View from The Hill: Fresh from its WA triumph, how will One Nation do in the eastern trenches?

Neither Labor nor the Liberals needed the bruising Secret Harbour byelection to tell them One Nation had become a major player.

But Saturday’s result in the Western Australian state seat will raise a couple of notches in the major parties’ perception of the political threat level it represents.

In particular, it will remove any Labor complacency that One Nation is just a problem for the conservatives – not that the more astute in Labor’s ranks believed this.

And the WA result increases further the stakes in the Victorian state election in November.

That nearly four in ten Secret Harbour voters gave the insurgent party its first preference vote, in a field of 16, is extraordinary in itself.

A primary vote of almost 40% is nostalgia territory for the big parties these days.

Labor attracted just under one in four primary votes in this previously solid ALP seat.

The Liberals fell well short of winning one in five of the primary votes.

Sure, it was a state byelection, and had a mix of issues – state and local, as well as federal.

But the national messages are clear.

One Nation is on its way potentially to becoming the unofficial opposition.

And, having cut a swathe through the conservative side of politics, the party is – again, potentially – a serious worry in Labor’s outer suburban seats.

Secret Harbour is the first seat One Nation has won from Labor since the 1998 Queensland state election.

It’s notable that a vulnerability in Labor heartland seats was picked up in the party’s review of the 2022 federal election campaign, when it won government.