Australian far-right party wins first seat in House of Representatives

SYDNEY, Australia — Australian far-right populist party Pauline Hanson’s One Nation won its first seat in the country’s House of Representatives in a byelection on Saturday, a preliminary vote count shows.

The result is in line with a surge of electoral support for far-right populist parties globally. Britain’s ruling Labour Party this week suffered a widespread loss of seats at council elections.

David Farley, a former agribusiness executive, won the rural seat of Farrer, some 550 km (340 miles) south of Sydney and 320 km (200 miles) north of Melbourne, for the anti-immigration party with a projected vote of 59.1%, defeating the incumbent center-right Liberal Party, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“It’s very clear, the next member for Farrer is David Farley,” Australian Broadcasting Corp election analyst Casey Briggs says in a broadcast. “It’s not a close result.”

The result is significant in that it marks the first time One Nation has won a lower-house seat since Hanson formed the party 30 years ago.

But it does not affect the parliamentary majority of the ruling Labor Party, which holds 94 of 150 lower-house seats.

The seat was left vacant when Liberals leader Sussan Ley resigned in February.

The Labor Party did not run a candidate in the contest for the seat that has been held by the opposition conservatives since it was formed more than half a century ago.