underground interchanges are now not proceeding as part of the current plan.

The SRL Authority said these were potential future scope options rather than approved project costs and therefore were properly considered separately from the headline budget.

The government continues to maintain that reducing the proposed scope will lower the project’s total estimated investment.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson seized on the revelation of the fare levy, describing it as a “scandal of the highest order”.

“The independent Auditor-General has exposed that Labor has taxed every single public transport fare since January 2025 and they never told the public about it,” Wilson said.

She pointed to Carroll’s role as Public Transport Minister when the measure was initially approved in 2021 and asked: “What other secret taxes are Labor levying on Victorians without telling them?”

The opposition has used the controversy to sharpen its attack on the government’s financial management ahead of the November state election, while Labor is attempting to present Carroll’s decisions on the levy, SRL spending and public service restructuring as evidence of a break from the approach of former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan.

Carroll has insisted the Suburban Rail Loop itself will continue.

“The SRL will be built on time,” he said when announcing his cost-cutting plan this week.

But abolishing the fare levy removes a revenue source that the Auditor-General says was expected to become the largest single value-capture contribution to SRL East.

That leaves the Carroll Government with a new question: if commuters will no longer provide billions of dollars through the rail improvement charge, where will the money needed to replace it come from?

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Speaking in News24.com.au’s documentary The Fight for the Right, Hanson said she was a “very proud, patriotic Australian” who loved her culture.

Asked whether she was intolerant, she replied:

“Yes, I’m sure I’m intolerant in some areas, by all means.”

“I really am intolerant of radical Islam,” she said, citing her opposition to the suppression of women, child marriage, multiple marriages and women being treated as “second-class citizens”.

Hanson’s comments come as she campaigns for what she calls a “monocultural” Australia, arguing against multiculturalism and advocating one language and one set of values.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended multiculturalism and dismissed Hanson’s proposal as ridiculous.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called for tighter migration controls while arguing for a stricter approach to multiculturalism.

The debate comes amid growing public concern over immigration and social cohesion. A News24.com.au Pulse/YouGov poll found 46 per cent of voters believed multiculturalism had been good for Australia but was becoming a problem for social cohesion, while 37 per cent said it continued to serve the country well.

The poll surveyed 1,519 Australian voters.

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The proposed clinics would be open to every Victorian, including adults and children, without an income test or requirement to hold a healthcare card. The government expects the network to treat more than 100,000 people a year once fully operational.

Seven clinics would be located in Melbourne and three in regional Victoria, with the locations to be announced in coming weeks. The clinics would operate on a walk-in basis and provide check-ups as well as treatment including fillings, root canals and extractions. Patients with urgent needs, including severe dental pain, swelling or injuries, would receive priority.

The clinics are expected to operate from 9am to 9pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm on weekends, although the government has not yet confirmed when all 10 sites will be operational. Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said some clinics could begin operating from July 2027.

Carroll said the policy was aimed at Victorians struggling to afford dental treatment and described it as a permanent cost-of-living measure rather than a temporary program.

“Only Labor will deliver free dental care for all Victorians,” Carroll said in his campaign speech.

“I’m fighting for the tens of thousands of working people who can’t afford to see a dentist. This is a structural cost-of-living commitment. It’s not a one-off. It’s a new, statewide service that won’t go away.”

Carroll also described the proposal as a national first for an Australian state government.

The policy would significantly expand access beyond Victoria’s existing public dental system, which is generally restricted to eligible groups including people with healthcare or concession cards. The existing public dental services, including programs already treating tens of thousands of Victorians, would continue under the proposal.

The Premier compared the proposed clinics with Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, saying Victorians should be able to access dental treatment without the cost and eligibility barriers that currently prevent many people from receiving care.

“Every Victorian resident will be able to go to a free Public Dental Clinic for a checkup every year.”

The announcement comes as Labor attempts to reset its campaign ahead of the November 28 election and seek a fourth consecutive term. Carroll became Premier last month after Jacinta Allan resigned as Labor leader.

Dental care remains largely outside Medicare, meaning most Australian adults must pay privately or rely on limited public dental services. The Victorian government says the cost of dental treatment is forcing some people to delay care or turn to their savings and superannuation to pay for treatment.

Carroll framed the policy as part of a broader Labor agenda focused on healthcare, education, jobs and cost-of-living pressures, while attacking the Liberal-One Nation opposition over its proposed spending cuts.

