The real end of certainty?

Politics is becoming more fragmented and uncertain in Australia, but considerably more interesting than it has been for decades.

Australian politics is entering a period of increasing volatility – as if to replicate the current instability that seems to be afflicting the rest of the world – and while it’s obviously happening on the centre-right side of the political spectrum, there’s every chance that it will affect all sides of politics, not just the right.

What was once a relatively stable conservative Coalition is now beginning to fragment into competing interrelated parties, each vying for the same voters in the electorate. The journalist Paul Kelly predicted this fragmentation in his salient book, The End of Certainty, and while it has been a long time in coming – his book was written in 1992 – it appears that his prediction is finally coming to fruition.

The Liberal Party and the National Party were the strong institutions behind the conservative bloc, but since the demolition of the Liberals at the 2025 federal election, they are increasingly being challenged by smaller populist parties such as One Nation and possibly the United Australia Party. The result is a style of politics that’s becoming far more unpredictable and, potentially far more dangerous, considering that politicians such as Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce were actually once a part of the Coalition, and are now attempting to move politics further to the right.

The tensions between the National Party and One Nation have been building for many years, but they have intensified since the defection of Joyce over to One Nation in December last year. Parties do invest significant resources into getting their candidates elected, and when a member crosses the floor to join a rival party, the act is never forgiven or forgotten, especially when it’s a member of the Labor Party.

The Nationals see the defection of Joyce as more than just a personal betrayal – it’s a direct challenge to their survival in regional Australia, and it’s a brawl that could get quite ugly – and it’s a competition for the same part of the electorate: the farmers, regional small-business owners, and the conservative voters in rural communities.

Over the past five election cycles, the National Party has relied on this constituency to secure a stable block of seats in the House of Representatives, hovering between the 15 seats won in 2013, to the recent batch of 14 seats won in 2025. But despite this stability and relative electoral success – especially when compared with the recent fortunes of the Liberal Party – the party’s agenda no longer matches up with the interests of regional communities.

Support for large-scale mining developments, agribusiness corporations, and persistent opposition to climate policies and renewable energy investment have become defining features of the Nationals’ political identity. For many voters in rural Australia – particularly those concerned about environmental sustainability, water management and the future viability of family farms – the positions of the National Party are becoming more disconnected from the realities facing regional economies.

One Nation has attempted to capitalise on this discontent by presenting itself as a defender of rural interests – even though, in reality, it’s not – reviving themes were once a key part of National Party policy, and of the Country Party before it. Hanson’s messaging focuses on the idea of protecting farmers, defending regional communities, and pushing back against the perceived dominance of large corporate interests, without ever outlining how she intends to this this.

Whether One Nation fully understands the complexities of agricultural policy is another issue, but the political effectiveness of Hansonism is based on its simplicity. Whether it’s correct of not doesn’t seem to matter, but when voters feel ignored by the major parties or economically insecure, a political narrative that makes these types of promises will always resonate, despite the policy detail behind it.

But while One Nation has built up a momentum in recent opinion polls, the party has a long history of instability and problems with internal discipline, attracting controversial candidates and making many mistakes in their campaign strategies.

At the same time, the possible re-emergence of Clive Palmer adds another layer of unpredictability to the conservative side of politics. Palmer’s United Australia Party, which spent enormous sums on advertising during the 2019 federal election, demonstrated how a well-funded minor party can disrupt elections. While his campaign in 2019 hurt Labor’s chances in key marginal seats, a new Palmer intervention could just as easily fragment the conservative vote instead, and preference deals could become increasingly chaotic – with chaotic and unpredictable electoral outcomes.

Preferences can become difficult to predict, especially when voters are presented with a crowded field of candidates who share similar conservative messages, and it’s quite possible that this kind of competition can inadvertently advantage the opposing side of politics, allowing Labor or other parties to win seats with lower levels of the primary vote, as occurred in the 2022 and 2025 federal elections. The conservative vote is now splintering across a range of populist and minor parties, with each of them claiming to represent the “true” voice of regional or conservative Australia, but these alliances appear to be unstable and it’s difficult to predict what the outcomes will be.

The realignment will spread beyond the conservatives

The fragmentation that’s now visible on the centre-right side of politics might be the first big step of something much bigger – when political realignments occur, they rarely remain confined to just the one side of politics.