Running Polling

One Nation WA leader Rod Caddies doesn’t want to platform the Greens. We’re standing in the carpark outside the polling booth on the first day of pre-poll for the Secret Harbour by-election, which pits One Nation’s populist insurgency directly against the WA Labor machine that has dominated state politics here for almost a decade. But Rod doesn’t want his candidate, gym owner Luke Herdegen, going up against Greens candidate Rhi Davies in a debate she’s happy to have.

“Not interested in talking to the wacky Greens or having any sort of debate with them,” he tells me, as a lady in a One Nation hat walks past waving multiple mini Australian flags. “Yeah, that’s right,” she intercedes, “we’re trying to save our country.”

I try to tell Caddies and Herdegen I just want to hear their views about local issues like housing and AUKUS. A few kilometres up the road from here, an hour south of Perth’s CBD, is the latest overseas US naval base at HMAS Stirling - as you approach on Memorial Drive, dozens of tents and caravans line the road.

“You guys talk about a lot of the same things,” I protest feebly, “housing, cost of living.”

“We’re not gonna give someone else a platform, mate,” he explains with a shrug. “Everyone puts Pauline Hanson's picture up when they put out a news article, because they know it's going to get people looking.” Can’t really argue with that part.

I go and give Davies the bad news about the cancelled head-to-head with Herdegen, which she takes on the chin. “I do hear that sometimes he does back out of interviews, so that's okay.”

He’s not the only one. A few minutes earlier, I’d approached Labor’s candidate Georgia Tree to ask her about her current job as a government relations advisor for Woodside, after spending a decade as a staffer for federal Resources Minister Madeleine King. The second I mentioned the word “lobbyist” she was off, shepherded to her car by a couple of waiting minders. The car is a couple of hundred metres away. I have time for another dozen questions as I follow them with my microphone trailed by a few TV cameras, but I don’t get another word out of her.

That night on the news I’m described as “an activist with an axe to grind” by Channel 7 and accused of “spoiling the fun” on Channel 9. On social media it’s a different story when I post a clip of our one-way conversation followed by a similar interview with the back of the Premier’s car as he also sped off a moment later. They’d only been there about ten minutes in total, a quick photo op with some voters before belting back up the freeway to the city, where both of them live (none of the major party candidates live in the electorate).

Recent posts from Tree are flooded with comments calling out her links to the gas industry. It reads as one of the defining issues of an election that Labor risks losing, with an exit poll conducted that day showing 50% primary support for One Nation, double Labor’s vote. Private polling I’ve seen also shows One Nation in the lead, albeit not by as much, but with Liberal preferences going their way too the sums are looking tricky for the government.

A week earlier I was down the road at the launch of One Nation’s branch in Andrew Hastie’s Canning electorate, which has captured more national attention that the state skirmish in Secret Harbour. Until Hastie transcends his haters (the Gina Rinehart, Kerry Stokes and Pauline Hanson trifecta) and saves the Liberal party, though, it’s this contest which has more to say about the state of the country.

Anthony Albanese is due to be in Perth all next week for a series of exclusive fundraisers but it’s unclear if he’ll be allowed anywhere near Secret Harbour, which should make for some awkward conversations either way. Pauline Hanson hasn’t been here since stopping by briefly on her way back from Europe last month. When I made a quick trip down to talk to some locals last month I found a placid, generally complacent atmosphere at the main shopping centre for this string of seven or eight coastal suburbs, not the kind of seething engagement that drives a big protest vote. However, sitting politicians who’ve been out on the doors more recently tell me the mood is getting febrile, with only one winner from a general sense that the world is going to shit. If I lived in a treeless developer estate with few obvious amenities in what used to be a quiet community of beach shacks I’d be frustrated too.

The vibes were high at pre-poll on Monday though. All the big dogs are out. Basil Zempilas is cracking wise about the Premier and his candidate turning up late (“perhaps she’s stuck in the 61km of traffic she has to travel”), freed from the strain of any plausible prospect of victory for his Liberal candidate. A former Liberal candidate who does live locally, Dylan Mbano, takes off in a souped up coupe that still bears the “Dylan for Baldivis” decal from when he ran there last year (he was towing a jetski on it last time I saw him.)

Of the sixteen candidates running, eight are Independents. At one point I look over to see one of them giving Rod Caddies an earful and telling him he’s going to be sent to jail. It turns out she is Teresa van Lieshout, who I remember from other elections, although for this one she has rebranded as “St Teresa” while simultaneously campaigning for Governor-General so she can finally introduce her Bill of Rights (apparently Samantha Mostyn also needs locking up). I learn later that St Teresa knows whereof she speaks - she was convicted in 2021 for impersonating a Commonwealth officer after importing hundreds of fake police badges in an attempt to form a rival police force and overthrow the government.

The air turns from grey to blue to black as the rain starts coming down. Rhi Davies the Greens candidate is sheltering under an umbrella held by the One Nation canvasser with the Australian flags.

“What we're seeing here is an amazing, beautiful, cohesive community where these lovely women are sharing an umbrella with us, even though we are on opposite ends right now,” Rhi tells me.

“We all live here in Australia, so we should all be looking after each other and uniting,” her opposite number agrees. Rod Caddies is standing over her shoulder, grinning in the rain.

We leave pre-poll after less than an hour, just as the rain turns monsoonal. As we drive back up the freeway, it's hard to tell where we're going. 


It wasn’t easy seeing out of the windscreen either.