“This is the first new policy Labor will take to the election,” Carroll said. “And it’s just the start.”

The proposal is also likely to put pressure on the opposition Coalition to decide whether to match Labor’s promise or argue that Victoria cannot afford another major ongoing health commitment.

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Cr Gilligan announced his decision on Friday, saying he had informed Wyndham Mayor Mia Shaw that he would remain as Wimba Ward councillor until the end of the current term of state-appointed municipal monitors on January 31 before stepping away.

“Today, I advised the Mayor that I will conclude my time as a Wyndham City Councillor when the term of the municipal monitors finishes at the end of January 2027,” Cr Gilligan said.

“I intend to remain until then to ensure their work can be seen through properly.”

His departure will come well before the next scheduled Victorian council elections in October 2028. Cr Gilligan was re-elected to the newly created single-member Wimba Ward at the 2024 election, winning 56.96 per cent after preferences against former councillor Kim McAliney.

Because Wimba is a single-councillor ward, his departure would ordinarily trigger a by-election to choose his replacement, provided the vacancy occurs more than six months before the next general council election.

Cr Gilligan used his announcement to deliver a stinging assessment of the state of local government in Victoria, arguing regulation and the existing legal framework had made councils increasingly difficult to govern.

“Local government in Victoria is being regulated into paralysis,” he said.

“The law that governs it empowers too many vested interests, leaving the sector ungovernable and repellent to the very leaders we need in the tier of government closest to the people.”

The comments come at the end of a turbulent period at Wyndham City Council, which has been under the oversight of municipal monitors Jim Gifford and Jo-Anne Mazzeo since May.

The Victorian Government appointed the pair for nine months, from May 11, 2026 until January 31, 2027, saying they would help restore stability in council leadership and strengthen governance, decision-making, service delivery and the wellbeing of councillors and staff.

Cr Gilligan’s decision to time his departure with the end of that monitoring period means he intends to remain through the remainder of the external oversight process before vacating his seat.

The long-time Tarneit resident was first elected to Wyndham City Council in 2016 and went on to become the city’s youngest mayor at the age of 26 during the 2019–20 term.

He served as deputy mayor before returning to the mayoralty in November 2025, when councillors elected him to lead the city for a second time.

Wyndham City’s official profile records that Cr Gilligan is serving his third council term and has twice held the mayoralty.

His second stint as mayor ended abruptly in February this year after an independent arbiter found he had breached the Model Councillor Code of Conduct over comments made about former mayor Kim McAliney.

The arbiter ordered Cr Gilligan to apologise and suspended him from council for one month, automatically creating a vacancy in the mayoral office.

Cr Gilligan apologised for the comments at the time, saying he took responsibility for his words and regretted the hurt they had caused.

He was subsequently suspended for a further two weeks in June following another internal arbitration involving fellow councillor Robert Szatkowski.

His successor as mayor, Preet Singh, later became embroiled in a separate controversy after it emerged he had written a character reference for a man subsequently convicted of child sex offences.

Cr Gilligan joined all other Wyndham councillors in calling for Cr Singh to resign as mayor. Cr Singh eventually stepped down from the mayoralty in July but remained a councillor.

Councillors then elected Cr Mia Shaw on July 23 to serve as mayor for the remainder of the 2025–26 mayoral term.

Against that difficult political backdrop, Cr Gilligan’s farewell statement focused heavily on what he regards as the achievements of his decade at Wyndham.

“Over three terms, I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of serving our community on Wyndham City Council,” he said.

He pointed to battles over planning and infrastructure, including what he described as “two Supreme Court wins (and one loss)” pursued in an effort to secure better outcomes for residents.

Cr Gilligan said one of his proudest legacies was reform to the way parks and other infrastructure were delivered alongside housing in new estates, as well as the broader Wyndham Plan designed to ensure critical roads and infrastructure were provided as the municipality grew.

He also highlighted his campaigning against developers using sunset clauses to cancel off-the-plan property contracts, an issue he publicly pursued after dozens of Tarneit families were affected by cancelled land contracts in 2018.

At the time, Wyndham councillors called for stronger consumer protections and urged the Victorian Government to investigate the use of sunset clauses.

Cr Gilligan also pointed to campaigns against contaminated soil being brought into Wyndham Vale, opposition to plans for a prison in Point Cook, local road projects and efforts to secure community infrastructure.

