Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is enjoying a surge few in Canberra expected, and Alan Kohler, one of Australia’s most experienced financial journalists and a regular ABC commentator, argues it has less to do with ideology than with a housing system that is failing a large slice of the electorate.

Writing for the ABC, Kohler points to a Redbridge Group poll published in the Australian Financial Review that put One Nation’s primary vote at 26 per cent, ahead of the Coalition on 19 per cent and closing in on Labor’s 34 per cent. The same polling placed Hanson’s favourability rating at 38 per cent, above Anthony Albanese’s 34 per cent. Among Gen X voters, 48 per cent viewed One Nation “very favourably” or “mostly favourably”. Even among millennials, the figure was 30 per cent.

Kohler notes that this shift is unfolding against the backdrop of a worsening housing outlook. Two days after the poll, the Reserve Bank lifted interest rates and downgraded its expectations for dwelling investment. Forecast growth for this year was trimmed from 2.1 per cent to 1.8 per cent, while the outlook for 2027 was cut sharply to 0.3 per cent. More striking was the bank’s projection that dwelling investment would fall by 0.4 per cent in 2028, a result Kohler describes as an “amazing collapse in home-building”.

The numbers jar with recent construction data. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, housing approvals rose 12 per cent in 2025 to 190,544. Yet the RBA’s modelling implies that housing growth this year will be only a fraction of last year’s increase, with barely any growth projected beyond that. Kohler argues that even allowing for quirks in statistical modelling, the central bank is signalling little confidence that housing construction will lift meaningfully from here.

The numbers jar with recent construction data. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, housing approvals rose 12 per cent in 2025 to 190,544. Yet the RBA’s modelling implies that housing growth this year will be only a fraction of last year’s increase, with barely any growth projected beyond that

That pessimism matters because it places the government’s five-year National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million homes increasingly out of reach. With the plan already behind schedule, the remaining years would require an annual build rate of around 265,000 homes, roughly 45 per cent higher than last year’s outcome. Kohler suggests that such an acceleration looks unlikely.

At the same time, population growth remains strong. The RBA expects growth of about 1.2 per cent in both 2026 and 2027, equivalent to roughly 325,000 people a year. Kohler stresses that this figure is not a forecast in the true sense, but a mechanical combination of Treasury’s assumed net overseas migration and natural increase. Treasury’s migration estimate of 225,000 is itself based on the average of the 14 years before COVID-19.

What migration will actually look like, Kohler writes, is uncertain. Former immigration department head Abul Rizvi estimates net overseas migration of around 290,000 this financial year and 260,000 in 2027. At current household sizes, that implies demand for roughly 162,500 dwellings initially, easing slightly the following year. If the housing target of 240,000 homes a year were met, it would begin to ease shortages and improve affordability. The problem, Kohler argues, is that current construction trends point in the opposite direction.

Alan Kohler

Kohler is careful to reject the idea that rising support reflects widespread racism. He argues that voters are responding to pressure, not prejudice

Against this backdrop, One Nation’s rise becomes easier to understand. Kohler writes that Hanson would be the first to admit the polling does not put her party on a path to government. Yet her appeal lies in being “the only politician talking clearly about reducing migration”. The fact that she lacks detailed policy platforms has not blunted her message.

Kohler is careful to reject the idea that rising support reflects widespread racism. He argues that voters are responding to pressure, not prejudice. Many see a country with “a million unplanned temporary visa holders” and feel squeezed out of the housing market, struggling with rents, mortgages and the cost of living. That frustration has been sharpened by episodes such as a One Nation official filming strangers in Melbourne while claiming the city “doesn’t look like a Western nation at all”, a stunt widely condemned but still resonant with parts of the electorate.

The roots of the current moment, Kohler suggests, stretch back decades. He traces them to the early 2000s, when the Howard government responded to warnings about population ageing by expanding immigration, particularly through international students. The approach helped fill skills gaps and, crucially, fund universities as public support declined. Over time, it also swelled the number of temporary residents and added pressure to housing in major cities.

Kohler’s argument is not that Hanson has the answers, but that the political system has failed to provide convincing ones. With housing supply lagging, population growth uncertain and official forecasts offering little reassurance, voters are gravitating towards the clearest voice in the debate, however blunt that voice may be.

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.@AlanKohler analyses @OneNationAus's polling surge, linking it to #housing market failure & frustration over high #migration, not ideology. Wt supply lagging & affordability eroding, voters r turning to clear, if blunt, political voices. #TheIndianSun

https://t.co/YYlbAuOfBQ pic.twitter.com/wQJ2FJsrco

— The Indian Sun (@The_Indian_Sun) February 9, 2026

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