Nepean is not a remote regional or mining electorate shaped by industrial decline. It is the southern Mornington Peninsula — coastal, older, historically Liberal-voting and relatively affluent. On paper, it should not have been fertile ground for a first-time One Nation campaign. Yet the booth data suggests otherwise.
One Nation’s support concentrated in more economically pressured communities around Rosebud, Dromana, Dromana Beach, Tootgarook, Rosebud West and Waterfall Gully. In several booths it approached or exceeded 30 per cent. Its support was far weaker in affluent or traditionally ‘small-l liberal’ areas such as Flinders, Shoreham, Red Hill and Sorrento. The pattern was not random; it followed a recognisable social and economic divide.
Nepean contains substantial wealth, but also older renters, fixed-income retirees, small business owners, hospitality workers, tradespeople and households squeezed by housing costs, insurance, rates and healthcare. Here, frustration with government can intersect with declining institutional trust. One Nation translated that frustration into a protest vote.
Labor’s absence sharpened the signal. Economically frustrated voters who might once have defaulted to Labor were left without that option. Some drifted to the independent, while a substantial bloc found a vehicle in One Nation. That should concern both major parties.
For Labor, economic insecurity no longer automatically translates into support in outer-suburban and peri-urban communities. Where voters feel culturally disconnected from progressive politics while struggling with living costs, One Nation can occupy the anti-establishment space Labor once dominated.
For the Liberals, the threat may be more immediate. Nepean should have delivered a dominant Liberal primary vote in Labor’s absence. Instead, One Nation absorbed significant conservative and protest sentiment, suggesting a weakening attachment to the Liberal brand among some voters who might previously have regarded the Liberal Party as their natural political home.
This matters beyond the Mornington Peninsula because similar pressures exist across Melbourne’s outer-suburban fringe. Labor-held Bass (2.0% margin), Hastings (0.4%), Pakenham (5.8%), Cranbourne (10.2%) and Werribee (10.0%) combine varying degrees of mortgage stress, population growth, infrastructure lag and weakening major-party loyalty. These are electorates where voters can feel governments are collecting more while roads, schools, healthcare and local services struggle to keep pace with rapid growth.
In highly marginal Bass and Hastings, a One Nation vote approaching that seen in Nepean could be decisive. One Nation does not need to win these seats to reshape outcomes. Even a 10 or 15% vote can alter the arithmetic by drawing economically frustrated voters from Labor and conservative protest voters from the Liberals.
In some seats that may assist the Liberals by weakening Labor’s primary vote. In others, it could help Labor survive by splitting the anti-government vote. Preference behaviour and the Liberals’ ability to consolidate conservative support will be critical.
That creates a strategic dilemma for the Coalition. To return to government, the Liberals must regain outer-suburban growth corridors, yet a durable One Nation vote in Cranbourne, Pakenham or Werribee could draw from voters the Liberals also need.
The pressure is not limited to Labor territory. Liberal-held Berwick (3.6% margin) and Croydon (4.8% margin) also contain culturally conservative, economically anxious voters receptive to anti-establishment politics. If One Nation establishes itself there, it could threaten the Liberals’ own outer-metropolitan base.
This is what makes Nepean politically important. One Nation demonstrated it does not require perfectly aligned demographics to become competitive. It achieved substantial support in an older, coastal and historically Liberal electorate — not the archetypal populist battleground.
The coalition it is assembling may therefore be broader than assumed: not purely regional, working class or conservative, but linked by distrust of institutions, declining living standards, anger at government priorities and a belief that neither major party understands suburban economic pressure.
If that sentiment hardens across Melbourne’s outer suburbs and peri-urban fringe, One Nation may not need to win seats outright to alter Victorian politics. It only needs to make enough contests unstable to force both major parties to campaign around it.
The lesson from Nepean is not that One Nation is about to sweep suburban Victoria. It is that a party once viewed as largely regional has demonstrated substantial support in metropolitan-fringe territory not considered natural ground. Six months before a state election, neither Labor nor the Liberals can afford to ignore that result.