Council records show Wyndham campaigned in 2020 against proposals to place contaminated soil from the West Gate Tunnel Project at a Wyndham Vale rail stabling site.

Another issue singled out in his farewell statement was Bemin Secondary College and the battle to preserve land in Truganina for education rather than housing.

Cr Gilligan described the result as “a win for people power” and said the campaign illustrated both the rewards and political cost of his confrontational approach to state government.

“No single site better captures the dilemma of my decade in public life: secure enduring outcomes for working families, but accept that with every victory for a more liveable Wyndham, against the state, closed another door to ascension to higher office beyond the benches of local government,” he said.

He also referred to securing “nearly half a billion dollars in infrastructure” for Tarneit and said his approach to council had always been driven by the belief that Melbourne’s west should receive services and infrastructure comparable with more established parts of the city.

“I have always believed Wyndham must be more than a city of housing,” Cr Gilligan said.

“A resident in Truganina or Tarneit should never have a life expectancy 15 years less, on average, than a Victorian in the eastern suburbs. This mantra drove every decision, action and agenda I pursued.”

The $500 million figure referenced in his statement was presented as his assessment of infrastructure secured during his time in office rather than an independently audited personal funding total.

Wyndham itself is experiencing extraordinary population growth and infrastructure pressure, with council repeatedly campaigning for additional roads, schools, public transport, health facilities and community infrastructure to keep pace with residential development.

Cr Gilligan said residents had ultimately been the measure by which he judged his political career.

“In any thriving democracy, residents are the only jury that counts,” he said.

He pointed to his three election victories, including his strong 2020 result.

VEC figures show Cr Gilligan received 9,490 first-preference votes in the former Chaffey Ward in 2020 — 24.61 per cent of all formal first preferences in a crowded 27-candidate contest — and was the first candidate elected in the ward.

At the 2024 election, after Wyndham moved to 11 single-member wards, he topped a 12-candidate Wimba Ward field with 25.25 per cent of first preferences before finishing with 6,891 votes, or 56.96 per cent, following the distribution of preferences.

Cr Gilligan said becoming Wyndham’s youngest mayor, leading the municipality through the COVID-19 pandemic and later serving as deputy mayor were among the greatest honours of his career.

He also thanked council staff and residents across Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing and Werribee who had supported him over the years.

“There are so many people I owe my success to. You know who you are,” he said.

“Thank you, Wyndham. It has been a pleasure.”

His announcement will add another change to a council that has already experienced considerable turnover and leadership instability in 2026.

Former councillor Jennie Barrera resigned in May, prompting a by-election for Heathdale Ward, while Wyndham has had three mayors during the current mayoral term following Cr Gilligan’s suspension, Cr Singh’s eventual resignation from the mayoralty and Cr Shaw’s election in July.

For Cr Gilligan, however, the decision marks something broader than another chapter in Wyndham’s recent political turbulence.

His farewell reads as a final judgement on a decade spent fighting over how one of Australia’s fastest-growing communities should be planned, funded and governed — and on a local government system he believes has become increasingly hostile to those prepared to challenge it.

He will remain at the council table for another five months.

Then, when Wyndham’s municipal monitors finish their assignment on January 31, Cr Gilligan says his own time at Wyndham City Council will finish with them.

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The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, introduced by the Albanese Government, passed both houses of Parliament.

The legislation amends the ASIO Act 1979 to make the existing compulsory questioning framework permanent and broaden the scope of adult questioning warrants.

It also changes the rules governing prescribed authorities, strengthens reporting requirements to ensure the Attorney-General is informed of relevant matters arising from questioning, and requires post-charge questioning to take place before a prescribed authority who is a retired judge.

The legislation also provides for a further review of the compulsory questioning framework by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The bill has drawn criticism from One Nation and sections of the Coalition, who argued the expanded powers risk giving the state excessive authority without sufficiently identifying the ideological threats driving terrorism.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said her party voted against the bill, arguing it failed to specifically address what she described as “radical Islamic” ideology.

“This bill is not serious about terrorism unless it names the ideology driving the threat: radical Islam.”

She said One Nation had proposed amendments that would have explicitly addressed radical Islamic ideology and removed what she described as vague provisions governing questioning powers.

“As these amendments were defeated there was no way we could support the large expansion of powers proposed by the Labor Government.”

One Nation leader Malcolm Roberts has condemned the passage of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, accusing the major parties of expanding government powers over Australians.

