One Nation support soars to highest ever, voters divided on Barnaby Joyce: polling

One Nation’s hopes have been buoyed by a new national poll which reveals the party has surged to its highest ever support after Barnaby Joyce’s defection and Pauline Hanson’s condemned burqa stunt, new polling has revealed.

The Guardian Essential Poll, released last week, showed support for the right-wing populist party on a primary vote had reached 17 per cent.

The result — the party’s highest — was half of Labor’s 34 per cent primary vote and behind the Coalition’s 26 per cent primary vote.

It came days after Ms Hanson revealed renegade former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce would defect to One Nation and lead the party’s 2028 NSW Senate ticket.

The Guardian poll of 978 voters preceded Mr Joyce’s defection and showed voters were divided on his joining the minor party.

A little more than 30 per cent said they would be more likely to vote for One Nation if Mr Joyce became its leader, while 42 per cent said they would be less likely to.

Voters were also split on Ms Hanson’s widely condemned burqa stunt in the Senate last month, which prompted her suspension for the last sitting week.

Forty-two per cent of respondents said they were less likely to vote One Nation after the stunt, while some 35 per cent said they were more likely to.

Wednesday’s result also marks an increase from last month’s separate Newspoll, which found support for One Nation on the primary vote was 15 per cent.

As recently as April, support for One Nation was as low as 9 per cent, according to the poll — in June 2024, it was just five per cent.

One Nation has its eyes on the Northern Territory at the next Federal election after tripling its membership in the NT since last election.

The party is looking to register early next year with One Nation planning to run NT candidates federally in both the upper and lower houses, and in the next Territory election.

WA Senator Tyron Whitten, who was recently in Darwin for the inaugural local One Nation branch meeting, said the party was coming to the Northern Territory “back common sense”.

The party achieved a 1.44 per cent swing in the 2025 Federal poll on the national first preference vote, with 991,814 ballots.