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July 20, 2026 — 5:00am
Disenchantment with major parties is seeping through NSW politics, with almost half of voters planning to support smaller parties at next year’s state election.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor shows 48 per cent of respondents support “other” non-major parties, including Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Greens or independents.
It is a massive turnaround since the 2023 election, when only 27.6 per cent voted for minor players. And despite One Nation’s backing slipping slightly in the federal sphere, its support in NSW seems to be continuing to skyrocket.
Twenty-five per cent said they would vote One Nation if a NSW election were held today. The party attracted just 1.8 per cent of the vote in 2023. Support for the Greens rose one point to 11 per cent while 12 per cent opted for independents or other parties.
The 48 per cent haul by the smaller players is a huge wake-up call for major parties.
There is little solace for Chris Minns’ government: Labor’s vote fell by three points to 29 per cent, marking the equal worst result since the 2023 election, when it ended 12 years of Coalition rule with 36.97 per cent of first preference votes.
The result is especially onerous for the Kellie Sloane-led Coalition. Just 23 per cent of voters are thinking of supporting the strife-torn opposition. Its vote has dropped three percentage points since the April-May survey.
The poll was taken over two windows from mid-June and mid-July, on either side of the Labor government’s no-frills pre-election budget and the announcement of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s probe into an allegedly corrupt donation scheme involving a series of Liberal apparatchiks and Labor councillors.
It also predated One Nation’s self-inflicted wounds, including Hanson’s parliamentary winter recess trip to Europe, where she met British right-wing rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson and then her benefactor Gina Rinehart in Sicily. In her absence, it has been revealed that One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has praised Russian president Vladimir Putin and the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who thinks the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged.
It is difficult to judge the impact on NSW voters’ intentions. But the missteps rekindle memories of Hanson’s inability to control MPs who won 11 seats under her name in the 1998 Queensland election and are a reminder of the gap that often opens between her words and actions.
Looking at One Nation gains since the federal election, the poll found Hanson’s biggest fans in NSW are over 55, on low incomes and live in rural and regional Australia, a finding that suggests the National Party could be the most vulnerable next March.
That said, the sudden rise in “other” popularity may help former One Nation MPs Rod Roberts and Tania Mihailuk, who must contest their NSW upper house seats next year. Another independent, Mark Latham, the man Hanson sacked as NSW leader in 2023, does not face re-election until 2031.
Regardless of such sideshows, the flight from major parties places NSW politics in unknown territory, and next year’s election will be a bumpy ride.
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