The LNP and Labor have been campaigning hard in the Queensland seat but it may be Pauline Hanson’s party that has the last word

Bill Feldman understands the irony of the “One Nation factor” that looms over the approaching Longman byelection, where voters who shun the major parties will decide which major party wins.

“At the end of the day you put one of [Labor or the Liberal National party] in,” he tells Guardian Australia. “The One Nation vote will decide who is in or who is out.”

Feldman won the Queensland seat of Caboolture – at the centre of the federal electorate of Longman – for the first incarnation of One Nation in 1998. He was the party’s state leader then led a breakaway group, the City Country Alliance.

These days, Feldman is just a retired voter – the sort who scares both Labor and the Coalition and makes contests like Longman wildly unpredictable.

Feldman spent his life after politics as a police union official and is now a self-funded retiree. He cares about the plight of the “working poor” and the increased casualisation of the workforce but also worries about whether the country can sustain its immigration numbers. He likes neither Malcolm Turnbull nor Bill Shorten.

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“Part of it is the general disenchantment with both the major parties,” he says. “I suppose federally there’s a lot of things that upset a lot of people.

“They haven’t addressed those issues and I’m surprised they haven’t because in this day and age they need support from some other party to put you in front. That’s the problem with our system.”

Feldman says the votes of fellow retirees will be crucial in an electorate that takes in Bribie Island and the northern end of Deception Bay, as well as the town centres of Caboolture and Burpengary.

One Nation preferences tipped the scales in Labor’s favour in Longman in 2016. About 57% of One Nation voters sent their preferences to Susan Lamb, who narrowly won the seat.

Last year at the Queensland state election, One Nation voters’ preferences went in the opposite direction and heavily favoured the LNP.

Between 2016 and 2017, the One Nation vote more than doubled at individual polling booths within the boundaries of Longman. At some, the party won 31% of the primary vote.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tanya Plibersek and Susan Lamb at a school in Longman

In recent weeks One Nation has been beset with internal conflicts at federal level, with senator Brian Burston quitting the party after a huge falling-out with leader Pauline Hanson. The upheaval in the party, which has lost four senators in various ways since the 2016 election, mirrors the pattern that emerged after its initial success in the late 1990s, when infighting and bad blood with Hanson led to a rapid electoral decline. It remains to be seen whether the federal unrest will diminish the One Nation vote at the Longman byelection on 28 July, although its support remains at 8% nationally in the most recent Guardian Essential poll and Newspoll.

The electoral analyst Ben Raue says anecdotal evidence suggested One Nation campaign workers did not attend many polling booths in Longman in 2016.

“Most people wouldn’t have seen their how-to-votes,” he says. “And maybe that explains why there was such an even split in preferences.

“In the context of a byelection, in a relatively good area for One Nation, they should have all the booths in Longman covered. That might mean the way the party directs preferences has more impact.

“It’s a very hard feat to predict. The bigger question is we just don’t know how the One Nation vote is going to go – they’re not very stable, they’re not very consistent.”

The reality on the ground in Longman is a campaign where One Nation looms as kingmaker but where the major parties are still setting the agenda and even battling for the preferences of protest voters.



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Labor believes One Nation preferences are likely to break in favour of the LNP, regardless of any swap deal on how-to-vote cards. Party sources say Labor needs to win primary votes but will also appeal to One Nation voters for their preferences. Labor believes proposed company tax cuts will be an effective wedge between protest voters and the Coalition that will dilute the flow of One Nation preferences.

Longman is home to thousands of retirees who receive franking tax credits. The LNP has handed out flyers in Longman branding Labor’s policy to abolish cash refunds for excess imputation credits as a “retirement tax”.

One Nation supports neither the company tax cuts, after its recent about-face, nor the end of franking tax credits. The party, and its voters, have a tough choice to make about preferences.

The One Nation candidate, Matthew Stephen, says “the major two parties have lost their way” but he would prefer to direct preferences to the LNP than Labor. Soon after Stephen made those comments, discussions about preferences broke down between the LNP and One Nation.

It’s understood that One Nation will most likely maintain its policy from the Queensland election of putting all sitting members last, a move that will further complicate an already intriguing byelection. Lamb is recontesting the seat but is technically not a sitting member, having resigned under a citizenship cloud.