One Nation will win at least one South Australian lower house seat, and is leading in a handful of others, as the Liberals consider “sobering lessons” from Saturday’s thumping election loss to Labor.
One Nation’s electoral success came as federal MP Barnaby Joyce downplayed racism and bigotry accusations against the party before likening a ban on migration from Muslim countries to buying cattle “that just don’t work”.
The right-wing populist party was ahead in four lower house state seats and remained in contention in two others as of Sunday evening.
The ABC said Adelaide Plains council’s deputy mayor, David Paton, was expected to claim the lower house seat of Ngadjuri.
One Nation was also well-placed in Hammond, a rural electorate east of Adelaide, where it was leading the Labor contender on a two-candidate count.
Pauline Hanson’s party was ahead in Narungga, covering the Yorke Peninsula, and Mackillop, on SA’s southern border with Victoria, too. One Nation candidates remained in contention in Stuart and Light.
If One Nation were to win all six seats – a scenario that electoral analyst Ben Raue believed was unlikely – it could eclipse the Liberals as the de facto opposition in the state.
Across South Australia, Labor secured 38% of primary votes, suffering a minor swing against the party of 2%. One Nation’s vote surged to 22%, representing a 19.4% swing, while the Liberals trailed behind with a primary vote of 19%, down 16%. That was with 60% of the ballots counted.
The poor showing by the Liberal party saw it secure just four seats by Sunday evening. It was in contention in four others.
The federal shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, said her Liberal colleagues needed to learn “sobering lessons”.
“The Liberal party has got a lot of work to do to rebuild the trust of Australians,” she told Sky News on Sunday. “We just haven’t been telling our story very well.”
Ruston said the Liberals should look to govern from the centre as the party’s conservatives suggested its policies needed to lurch further to the right.
Joyce said One Nation’s success in the state reflected the party offering voters “clarity of views”.
“We believe in building coal-fired power stations. If that upsets you, be upset. We believe [in] stronger control in immigration. If that upsets you, be upset,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
“We don’t believe in multiculturalism. We believe in Australian culture and guardrails that give us the egalitarianism and freedom we’ve always had to express ourselves and enjoy ourselves, and if that upsets you, then be upset.”
Joyce insisted the party, which is known for its anti-immigration policies, wasn’t bigoted or racist. He suggested new immigrants should assimilate or conform to “Australian culture”.
When asked whether One Nation would argue for a ban on immigration from Muslim countries, the former Nationals leader likened the idea to buying cattle “that just don’t work”, saying it was necessary to be “brutal”.
“I don’t want to be trite about it, but it’s a bit like buying cattle. If you’re getting cattle in from a certain … seller, and there’s an unreasonable number of ones that just don’t work when they get off the truck, well, you don’t buy them any more,” he said.
“And that’s not saying, ‘Oh, we just avoid people of Islamic faith’, but you have to be very mindful of what parts of the world they’re coming from, and the predominant worldview, or an excessive worldview that’s held there that probably doesn’t mix with what you need in Australia.”
The Australian National Imams Council described Joyce’s comments as “deeply offensive” and betraying a “profound ignorance of Australia’s history, values, and social fabric”.
“Such language dehumanises entire communities and echoes the worst instincts of dog-whistle politics long associated with One Nation,” the council spokesperson Bilal Rauf said.
“More troubling still is the normalisation of this rhetoric in mainstream political discourse. When such views are aired and enabled, they risk eroding public trust in our institutions and weakening the social cohesion that underpins a diverse and democratic society.”
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, didn’t directly address the election result on Sunday, but in a speech to Melbourne’s Vietnamese community, he warned against anyone seeking to demonise migrants.
“There are some, including some in political life, who want to turn back the clock to an Australia that is no longer who we are,” Albanese said.
“We need to call out those people. We need to continue to cherish our diversity as a strength for our nation, which it is.”
Albanese on Friday was heckled when he visited Lakemba mosque. He subsequently said those who criticised him were unhappy his government had outlawed “extremist organisations” like Hizb ut-Tahrir, although he failed to provide any evidence for his claim.
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has Labor on track to pick up at least 32 seats out of 47 in the next state parliament.
The federal minister Chris Bowen on Sunday praised Malinauskas’ win, saying it had “cemented his place as a Labor great in history”.
