Yesterday I wrote about the extraordinary enthusiasm political parties have for studying unhappy voters rather than themselves. This morning the Sydney Morning Herald delivered me an article about researchers studying 1,000 One Nation voters. Sometimes the universe is unnecessarily helpful.
In my living history interviews with people in their late 80s and early 90s across my local government area, I often ask what has changed in their lifetime. I am hoping for the broad sweep, social change, physical change, how the place has changed around them.
The most common answer I get is: too many people.
They are talking about people moving into the area from somewhere else in Australia. Sydney gets mentioned a lot. Immigration does not.
So when I read Paul Sakkal’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning on what 1,000 One Nation voters say is driving them, I smiled.
The headline finding is immigration. Of the One Nation supporters who believe Australia is heading in the wrong direction, 39 per cent name immigration as one of the reasons. Fifty-seven per cent fear Australia’s culture and identity are changing too quickly. Forty per cent point to pressure on housing and infrastructure.
Then you read what people actually say.
One supporter says the issue is arithmetic. You cannot bring in that many people without building the houses. Another says the issue is who comes and whether they want to become part of what is already here.
Suddenly “immigration” is being asked to explain quite a lot.
We do love a complicated explanation. Apparently understanding something counts for less if it doesn’t require a consultant.
The research into One Nation voters comes with focus groups, voter segments, demographic differences, loyal supporters, newer supporters and analysis of what might persuade people to change their vote. All useful.
But perhaps people are also saying exactly what they mean.
There are more people than there used to be, and they do not like some of the consequences.
People do not experience population growth as a percentage. They experience another housing development, another traffic jam, another doctor’s books closed to new patients, another paddock covered in houses and another place that takes longer to get to.
Ask someone in their late 80s in my LGA what has changed and I may hear “too many people”.
Ask a One Nation voter what is wrong with Australia and I may hear “too much immigration”.
Before deciding those are entirely different conversations, it might be useful to ask what each person is actually describing.
The Scanlon Foundation’s long-running social cohesion research adds an important clue. In 2024, 49 per cent of Australians thought immigration was too high. Yet 85 per cent said multiculturalism had been good for Australia, 82 per cent said migrants were good for the economy and 83 per cent rejected excluding immigrants on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion.
The 2025 research is equally interesting.
Among Australians who thought immigration was too high, 58 per cent nominated the economy or housing as the country’s biggest problem. Only 9 per cent nominated immigration itself.
That does not make concerns about race, culture or identity disappear. The One Nation research itself shows a difference between newer supporters worried about migration numbers and parts of Hanson’s traditional base who are more concerned about the background of migrants.
But it does suggest that “too much immigration” can sometimes be shorthand for something much broader.
Too many people for the houses.
Too many people for the roads.
Too many people for the services.
Too much change, too quickly.
In my interviews, the people causing all this pressure can be Australians who moved down the highway. Scale the same experience up from a town to a country and suddenly the new arrivals have passports.
This takes us straight back to the leadership question I wrote about yesterday.
Political parties confronted with dissatisfied voters have an extraordinary appetite for studying the voters. Who are they? What do they want? What are they angry about? What message will bring them back?
Now we have research into 1,000 One Nation voters.
To its credit, the research reaches an important conclusion: One Nation’s rise is as much a story of Liberal failure as One Nation success.
That is more interesting than another voter profile.
Because the real question may be what happens when population grows faster than people’s confidence that governments can manage the consequences.
Housing, roads, hospitals, schools and infrastructure are experienced locally. So is change. People notice the paddock disappearing long before they read the population statistics.
Then politics arrives with an answer. Immigration.
That is a powerful word because it can turn a collection of complicated experiences into one problem with one number attached to it.
Politics loves a number. Numbers can be cut. Systems are messier.
So before politicians hear “immigration” and start competing over who can promise the lower migration target, it might be worth listening a little longer.
What are people actually describing? Because sometimes when someone in their late 80s tells me the problem is “too many people”, the people causing all the trouble came from Wollongong.
Pauline Hanson did not invent that feeling.
She may simply have become very good at telling people what to call it.
