‘There are no safe Labor seats in this state, or in this country any more…’ declared Luke Herdegen, the freshly elected One Nation MP for Secret Harbour.

He has done something no one thought possible and stolen a safe Labor seat from Roger Cook’s nest.

The by-election was triggered by the retirement of former Labor Minister, Paul Papalia. What would ordinarily be a quiet, perfunctory, minister-switch turned into an exercise in rebellion for a frustrated and neglected class of working Australians.

At the start, Labor and the media treated One Nation’s incursion into Secret Harbour as a joke, but the possibility of victory was present from the start when street-side interviews were frequently interrupted by well-wishers and cars honking in support. That is the sort of greeting party leader Pauline Hanson receives. Victory starts with voter affection.

In the end, it wasn’t even close, with Luke Herdegen delivering a solid victory over Labor’s Georgia Tree.

It was a battle between a political staffer turned Woodside lobbyist and a gym owner.

The Liberals’ Ryan Robertson came third.

One big by-election victory in Farrer is a quirk of history. Two in close succession is an eyebrow-raise moment, particularly as it comes amid growing criticism and media scrutiny of One Nation and its politicians. Of all the polls, an election is to be given a heavier weight. Secret Harbour, right in Andrew Hastie’s back paddock of Canning, will have the Coalition and Labor breathing heavily.

Obviously, this is not a straightforward ‘canary check’ on One Nation’s national popularity. Like David Farley before him, Luke Herdegen was the right candidate for the right moment. He is a strong, well-spoken, popular community figure and thoroughly deserves his victory.

#GoLuke #FireTheLiar #SecretHarbour pic.twitter.com/vBE4Uhqmq4

— Pauline Hanson ?? (@PaulineHansonOz) August 29, 2026

As he said in his victory speech, ‘They came with the big Labor machine. They came with the scare tactics. They came with their handlers on the polling booths. And we marched right through it.’

Then he added:

‘The days of WA Labor having a stranglehold on the outer southern suburbs … those days are over. There are no safe Labor seats in this state, or in this country anymore.’

One Nation’s state leader, Rod Caddies, said of the victory:

‘You’re witnessing a result they said was impossible. A safe seat does not stay safe if you ignore it long enough. Tonight, Labor found it out the hard way. Secret Harbour did not send a protest, it sent a verdict. Western Australia just told the rest of the nation the two-party system is dead.’

Those are powerful words, and they carry more weight than ever.

Secret Harbour
One Nation Tonight
?????? pic.twitter.com/KxJ6qVmuZY

— XPATJAK (@xpatjak) August 29, 2026

One Nation has endured utterly ruthless smear campaigns of late. It is a dangerous game for the press to play because either One Nation collapses and the ‘threat’ of a third party is eliminated or, and this appears to be what is happening, One Nation is forced to refine their policies to the point they comfortably out-compete the lazy major parties. The media melting pot is forging One Nation.

Labor are in denial about the Secret Harbour loss. Premier Roger Cook made the usual off-hand remarks about protest parties without stopping to ask who the voters in Secret Harbour might be protesting against…

‘It is easy to be a small target, to be a party that deals in grievances, but delivery, delivery, the grind of getting hard things done is how Labor handles that responsibility. The voters of Secret Harbour have spoken and regardless of the outcome tonight, we will listen. This campaign has been a reminder that Western Australians are doing it tough. We know this is a time of high interest rates and fuel prices. People are concerned about their lifestyles and their futures, and this campaign has been a reminder about how key our priorities are to this state: jobs, health, housing, and cost of living relief.’

Cook is starting to sound like a 90s-era dial-up internet connection, going through the same sequences of buzzwords that every Australian, regardless of their state, can recite perfectly knowing it’s just irritating noise.

All election losses are a protest against the incumbent, that is rather the point of politics. To call One Nation a ‘protest party’ is little more than accusing it of being ‘the opposition’. (Although, that’s bad news for the Liberals. If they are not a protest against Labor, what are they? Not in the conversation, it would appear.)

‘No seat is safe from the orange tsunami,’ the new Secret Harbour member said, to a room full of cheers. Maybe that is true.