4 weeks ago
12
February 2, 2026 — 10:28am
Liberal senator Alex Antic and former senator Cory Bernardi could be the latest political figures to join Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as it surges ahead of the fractured Coalition in the polls.
The two figures who sit well to the right of the Liberal Party as leading figures in the hard-right and Christian right.
Former Victorian Liberal MP Bernie Finn, who fell out with the Liberals over his opposition to abortion, has already joined One Nation ahead of the Victorian state election in November as the minor party hoovers up disaffected right-wingers who have previously courted controversy.
Bernardi declined to comment on his potential move to the populist-right party when questioned by this masthead on Saturday. On his online blog last week, the former Liberal senator wrote that he was “lending his shoulder” to One Nation, whose time as a major party he argued had come. Radio station 2GB reported Bernardi’s switch on Monday morning.
Antic, the far-right rebel senator who frequently votes against his party, is viewed by some of his colleagues as another possible defector.
When asked about the prospect by this masthead on Friday, he said: “I haven’t always got on well with the media but there’s nothing worse than spoiling a surprise. I think it’s for your own good to wait and see.”
Antic has built up a big online following, particularly after the pandemic, by harnessing scepticism of vaccine mandates, anti-government grievance and hostility to woke culture.
He has come to dominate the South Australian division of the Liberal Party, but in recent times, Moderates, led by figures such as Senator Anne Ruston and former Coalition defence minister Christopher Pyne, have worked with Antic’s more mainstream opponents within the Right, such as Nicole Flint, to diminish his influence as the South Australian Liberals face a state election wipeout in March.
The 51-year-old has told colleagues for months that he is disillusioned with coming to Canberra and has become distanced from his Liberal colleagues. Over summer, he removed the Liberal logo from his electorate office.
“There is lots of speculation and it will bring a smile to many if true,” one of Antic’s senate colleagues said off the record to speak candidly about Antic.
Hanson’s chief of staff, party strategist James Ashby, has been teasing major defections. Last week he told Sky News that “it will shock people just how significant” the announcements, expected on Tuesday, would be.
“We need to be the unofficial opposition as One Nation, and we are on that recruitment drive that so many people have said we don’t have,” Ashby said, promising “familiar faces and big names”.
One Nation is rattling the Coalition and starting to take some votes off Labor as its primary vote shoots ahead of the Liberals and Nationals despite outlining few detailed policies and a history of stoking racial anxieties.
Hanson’s plain and uncompromising rhetoric on immigration has seen her stocks rise as voter concern on migration has risen. The defection of former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has also served to make the right-wing party more mainstream.
A Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll published on Sunday by The Australian Financial Review showed One Nation entrenched as the second most popular party, ahead of the Liberal or National parties. Labor was down 1 point from December to 34 per cent; the combined Liberal and National party vote was 19 per cent, down from 26 per cent; and One Nation was up to 26 from 17.
This masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor from January showed the Coalition at 28 per cent and Pauline Hanson’s party at 18 per cent.
Joyce told this masthead’s Inside Politics podcast last month that the polling numbers were soft and could fade by the election, but argued they represented a huge opportunity to create permanent support as the Coalition was mired in a crisis of policy and personnel.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
