Updated ,first published
Albury: Upstairs at One Nation’s new HQ, the Bended Elbow, security set the tone early.
Names were checked against lists, invitations matched to ID — a reminder this was no ordinary campaign gathering, and no ordinary political moment, marking the 125th anniversary of Australia’s federal parliament in its own way, from the margins rather than the chamber floor.
Inside, it felt closer to a country footy crowd than a political function. A sea of orange T-shirts filled the room, beer flowed steadily, the Hoodoo Gurus blared over the speakers. Assistance dogs were weaving between tables, the noise lifting each time another booth update flashed on the screen.
As Sky News election analyst Tom Connell read out the early booths (no ABC coverage on screens here) the electorate rolled across the display like a rural roll call.
From Balranald to Barellan, Barham to Berrigan, Blighty to Burrumbuttock, the pattern built.
Corowa, Culcairn, Finley, Jerilderie, Hay, Henty, Howlong — each update drew a ripple through the crowd.
At a table near the back, a man with tattoos down his arms and a Super Dry in hand leaned forward as another result landed.
“It’s looking good, baby,” he said, before breaking into “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”.
And as Jindera, Moama, Narrandera, Oaklands and Griffith continued to report, the mood inside shifted from anticipation to inevitability. Some results sparked cheers, others gasps, but the direction of travel held — rural discontent had not just been registered, it was being measured in a landslide of double-digit swings across one-pub towns from here to the South Australian border.
At that point, the atmosphere hardened into something else: a people-powered surge, framed by supporters as a historic electoral upheaval. In the room, some went further, casting it in the language of global populist politics, the closest here yet to a Trump-style insurgency.
Pauline Hanson had said at a pub down the road the night before that she wanted her country back. Tonight this is what that looked like in practice.
Around 7.30pm, as votes flowed firmly in the affirmative for Farley in a string of booths, Mark Nicholson stepped forward. The satirical cartoonist – the voice and creative force behind One Nation’s Please Explain – lifted the mood again, grinning as he surveyed the room.
“Hello you dark, dark forces,” he said, greeting the crowd with a theatrical nod to the label used now notoriously by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier in the year.
Part comedian, part preacher, he played to the room as the count continued to tilt and surge.
By then, the broader picture was already forming. In the tiny grain towns and river communities of the electorate, results were showing movement away from long-set patterns — a shocking swing highlighting a patchwork of volatility across the region.
For many in the room, the result felt less like a surprise than a release.
Thirty years after Pauline Hanson first entered federal politics, her movement had finally broken through in the lower house — after party splits, electoral wipeout, bust ups, jail time and years on the margins.
A few blocks away from here, another memory sits in her collective retelling — outside Soden’s Hotel in 1999, when Hanson had beer poured over her and her handbag stolen. A moment of hostility that hardened into legend: persecution, resilience, and political survival in the town.
When Sky declared the winner the room erupted. And then in marched Hanson and her team to John Farnham’s You’re the Voice.
Farley took the microphone, framing the moment in deliberately expansive terms.
“We’re like a mason with a chisel and a hammer, and we’re carving the letters into the Australian democracy. One Nation has reached the end of its beginning. We’re going through the ceiling.”
After a longwinded sermon, Hanson herself addressed supporters.
“You have no idea how proud I feel,” she said, pausing as the room erupted. She admitted shedding a tear.
“I’m seeing the sea of these proud Australian faces here in front of me, hundreds of you. But millions are watching you on in TVs now, and I believe it’s giving them hope to represent you, the people, to get our country back,” Hanson said.
“It’s been a long journey for us, and I’m very proud to have our federal members of parliament here joined with me. We have been a great team working together, and very much so for your benefit and for future generations.”
Her presence remained the gravitational force of the night. Even as Farley stood as the local hero, known and broadly liked despite a few campaign missteps, there was little doubt about what had driven the surge.
What is driving the shift is not a single issue but accumulation — thinning services, a struggle to get ahead, decisions made elsewhere, and a sense in many towns that politics only returns when it needs votes.
The Coalition’s once-automatic loyalty in these communities is now eroded.
Hanson’s appeal remains highly personal. Supporters here described her not as a polished political operator, but as someone who speaks plainly and without caution — a quality that resonates in towns where political language is viewed with suspicion. Even opponents concede her ability to tap into a sentiment that has long been present but previously diffused across independents or abstention.
Outside, Albury’s quiet streets gave no hint of the political rupture unfolding upstairs. Across the street, Michelle Milthorpe’s team drowned their sorrows by dancing to Abba’s wistful banger, Dancing Queen. Around the corner, the Liberals and Nationals wondered what had hit them.
Inside the Bended Elbow, politics had changed forever. It felt like a warning shot from the heartland – and impossible to ignore.
Go deeper on One Nation’s huge win
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Rob Harris is the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect via email.