Roberts said One Nation opposed the bill and had sought amendments to specifically name radical Islam and remove the broader term “communal violence” from the legislation. Both amendments were rejected by the Senate.

“Disgusting!” Roberts said following the bill’s passage.

He thanked Australians who contacted One Nation urging senators to vote against the legislation, arguing that the bill gives what he called the “Uniparty Liberal-Labor government” greater control over law-abiding Australians.

Roberts also criticised what he described as Australia’s existing “excessive deprivation of liberty” and drew a comparison with the COVID-19 pandemic, when federal and state governments imposed extensive restrictions on Australians.

Liberal Senator Alex Antic also opposed the legislation, warning against allowing extraordinary security powers to become routine.

“The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill makes ASIO’s compulsory questioning powers broader and expands them with vague new grounds,” Antic said.

“I voted AGAINST the Bill. Extraordinary powers should never become ordinary.”

The legislation means ASIO’s compulsory questioning regime will continue as a permanent feature of Australia’s national security framework, subject to the additional safeguards, reporting requirements and parliamentary review contained in the bill.

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Mr Albanese dropped in during lunch on Tuesday to speak to the participants, who have gathered in Canberra for the five-day program designed to give young Australians first-hand experience of Australia’s parliamentary system.

“It’s always inspiring meeting young Australians wanting to make our country a better place,” he said.

“Because every voice, from every corner of our country, helps shape Australia’s future.”

The National Youth Parliament was officially opened earlier in the week by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who has been a strong advocate for youth participation and civic engagement.

The program brings together 150 senior secondary students aged 16 and 17, with each participant representing one of Australia’s federal electorates.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick welcomed the strong support for the new initiative.

“It is such an honour to have such strong support for this brand new program, which is already giving these young people an opportunity to have their voice heard in Parliament House.”

The National Youth Parliament is being held in Canberra from 16 to 20 August 2026 and aims to equip young Australians with the knowledge, confidence and skills to participate actively in Australia’s democratic and parliamentary system.

Over five days and four nights, Youth Members will take part in simulated parliamentary debates, workshops with political leaders and real-world policy challenges.

They will also learn about how bills are drafted, debated and ultimately passed into law, gaining a practical understanding of the work of Parliament beyond the classroom.

Participants will use facilities at Australian Parliament House and the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House as part of the program.

All costs, including travel and accommodation, are covered by the program.

The initiative is being delivered by the Department of the House of Representatives in partnership with Y Australia, which has been running Youth Parliament programs for more than four decades.

The National Youth Parliament is intended to give participants from diverse backgrounds an opportunity to engage directly with Australia’s democratic institutions and develop the confidence to contribute to public life.

For the 150 young participants, the week offers a rare opportunity to move from studying democracy to experiencing Parliament first-hand — taking their seats, debating issues and making their voices heard at the heart of Australia’s political system.

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The latest announcement puts One Nation candidates into a mix of traditionally safe Labor electorates, Liberal and Nationals-held seats and fast-growing outer-suburban districts, as the party attempts to turn a surge in statewide polling into representation in Victoria’s Legislative Assembly.

One Nation’s official Victorian candidate list now confirms Barnes for Essendon alongside Ben Lucas in Narracan, Darren Hercus in Nepean, Elita Dabrowski in Sunbury, Garner Smith in Murray Plains, Jeremy Johnson in Yan Yean, Jessie Weatherley in Eltham, Matthew Katselis in Melton, Michael Piastrino in Berwick and Trevor Hammond in Narre Warren South. State leader Warren Pickering had already been announced for Pakenham.

Barnes is easily the highest-profile recruit in the latest batch.

The former ruckman played 202 AFL games across Essendon and Geelong during a career spanning 1987 to 2001 and was a member of Essendon’s dominant 2000 premiership side. Essendon records confirm he played throughout the club’s 2000 premiership campaign after returning to Windy Hill following eight seasons with Geelong.

He has since moved into local politics and currently represents Buckley Ward on Moonee Valley City Council after being elected at the 2024 council elections.

Barnes has also been publicly involved for years in efforts by former AFL players seeking compensation over the long-term effects of concussion and head trauma. In 2019, he joined a planned concussion class action after speaking publicly about neurological symptoms he believed were connected to repeated head knocks during his playing career.

One Nation describes Barnes as a 39-year local who will campaign on community safety, cost-of-living pressures and local representation.

