Albanese rallies Labor against One Nation surge as anti-immigration rallies gain momentum

Anthony Albanese stood before Queensland Labor delegates on Sunday morning with a stark message: the party faced a crucial moment, and the stakes extended beyond Australia's borders. Across the world, he said, hard-right populists were on the march, peddling politics that was dangerous, divisive, and dishonest. Australia, he insisted, owed it to history to defeat them. The timing of his rallying cry was not accidental. The night before, Pauline Hanson's One Nation party had won the Secret Harbour byelection in Western Australia, adding another data point to a surge that had become impossible to ignore. Polling now showed One Nation claiming close to 30 percent of primary votes—a dramatic shift in the political landscape that had alarmed the government enough to prompt this direct confrontation.

The momentum behind One Nation's rise was being actively claimed by the anti-immigration activists who had organized the March for Australia rallies held across the country's capital cities on Saturday. In Sydney, more than 300 people gathered at Belmore Park under a heavy police presence that included riot squad officers and mounted police. Brian Marlow, founder of the nationalist activist group Revive Australia, told the crowd that the marches themselves were responsible for One Nation's polling surge. He pointed to the byelection victory as proof of concept: "They're romping it home in byelections," he said. The crowd cheered when speakers invoked "remigration" and an end to "mass" migration. Mark Latham, the former federal Labor opposition leader who had once led One Nation in New South Wales, was among the headline speakers in Sydney, calling for the abolition of hate speech laws. In Brisbane, about 400 people attended a similar rally, where speakers included far-right influencers and conservative activists. Queensland police reported that two men were directed to move on after breaching the peace. A counterprotest drew 50 people.

Albanese's response in Brisbane was to reframe the battle as fundamentally about working-class interests—the very voters One Nation was targeting in blue-collar outer suburbs and regional areas. He challenged the party's credibility on the issues that mattered most to these communities. "How is their plan to cut penalty rates going to help the people of Logan, or Gladstone, or Strathpine, or Ipswich, or Mt Isa?" he asked. He positioned Labor as the only mainstream political force genuinely seeking to govern in the interests of Australians, and he doubled down on multiculturalism as a source of national strength. "We unequivocally support multiculturalism because we know it's part of Australia's strength," he said, "and because we believe every Australian is equal, whether they are Australian by birth or Australian by choice."

The government's position on immigration itself remained contested and somewhat opaque. Federal minister Tanya Plibersek told ABC's Insiders program that the federal cabinet had never discussed cutting Australia's refugee intake, contradicting reports that had circulated during the week. She also said Labor would examine the Secret Harbour result but suggested it had been driven largely by state-level issues. Meanwhile, Barnaby Joyce, speaking on behalf of One Nation, offered a more cautious articulation of the party's stance. Asked directly whether One Nation would cut the refugee program, Joyce declined to commit to a specific number but outlined a principle: if the Department of Foreign Affairs advised Australians not to travel to a country because it was unsafe, then One Nation would not bring refugees from that country. He raised Nepal as an example, unprompted, even as the government was coordinating the rescue of missing Australians caught in the country's recent flash flooding. Joyce also suggested that One Nation's migration policy would be lower than Labor's target of 180,000, but he resisted being pinned down on the exact figure, instead emphasizing that any intake would fit within the net overseas migration number.

Albanese's broader framing of Australia's role in the region suggested that the immigration debate was inseparable from strategic and economic considerations. He announced that he would attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau from Monday, emphasizing that Australia's engagement in the Pacific mattered "more than ever before" in a time of strategic competition. He highlighted the contribution of Pacific Island workers to Australian agriculture and meat processing, noting that the wages they remitted home helped boost the economies of their families and communities across the region. This argument—that immigration and labor mobility were not merely domestic issues but integral to regional stability and prosperity—stood in direct tension with the anti-immigration messaging dominating the rallies.

The political moment was volatile and still unfolding. One Nation's polling surge and electoral success had energized a movement that credited itself with shifting the national conversation. Labor, meanwhile, was attempting to reclaim the narrative by arguing that its policies better served working Australians and that multiculturalism was a strength, not a liability. The government's strategy appeared to rest on two pillars: economic messaging about wages and conditions, and a broader argument about Australia's role as a regional partner and leader. Whether that framing could arrest One Nation's momentum remained to be seen. What was clear was that the party faithful in Brisbane had heard a direct call to arms, and the battle for working-class voters in the regions was now explicitly joined.