Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has won the federal seat of Farrer, installing 69-year-old irrigation specialist David Farley as the party’s first ever member of the House of Representatives.
Farley led the two-candidate-preferred count by roughly 60 per cent to 40 per cent over independent Michelle Milthorpe, according to results reported on Saturday night. The seat in south-west New South Wales had been held by the Coalition without interruption since its creation in 1949, a run of more than 75 years.
The incoming MP, a grandfather of seven who grew up around the Murray Valley, used his victory speech to name the issue he believes unseated the major parties. “We’ve got to address immigration. It’s as simple as that,” he told supporters. “We will not have housing supply, we will not get education right, and we will not get health right until we address the demand side.”
His win was built in the small communities along the Murray. In Blighty, a one-pub village beside a wide irrigation channel, Farley took 87 of the 113 formal votes cast. The Liberal and National candidates together managed just 14 per cent.
Former Liberal MP Sussan Ley, who resigned from the seat she held for 25 years and who spent election night on a Greyhound bus in the United States, congratulated Farley in a written statement: “I congratulate David Farley and One Nation on their victory in Farrer tonight.”
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor defended the Coalition’s decision to preference One Nation over Milthorpe, describing it as what Liberal supporters in the seat would have wanted. Milthorpe conceded tearfully, then danced with volunteers to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”.
Sources
- Farrer byelection results as it happened: One Nation win former Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley’s seat in NSW Riverina region; votes flock to Pauline Hanson’s party
- Farrer byelection 2026 | The Guardian
