One Nation’s first Western Australian lower-house MP has declared the party will target government at the 2029 state election, prompting Premier Roger Cook to dismiss the ambition as “arrogance” and “hubris”.
Luke Herdegen made the claim after securing a breakthrough victory in Saturday’s Secret Harbour by-election, where One Nation recorded an 18.6 percentage-point swing against Labor in a seat the party had held for almost two decades.
The result gave One Nation its first seat in the Western Australian Parliament. Mr Herdegen, a 39-year-old businessman, said the vote marked the start of a wider political realignment across the mining state.
Speaking to ABC Perth on Monday, he said the party was already developing policies aimed at preventing Labor from winning a fourth term and would seek to form government in 2029.
“We’ve seen the beginning now of a huge shift, and I expect that momentum to keep going,” Mr Herdegen said. “We’ll be looking to form a government in 2029.”
Mr Cook rejected the prediction at a morning press conference, warning that political overconfidence could quickly backfire.
“That’s the sort of arrogance that trips you up in this game,” the premier said. “Hubris is usually served up with a double helping of humble pie when you go around with that sort of attitude.”
He said Labor had not taken voters for granted and would respond to the defeat by listening more closely to communities across Western Australia.
“We’ve never had that attitude, and we continue to make sure we treat the community and the electorate with respect,” Mr Cook said.
Mr Herdegen said voters in Secret Harbour had become frustrated by what he described as Labor’s failure to deliver promised infrastructure. He said the new MP would hold the government accountable for projects it had “overpromised and underdelivered for so long”.
The result has also intensified scrutiny of WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas, after Mr Cook accused him of effectively conceding that One Nation could become the state’s main opposition force.
Mr Zempilas insisted the Liberals remained a major party and the official opposition, alongside the Nationals. He said the party’s 17 per cent primary vote in Secret Harbour was below expectations but argued the contest had taken place in an electorate where the Liberals had never performed strongly.
“This is one result in one seat in the southern outer metropolitan suburbs of Perth,” he told ABC Perth. “It’s a seat that we have never done well in, and Labor have lost it for the first time in living memory.”
One Nation now holds one of the 59 seats in Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly. Labor remains dominant with 45 seats, while the Liberals hold seven and the Nationals six.