His entry turns Essendon into one of the more closely watched contests involving One Nation, although Barnes faces a significant electoral task.

Labor’s Danny Pearson won Essendon comfortably in 2022, receiving 41.07 per cent of first preferences before finishing with 62.45 per cent after preferences against Liberal candidate Angelo Baronessa’s 37.55 per cent — a Labor margin of about 12.5 percentage points.

The seat covers communities including Essendon, Moonee Ponds, Ascot Vale and Flemington and sits within the Northern Metropolitan Region.

Barnes is not the only local government figure One Nation has recruited.

Gannawarra Shire Mayor Garner Smith will contest Murray Plains, putting One Nation directly up against the Nationals in one of regional Victoria’s strongest conservative seats.

Gannawarra Shire records show Smith has served as mayor since 2024 and was re-elected to the position for 2025-26. One Nation describes him as a fourth-generation local, economist, farmer and small-business owner.

Murray Plains was won by Nationals veteran Peter Walsh at the 2022 election and has traditionally been a strong Nationals electorate.

Baw Baw Shire councillor Ben Lucas will contest Narracan, another Liberal-held regional seat.

One Nation describes Lucas as a Drouin local, Army veteran, small-business owner and twice-elected Baw Baw Shire councillor. Narracan is currently represented by Liberal MP Wayne Farnham and has been held by the Liberals continuously since 2006.

The decision to run candidates in Narracan and Murray Plains shows One Nation is not restricting its campaign to Labor territory.

The party is positioning itself to compete for conservative voters in Liberal and Nationals heartlands as well as disaffected voters in Labor-held outer suburbs.

That strategy will also be tested in Berwick, where Michael Piastrino will challenge sitting Liberal MP Brad Battin.

Piastrino is an award-winning hairdresser and salon owner who has previously contested elections. The VEC confirms Berwick is currently held by Mr Battin, while One Nation says Piastrino will campaign around family, community and opportunity.

One of the most important tests for the party could come in Nepean.

Darren Hercus will return as One Nation’s candidate after producing one of the party’s strongest Victorian lower-house performances at the May 2026 by-election.

Official VEC results show Hercus won 9,941 first-preference votes, or 24.52 per cent, finishing ahead of independent Tracee Hutchison on primary votes and behind Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh, who ultimately won the seat with 63.24 per cent after preferences.

One Nation describes Hercus as a structural engineer and Safety Beach small-business owner campaigning on business costs, housing, emergency services and roads.

His Nepean result is important because it provides One Nation with something it largely lacked at the 2022 Victorian election — evidence of a substantial lower-house primary vote in an individual Victorian electorate.

The party’s statewide lower-house performance four years ago was tiny.

VEC figures show One Nation received just 8,077 lower-house first-preference votes statewide in 2022, equivalent to 0.22 per cent, reflecting the limited number of Legislative Assembly seats it contested.

Its upper-house performance was stronger, with 76,734 votes, or 2.04 per cent, delivering the party its first Victorian MP, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, in Northern Victoria Region.

The political landscape in 2026 looks markedly different.

A Roy Morgan poll conducted from August 5 to 7 put One Nation on 23.5 per cent of the Victorian primary vote, just behind Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition, which were each on 26 per cent. The poll surveyed 2,084 Victorian electors.

A separate RedBridge poll conducted after Labor’s leadership change put the Coalition on 30 per cent, Labor on 23 per cent and One Nation on 22 per cent. ABC analysis noted One Nation had been even higher, at 27 per cent, in a RedBridge poll conducted in June.

The different polling methodologies produce different numbers, but both point to One Nation entering the campaign with support dramatically higher than its 2022 Victorian result.

That creates both an opportunity and a challenge for Pauline Hanson’s party.

Polling support does not automatically translate into lower-house seats under Victoria’s preferential voting system, particularly when candidates are contesting electorates with entrenched Labor, Liberal or Nationals incumbents.

One Nation therefore needs recognisable local candidates and campaign organisations capable of converting statewide support into votes at individual polling booths.

Barnes’ recruitment appears designed to do exactly that.

His football career gives him unusually high name recognition in Essendon, while his council position provides an established connection to local government and community issues.

The remaining candidates are also being presented heavily on their professional and local backgrounds rather than as career politicians.

