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Newly minted One Nation member Catherine Lucre did not hesitate to explain at length why she has abandoned Labor and hates Anthony Albanese.
“They have an agenda which, I believe, is a quite sinister agenda, and I frankly wouldn’t pee on him if he was on fire.”
Her opinion is rooted in a belief Australia is being “over-governed” by Albanese, claiming the country was “turning into communist China” and Labor’s “socialist agenda is not compatible with Australian life”.
When asked why she has joined the controversial party, Lucre rattles off a series of well-trodden issues by One Nation voters, including claims that too many migrants are arriving in Australia, an objection to funding for minority communities (particularly Muslims), and increased cost of living pressures.
She claims the Labor government is “importing people” into Australia that “utilise our public resources for their own benefit” including those who “come in with one wife, then they have three others”.
“And they’re all getting paid Centrelink benefits.”
The 65-year-old runs her own real estate business in western Sydney, was previously a swinging voter and joined One Nation about a month ago. She has begun attending branch meetings in the south-western federal seat of Hume, in an area where the party has been laying the foundations to campaign in the coming state election.
Activity in a series of Facebook pages and groups makes it clear that One Nation has begun coalescing in branches in Sydney.
This is mirrored in the surge in the latest poll in NSW, with 25 per cent of the state telling the Resolve Political Monitor they would vote for the far-right party, above the Liberals and just behind Labor.
Lucre says the party is getting organised for the state poll. Branches are growing and meeting regularly, including at Picton Bowling Club in the city’s far south-west.
Lesley Davies, the manager at the club, said the branch meets there regularly and, she insisted, “they’re not racist”.
Despite that, she said the main reason people had turned to the party ahead of the state elections in March was the perception Australia was “bending to other cultures”.
“People feel disunited, there are divisions here in Picton and across the country, and One Nation wants to make us one Australia again. We haven’t been a one Australia in a while and we have been bending to other cultures.”
Most of the target seats are in western Sydney, where the party has run candidates previously and achieved results that indicate there is a support base to build on.
They are tapping into a growing sense of resentment and disconnect in the region, which they hope will propel them into an unprecedented result in the state.
A network of meetings
Picton Bowling Club on the edge of Sydney, past the new airport and construction sites, on a quiet street in a quiet suburb. But to Davies, silence masks boiling discontent.
Davies has been the club manager for six months, and in that time has noticed the branch meetings there have grown by “20 people each time”.
Most of the pubs and clubs that host the meetings refused to comment on the party’s growth. A senior staff member at one of the venues – who asked to be anonymous – said he’d overheard some supporters wishing “there was a Donald Trump in Australia”.
Meetings are not restricted to western Sydney. The federal electorate of Wentworth, Liberal heartland in the eastern suburbs, includes NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane’s seat of Vaucluse – and has recorded an increase in One Nation supporters.
The Wentworth branch had its first meeting in May, and so far has about 300 members, about 100 of whom piled into Woollahra Golf Club on Tuesday to plot a rapid expansion in Liberal territory.
They have set a target of 800 members by the end of the year.
A One Nation party insider not authorised to speak publicly said those who thought the party was only growing in the western suburbs and regions were in for a shock in March.
“It’s not just votes the Liberals stand to lose,” the insider said. “The experience, influence, and donations that come from within these communities has formed the bedrock of their electoral success for decades.”
One Nation’s popularity in the polls has far outstripped the state infrastructure, leaving the party rushing to find political operators to run the show in NSW. Liberal staffer turned lobbyist Mark Jones was recently brought on board to help run the state campaign.
The party’s NSW headquarters is a nondescript brick building in North Gosford and the party is yet to appoint a leader. Previous Hunter candidate Stuart Bonds has been de facto spokesman in NSW.
The party ran candidates at the 2019 and 2023 state elections, mostly in western Sydney seats. Their best results were in Campbelltown, Wollondilly, Hawkesbury and Camden, achieving above 10 per cent of the votes.
The Herald approached members and coordinators in branches in Sydney; all either could not be reached or declined to speak.
Prominent branch member Lisa Perry Wildman said she did not have much to say on One Nation but invited the Herald to attend the launch of her recently published book The Dual-Realm Development Theory about “the future of human development in the digital age”.
Labor and the Liberals have started announcing candidates for the state election. A One Nation party source confirmed no candidates had been officially endorsed despite its intention to run in every seat.
Social media posts from a recent Mitchell branch meeting in Sydney’s north-west show the party is searching for candidates for Castle Hill and Kellyville electorates, both held by the Liberals.
On Thursday, members of the Lindsay branch, which includes the marginal state seat of Penrith, handed out flyers to commuters at Kingswood train station. With no endorsed candidate to promote, the flyers instead encouraged people to join a coming branch meeting.
The meetings seem to revolve around presentations on how to vote and call-outs for volunteers, as well as guest speakers.
One such guest speaker is Tony Nikolic, a western Sydney lawyer who has run for One Nation at two previous federal elections.
Nikolic could not confirm whether he would be preselected for the state election. He said much of the growth in the branches was not due to the party’s head office’s efforts, but to a groundswell of support.
“The people are showing up – all we do is put out a message and people show up. We have life-long Labor and Liberal voters turning up, people who are fed up with politics right now.”
Facebook pages attributed to the branch meetings have emerged in the past 12 months, with many of them growing rapidly.
The pages make extensive use of AI-generated imagery for both caricatures of political figures and to produce talking points and flyers to promote their events. Much of the content is focused on Albanese, cost of living and immigration, with many of their posts specifying their objection to Islam and Muslims in Australia.
Turning against the same bird
Nikolic was adamant those turning up to these meetings weren’t “neanderthals” or “rednecks”, but were “barristers, doctors and professors”.
“They’re showing up saying they’re sick of what the major parties aren’t doing. They see a lot of promises and no action.”
He rattles off the branches he has attended, including one in Penrith, one in Rooty Hill and one in Ryde, summarising that they “are all growing”.
“I talk to them about what it is to be Australian, which is to have the courage to understand that when you see something wrong, raise your hands. People may want to attack you and call you a racist or a bigot, but how can I be a racist if I am from another country?” he said.
“I tell them to protect the constitution. And that they have the constitutional right to do that. And I talk about the economy and privatisation, it just needs to be done ethically. Like immigration.”
An underlying message among much of the supporters is frustration with the major parties, and what they see as a lack of distinguishing policies between Labor and the Coalition.
“They see it as being two wings on the same bird,” Nikolic says, explaining that the frustration boils down to disconnect.
“They’re being told they are being taken care of, but that’s not what’s happening. Bills keep going up, salaries stay low.
“And so people say, ‘Well, why should I trust the institutions you’re asking me to believe in when the very institutions are letting us down?’”
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