Australian far-right populist party Pauline Hanson’s One Nation won its first seat in the country’s House of Representatives in a byelection on Saturday, a preliminary vote count showed.
The result is consistent with a surge in electoral support for far-right populist parties globally.
Britain’s ruling Labour party this week suffered a widespread loss of seats at council elections.
David Farley, a former agribusiness executive, won the rural seat of Farrer, some 550 km (340 miles) south of Sydney and 320 km (200 miles) north of Melbourne, for the anti-immigration party with 59.3 percent of the vote, defeating the incumbent centre-right Liberal Party, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
One Nation’s first preference vote in the byelection was 42 percent, the ABC said, compared to the 6.6 percent first-preference vote it got at a federal election last May.
“We’re like a mason with a chisel and we’re carving letters into Australia’s democracy,” Farley said at a televised election event.
“One Nation has reached the end of its beginning.”
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First Lower-House seat since party formed
The result is significant in that it marks the first time One Nation has won a lower-house seat since Hanson formed the party 30 years ago.