Jeremy Johnson, running in Yan Yean, is a cyber-security professional, former Army reservist and young father. One Nation says he will campaign on cost of living, crime, infrastructure and government spending.

Jessie Weatherley will contest Eltham. The party describes her as a 20-year local, mother, business owner and former school council president focused on community safety, education, aged care and government accountability.

Eltham is currently held by Labor’s Vicki Ward. She won 59 per cent after preferences at the 2022 election against the Liberal Party’s 41 per cent.

Matthew Katselis will stand in Melton, where One Nation is targeting one of Melbourne’s fastest-growing outer-western communities.

The party describes Katselis as a logistics professional and soccer coach campaigning on roads, public transport, housing affordability and infrastructure investment. Melton was won by Labor’s Steve McGhie in 2022.

Naturopath and small-business owner Elita Dabrowski will contest Sunbury, another Labor-held seat in Melbourne’s expanding north-west, while tradesman Trevor Hammond will stand in Narre Warren South.

One Nation says Hammond has operated a small business for more than 43 years and will focus on crime, energy, housing, cost of living and infrastructure.

Sunbury and Narre Warren South were both won by Labor at the previous state election.

The latest lower-house team follows One Nation’s formal Victorian campaign launch earlier this month.

Senator Hanson announced Warren Pickering as the party’s Victorian state leader on August 4, with Pickering also contesting the Labor-held seat of Pakenham.

The party has already announced candidates across all eight Legislative Council regions, including incumbent Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell in Northern Victoria.

One Nation had flagged much earlier in the year that it planned a far more expansive Victorian campaign than in 2022.

In March, Pickering said the party had been inundated with prospective candidates and was preparing to field candidates broadly across both houses of Parliament, with particular ambitions in regional Victoria and the outer suburbs.

The Barnes announcement now gives that campaign one of its most recognisable faces.

There is an important procedural qualification: although parties are announcing and endorsing their candidates now, formal nominations for Victoria’s election do not open until November 4 and close at noon on November 9.

Victorians vote on Saturday, November 28, electing 88 members of the Legislative Assembly and 40 members of the Legislative Council.

The central question between now and then will be whether One Nation’s large statewide polling numbers survive the campaign and translate into seats.

Its lower-house challenge is particularly difficult because candidates such as Barnes, Lucas, Smith and Piastrino are running against established MPs in electorates held by both sides of traditional Victorian politics.

But that is also what makes the latest announcement politically important.

One Nation is no longer concentrating only on winning an additional upper-house seat or harvesting a statewide protest vote.

It is building a lower-house campaign designed to challenge Labor in metropolitan and growth-area seats, the Liberals in suburban electorates, and the Nationals in regional Victoria.

And in Essendon, the party has recruited a man who already knows what it is like to walk onto a big stage wearing red and black.

This time, John Barnes will be asking Essendon voters to back orange.

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The announcement marks a significant escalation from the Coalition’s previous position of pausing and reviewing VNI West. Ms Wilson is now committing to cancel the Victorian section of the multi-billion-dollar interstate transmission project altogether, arguing Victoria needs “more gas and more firm generation” rather than a massive expansion of new poles and wires through regional farmland.

“Victoria doesn’t need more unnecessary poles and wires that bulldoze through regional communities, it needs more gas and more firm generation and that is exactly what my team will deliver,” Ms Wilson said.

“A Liberal and Nationals Government will cancel VNI West and take immediate action to secure more gas for our state – meaning lower prices and a secure energy future.”

Under the Coalition’s plan, a Wilson government would open Victoria to additional conventional gas projects, unwind Labor’s restrictions on gas use in new buildings, establish an Energy Security Requirement designed to bring new firm generation into the market, repeal expanded land-acquisition and access powers affecting transmission corridors, and promote solar and batteries on commercial and industrial rooftops.

The policy represents a fundamentally different vision for Victoria’s post-coal electricity system.

Labor is seeking to replace ageing brown-coal generation predominantly through renewable energy, storage, interstate connections and new transmission, supported by some gas-fired generation when renewable output is low. The Coalition says that approach has become too expensive, too slow and too disruptive to regional communities, and wants gas-fired generation to play a much larger role in guaranteeing supply.

At the centre of the fight is VNI West, a proposed high-voltage interconnector linking Victoria and New South Wales.

The Victorian section would run approximately 240 kilometres from Bulgana, in western Victoria, through a new terminal station near Tragowel and towards the NSW border north of Kerang. VicGrid says the line would allow Victoria to access generation and storage in New South Wales while creating capacity for new renewable projects in Victoria’s north-west.

