As a 20-year-old politically "switched-on" chemistry student from Perth, One Nation's arrival on Western Australia's political scene presented an opportunity for John Zurakowski.

He is the youngest candidate in the state election on March 11 and he will be running on the One Nation ticket in the seat of Baldivis.

"I was informed by one of my stepfather's colleagues that the One Nation party was coming to WA and I've always been politically switched-on," he told Lateline.

John Zurakowski, 20, is studying chemistry at the University of Western Australia. ( Facebook: John Zurakowski )

"I am aligned to a lot of the policies and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to take, running as a candidate for the party because I'm aligned to it."

Ask him which policy he is most aligned to and the answer is a little shaky: "We're still fine-tuning a lot of our policies at the moment, we're still writing them up and we're still fine-tuning them to get them right for was the state," he said.

But Mr Zurakowski says he knows what is important to the people of Baldivis — an electorate with an unemployment rate of 7.4 per cent, in a state where the end of the mining boom is biting.

Flash cars but no savings

Pay a visit to the local financial counselling service and you'll hear stories of mines shutting down and people being left with flash cars but no savings.

"Some of the issues that I've been informed about is your crime, your unemployment, your debt, your cost of living," Mr Zurakowski said.

"People are really struggling to pay off their mortgages, to pay off a lot of the debt and it's causing a lot of issues in families and psychology as well."

There is little mention of the more hard-line One Nation policies like a ban on Muslim immigration and a royal commission into Islam.

According to the party's leader in Western Australia, Colin Tincknell, One Nation is not the right-wing party it once was.

"That's changed. We have many Labor, ex-Labor voters moving towards us. Very young families. We have lots of Liberal people moving towards us. We have Nationals moving towards us," he said.

"It's changed. The world has changed. Western Australia has changed."

Mr Tincknell says the party's stance on Islam is on the record, "but when someone loses their job, when someone's got a breakdown of the marriage, or someone's been affected by drugs, it's pretty hard to think about immigration," he said.

"They have to think about survival and that's what's happening in the outer suburbs of Perth right now."

The most recent Newspoll has One Nation on 13 per cent of the primary vote in WA.

They had even been confident of challenging the seat of National's leader Brendon Grylls in Pilbara — that was, until comments by One Nation candidate David Archibald resurfaced in which he described single mothers as being "too lazy to attract and hold a mate".

Mr Grylls also points out One Nation's recent, brief history in the Senate with Rod Culleton.

"Recently West Australians put their support behind them in the Senate. Within six months it disintegrated. The candidate had quit the party and the High Court has ejected him from the Senate," he said.

Back in Baldivis, Mr Zurakowski has been hitting the streets to assure voters that despite being a rookie, he can fix things like roads and unemployment.

But as a safe Labor seat, Mr Zurakowski's push into politics may also prove to be short-lived.