Western Australia's sole One Nation MP, Luke Herdegen, used his maiden speech on Thursday to declare that the party intends to govern the state, framing his upset byelection win in Secret Harbour as the opening move in a broader realignment of Perth's outer suburbs rather than a one-off protest vote.
Speech from the dispatch box
Speaking for about 20 minutes with his parents and roughly 30 supporters in the public gallery, Herdegen mixed patriotic rhetoric with sharp attacks on the governing Labor Party. He said One Nation was "fighting to win and intend to govern" and claimed the southern suburbs had become "One Nation heartland" after his victory.
Herdegen warned against large-scale immigration, telling the chamber: "We will stand up against mass immigration — if you try to swamp our nation with migrants." The line echoed language Pauline Hanson used in her 1996 federal maiden speech, a parallel several Perth newsrooms noted in their coverage.
Byelection numbers behind the claim
Herdegen seized Secret Harbour in a byelection triggered by the retirement of former Labor minister Paul Papalia. He took 39.1 per cent of the primary vote, a swing of 30.7 percentage points from Labor's result at the March 2025 state election just 18 months earlier.
Although One Nation holds only one seat in the 59-member Legislative Assembly, Herdegen told colleagues that additional candidates were coming. "I stand here alone," he said, "but I don't feel lonely because I know my friends are coming." He predicted that no seat would be safe from an "orange wave" at future polls.
Attacks on Labor's candidate choice
Much of the speech targeted Labor's byelection standard-bearer, Georgia Tree, a Woodside lobbyist who lived in inner Perth during the campaign. Herdegen accused the party of using safe electorates as "job programs for party hacks" and criticised what he called an attempt to "parachute in yet another party apprentice" aligned with factional interests.
He also claimed many Labor MPs had never held a "real job," drawing a glance from government members including FIFO electrician-turned-MP Stuart Aubrey, according to reporters in the chamber. Herdegen rejected suggestions that One Nation was racist, saying false accusations of bigotry would not deter the party.
Reaction and what is next
Supporters in the gallery gave Herdegen a standing ovation when he finished. Labor ministers have not yet responded at length in the chamber, but government strategists are studying whether the Secret Harbour swing signals vulnerability in other mortgage-stressed coastal seats south of Perth.
Herdegen's next tests will be committee work and constituency duties in a seat that had been Labor-held for years. Whether One Nation can replicate the byelection math without Papalia's retirement as the catalyst remains an open question for WA psephologists watching Thursday's speech as a manifesto rather than a legislative program.