The project has become deeply controversial across parts of regional Victoria, where farmers and landholders have raised concerns about compulsory acquisition, access to private property, agricultural impacts, fire risks and the location of transmission infrastructure.

Those concerns have become a major political vulnerability for Labor in regional seats ahead of the November 28 election.

Nationals leader Danny O’Brien said regional communities had been treated with “appalling disrespect”.

“Labor has spent years bulldozing through the concerns of regional communities to force VNI West onto farmers,” Mr O’Brien said.

“An elected Liberal and Nationals Government will scrap VNI West, repeal Labor’s compulsory acquisition powers, and end the fines Labor has threatened and issued against farmers who just want the right to protect their own private property.”

The Coalition’s attack has been strengthened by the dramatic increase in VNI West’s estimated cost.

The figure used in AEMO planning for the project was around $3.6 billion, but updated estimates released in 2025 put the combined Victorian and NSW project at about $7.6 billion, with the uncertainty range extending as high as approximately $11.4 billion.

The Victorian component alone was subsequently estimated at approximately $3.87 billion, while the NSW section was estimated at about $3.7 billion.

The project has also slipped behind its earlier timetable.

Its expected completion date was shifted from 2028 to late 2030, with Transgrid currently listing November 2030 as the expected completion date.

That delay is politically important because EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn coal-fired power station is scheduled to close on 1 July 2028.

The 1,480-megawatt Yallourn plant remains one of Victoria’s major sources of dispatchable electricity, and its retirement will remove a substantial amount of coal-fired capacity from the system.

The Coalition argues it makes little sense to justify VNI West partly on the basis of helping replace retiring coal when the interconnector itself will not be completed until more than two years after Yallourn shuts.

Shadow Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister David Davis said Victoria could not afford to wait for delayed transmission projects.

“Victorians can’t afford to wait for delayed, over-budget transmission projects while Labor gambles with our energy security,” Mr Davis said.

“Our priority is making sure the lights stay on.”

The Coalition says its answer would be an Energy Security Requirement, under which the government would seek new firm electricity capacity through competitive processes similar to schemes used in other states.

While the Coalition says the process would be technology-neutral, Mr Davis has indicated gas-fired generation would probably provide a substantial share of the capacity.

Gas plants can start generation relatively quickly when electricity demand rises or renewable output falls, making them useful as firming capacity in systems with increasing wind and solar generation.

Importantly, Labor’s own electricity strategy also envisages a continuing role for gas.

The Victorian Government’s electricity plan says about 6.3GW of new short- and long-duration storage is expected by 2035, supported by “targeted gas-fired power generation” during periods of high demand or low wind and solar output.

The dispute is therefore less about whether gas will play any role and more about how large that role should be, where new gas will come from and how much transmission Victoria should build.

The Coalition has also vowed to “scrap Labor’s gas ban”.

That description refers principally to Victoria’s electrification rules rather than a blanket prohibition on existing Victorians using gas.

From January 2027, new homes and most new commercial buildings in Victoria are required to be all-electric, including commercial kitchens. Existing homes are not subject to an immediate blanket prohibition on continuing to use existing gas appliances.

Labor argues electrification reduces household energy costs and lowers pressure on Victoria’s declining conventional gas supplies.

The Government estimates an existing Victorian home switching to efficient electric appliances could save around $1,900 a year without solar and approximately $2,230 when paired with existing rooftop solar, although actual savings depend on household circumstances, appliance choices and energy use.

The Coalition says consumers should retain the choice to connect new homes and businesses to gas and wants to encourage additional conventional gas development.

That comes as AEMO continues to warn about tightening gas supply on Australia’s east coast.

Victoria’s own Gas Substitution Roadmap acknowledges gas production from existing fields is declining and says fossil gas supplies must remain reliable while the economy transitions. The Government has been examining offshore supply, storage, pipeline upgrades and gas import infrastructure as interim measures.

AEMO’s 2026 Victorian Gas Planning Report also factors in the looming closure of Yallourn, because losing coal-fired generation can increase the need for gas-powered electricity during periods of tight supply.

But the biggest dispute remains whether cancelling VNI West would reduce or increase electricity costs.

The Coalition says VNI West and other planned transmission infrastructure could add more than $600 a year to an average household’s electricity costs.

