By Marina Gomide
FOR more than two decades, online interest in Australia’s political parties has typically spiked around elections before falling away, but One Nation has broken that pattern with searches steadily rising since 2025.
This comes as One Nation’s Luke Herdegen had a historic win in the Secret Harbour by-election over the weekend, taking over a previous Labor seat.
Voters in the local Fisher electorate also saw minor parties accounting for five of the 8 candidates contesting the local seat in the 2025 Federal Election, including One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots, Family First, Gerard Rennick People First, and an independant candidate.
Google Trends data from 2004 to 2026 shows interest in One Nation has continued to climb outside an election period, reaching levels well above its previous baseline and raising questions about a broader fragmentation of Australia’s traditional political landscape.
University of the Sunshine Coast political science and international relations academic, Juan Cáceres, said the latest One Nation trend stood out, but cautioned against interpreting search interest as an indication of how people would vote.
“Google Trends measures relative search attention, not necessarily voting intention or even public approval,” he said.
“The key question is whether this represents durable voter realignment, media-driven salience, or a combination of both.”
Mr Cáceres said a combination of cost-of-living pressures, housing insecurity, declining trust in institutions and dissatisfaction with established political parties could be contributing to the increased attention.
He said One Nation had long sought to channel different frustrations through a message that ordinary Australians were being overlooked by political, media and economic elites.
However, Mr Cáceres said the party’s increased visibility could also be driving searches independently of electoral support.
Pauline Hanson remains one of Australia’s most recognisable political figures, while the party’s positions on issues including immigration, Islam, national identity and social cohesion regularly attract media coverage and public debate.
“The growing search interest may reflect genuine consideration by some voters, but also intense public contestation of One Nation’s view,” Mr Cáceres said.
Search data alone could not distinguish between “a potential supporter from a critic, a journalist, a student, or someone responding to a news story.”
The Queensland data also differs from the nationwide picture, with Labor having maintained the highest average search interest across the period, but Queensland has experienced larger spikes in interest for the LNP and One Nation at various points.
Mr Cáceres said Queensland’s geography, economy and political history helped distinguish it from other states.
“Queensland is geographically decentralized, has a large regional and rural population, and has a strong resource agricultural and tourism economies, so those features can produce a sharper sense of distance from Canberra, and from metropolitan political culture such as Sydney and Melbourne,” he said.
“The state also has a long tradition of conservative and anti-establishment politics, and One Nation itself emerged from Queensland in the in the late 1990s.”
One Nation’s origins means it has a significant electoral history in the state, including at the 1998 Queensland election, where the party secured almost 23 per cent of the primary vote and won 11 seats.
However, Mr Cáceres said the growth of smaller parties did not necessarily mean voters had suddenly undergone a major ideological transformation.
“All of these movements draw support from voters who believe mainstream parties have failed to protect their economic security, the cultural confidence, or political voice,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily that people who support those political parties suddenly change their whole ideology mindset.
“It may reflect legitimate dissatisfaction with the current system and a demand for for better representation.”