‘We’re coming after those other seats’: Pauline Hanson jubilant as One Nation wins Farrer byelection

Pauline Hanson says One Nation is coming after Coalition and Labor seats around Australia, declaring her supporters want to “take the country back” after winning an emphatic victory in Saturday’s Farrer byelection.

The rightwing populist party won its first ever lower house seat at an election, with candidate David Farley easily seeing off the independent Michelle Milthorpe, amid a collapsing Coalition vote in the seat previously held by the former opposition leader Sussan Ley.

The loss will further weaken Angus Taylor’s depleted party, the latest evidence of a move away from the traditional forces in Australian politics.

Hanson told a jubilant celebration in Albury that millions of Australians would take hope from the result in county New South Wales.

“We’re coming after those other seats,” she said.

“You are not going to be the forgotten people any more. We are proud Australians. We want our country back and that’s what One Nation is about.”

Hanson pledged to unveil an energy policy centred on taking more money from gas exports, while also securing equity for taxpayers in resources companies.

Farley is on track to win more than 40% of the primary vote, ahead of Milthorpe on about 28%. The two Coalition parties struggled to reach a combined primary vote of 20%.Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email

Taylor said the Liberals would take “hard lessons” from the result, hitting out at claims of “mass migration” and attacking Labor’s push for renewable energy.

“For too long, we have been a party of convenience, not of conviction, and that must change,” he said.

“And over the last year or so, the Coalition hasn’t done what it should do, being united and stable and strong.”

An emotional Milthorpe thanked her supporters, and warned the major parties that communities like Farrer were “sick of being taken for granted.”

“One Nation won tonight because people in our community are rightly fed up. The next two years will be a test for One Nation,” she said.

“The major parties have not been in the picture. I hope the parties take this for the warning that it is: communities, like ours, are sick of being taken for granted.”

Claiming victory, Farley said the result represented a milestone for the populist party. He said lowering the cost of living was a priority, along with ending net zero by 2050 and fixing water policy.

“We’re like a mason with a chisel and a hammer, and we’re re-carving the letters into the Australian democracy. One Nation has reached the end of its beginning.

“We’re going through the ceiling.”

The Liberal candidate, Raissa Butkowski, and the Nationals’ Brad Robertson were never considered strong chances to win, despite the Coalition parties holding Farrer for its entire 76-year history. Labor opted not to contest the race.

One Nation’s victory comes after months of the party’s support growing beyond 20% in opinion polls.

The win prompted Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie to suggest the Coalition could work with One Nation to form government in the future.

“I’d be willing to work with anyone that wants to see Anthony Albanese leave The Lodge, that wants to see sensible water policy for the Southern Connected Basin, and that actually wants to see regional Australia get their fair share,” McKenzie told the ABC.

Independent MP Helen Haines, who holds the neighbouring seat of Indi, blamed a preference deal by Taylor and the Nationals’ leader, Matt Canavan, for the expected result. The Coalition backed Farley over Milthorpe, who had financial backing from Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200 organisation.

“The Liberal party and the National party have smoothed the runway for One Nation, by preferencing One Nation,” Haines said.

Luke Mansillo, a political scientist at the University of Sydney, said the result would redefine the political landscape.

“The Australian party system is being redefined from the stable political conflict between class interests and urban and rural interests that has held for the most part since 1910,” Dr Mansillo said.

“After decades of seeing the future disappear through things like agricultural price guarantees disappearing and younger generations leaving the regions, those who cannot see a future have gone to extremes in a scream of desperation.”

But Farley’s road to becoming One Nation’s newest MP has been rocky in recent weeks amid revelations the Narrandera-based agribusiness consultant was once a Nationals branch member and even considered standing for Labor.

Guardian Australia revealed on Friday the extent of his earlier cooperation with the independent movement, as minders sought to shield Hanson and Farley from media questions.

One Nation has blocked media outlets including the Guardian from attending its election night event. Hanson has regularly bristled at critical coverage of One Nation.