That figure is based on modelling cited by the Coalition from the Policy Institute of Australia and is not an official estimate from AEMO, VicGrid or the Essential Services Commission.

Labor and energy planners argue the opposite: that while consumers ultimately pay much of the cost of new transmission infrastructure, those networks enable cheaper generation to enter the electricity market and reduce wholesale costs over time.

VicGrid’s 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan estimated the broader transmission development pathway would have a net economic cost of about $6.6 billion, or approximately $4.2 billion in present-value terms after adjustments, but argued the investments would allow cheaper renewable generation to enter the market and strengthen security as coal plants retire.

The Victorian Government has said failing to implement its transmission plan would prevent new generation connecting to the grid, increase energy prices, weaken energy security and cost the Victorian economy an estimated $9.6 billion over 30 years.

AEMO has also continued to back VNI West despite the project’s higher cost.

Its 2026 Integrated System Plan, released in June, retained VNI West in the optimal development pathway for the National Electricity Market.

AEMO’s cost-benefit modelling tested what would happen if VNI West ceased to be treated as an actionable project and found delaying it beyond its actionable window increased the risk of inefficient investment across all three major scenarios.

The Clean Energy Council has responded sharply to the Coalition’s latest move, warning that abandoning VNI West would leave Victoria with a weaker electricity system at precisely the time ageing coal generation is disappearing.

The council said VNI West and the Western Renewables Link were needed to bring new large-scale generation into the market and warned rooftop solar alone could not replace the 1,480MW of dispatchable capacity being lost when Yallourn closes.

“Victoria needs more electricity, not less of it,” the Clean Energy Council said.

It argued that new large-scale renewable generation required transmission infrastructure to move electricity from where it was generated to major population and industrial centres.

The Coalition rejects the suggestion that cancelling VNI West means abandoning renewable energy.

Alongside additional gas generation, it wants to establish urban solar parks, encouraging businesses and industrial facilities to install solar panels and batteries on large metropolitan rooftops.

The Opposition also says it is prepared to examine alternatives that make greater use of existing transmission corridors rather than building entirely new easements across farmland.

VNI West’s cancellation would have consequences beyond Victoria.

The project is designed as a single interstate connection, so a Victorian decision to abandon its section would undermine the case for Transgrid proceeding with the roughly 235-kilometre NSW component.

It could also affect renewable projects being planned on the assumption that VNI West will provide sufficient grid capacity to connect them.

The Coalition has stopped short of giving the Western Renewables Link the same definitive death sentence.

Mr Davis has said the project would be assessed against value for money and its role within a broader review of Victoria’s transmission strategy, while VNI West would be cancelled outright.

That distinction marks a further evolution of Coalition policy.

In May, the Liberals and Nationals promised to pause and review both VNI West and the Western Renewables Link if elected. Three months later, the Opposition has hardened its position on VNI West from review to cancellation.

The shift puts energy infrastructure, gas policy and regional property rights firmly at the centre of Victoria’s election campaign.

Labor is effectively asking Victorians to accept substantial new transmission construction as the price of replacing ageing coal-fired generation with renewable energy and storage.

The Coalition is offering a different bet: less new long-distance transmission, more conventional gas, more firm generation, greater use of existing infrastructure and more solar and battery capacity closer to where electricity is consumed.

Ms Wilson says that approach would protect both household energy security and farmers whose properties sit in the path of new transmission.

“Regional communities need to know that I have their back, that my Liberal and Nationals team have their back and that we reject Labor’s plans to decimate agriculture and private property rights in this state,” she said.

The competing claims about bills will now face intense scrutiny.

The Coalition must demonstrate that enough new gas generation and alternative transmission capacity could be delivered quickly and cheaply enough to replace Yallourn and meet Victoria’s growing electricity demand.

Labor, meanwhile, must convince voters that a transmission project now costing billions more than earlier forecasts and arriving two years later than once planned still represents value for money.

With Yallourn’s 2028 closure approaching and VNI West not expected before late 2030, Victoria’s energy debate is no longer simply about renewable versus fossil fuel generation.

It is increasingly about which combination of gas, renewables, storage and transmission can keep the lights on at the lowest cost — and how much regional Victoria should be asked to sacrifice to build it.

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The post Jess Wilson vows to scrap VNI West Powerline and turn to gas in major Victorian energy election reset first appeared on The Australia Today.