The 2026 Farrer by-election won’t change the course of Australian politics, but it might give it a solid nudge.
Despite 12 starters, Farrer looks like a two-horse race between Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) candidate David Farley and Independent Michelle Milthorpe.
Betting agencies have Farley romping it in, Milthorpe trailing badly in second and the other ten eating Riverina dust.
The horror Labor loss of 2019 put political punting into its proper perspective as a mug’s game, a reflection of hope, not a way to pick a winner.
There is no doubt that eight of the candidates have zero chance of unduly troubling the scorer. They can be classified as dreamers, RWNJs or has-beens.
On the dreamer side, we have:
Independent candidate Gary Pappin, a Balranald-born local running on the sound idea that Riverina LGAs should get an increase in federal funding and that no-cost childcare should be available to all Riverina residents.
Lucas Ellis from the Sustainable Australia Party. Admirable aims, perhaps, but bugger-all impact or grunt.
Independent Roger Woodward is a chartered accountant and experienced bushfire fighter who holds a NSW RFS long service medal. Roger wants to abolish student debt, fund more schools and provide additional funding for Indigenous housing, among other things. So, no chance.
Greens candidate Richard Hendrie also ran against Sussan Ley in 2025 when he pulled 4.93% of the primary vote, a 4% swing against the Greens. If this trend continues...
Pharmacist Aimee Pearson is the Legalise Cannabis Party candidate for Farrer. The party, formerly the Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) party, has not previously contested the electorate.
It's hard to know just how much support there is for legal pot in the Riverina, but it’s worth noting Griffith, Australia’s one-time grass capital, is the second-largest city in the electorate and there’s probably a lot of users in the boonies. At the 2025 Election, the party picked up about 3% of Senate votes in NSW.
On the RWNJ side, we have...
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party candidate Peter Sinclair also contested Farrer in 2025. Back then, Sinclair, a former Hume Council employee, managed a primary vote of 3.47% with a swing against his party of nearly 2%. He did a lot better than the Trumpets candidate, who racked up a risible 2.37%, but in 2026 against PHON? Sinclair’s chickens have no hope of hatching.
Rebecca Scriven is the Family First candidate with all that entails. She, along with FF boss Lyle Shelton, believes ‘parliaments function best when members are grounded in the Judeo-Christian values that shaped Australia’.
Rebecca got the hump when PHON candidate David Farley reposted a couple of raunchy OnlyFans Facebook posts and she announced that because of this moral lapse, Family First would not preference Farley. When Scriven ran in Farrer in 2025, she managed just 2.15% of the primary vote, so PHON are hardly trembling.
Former Senator Gerard Rennick's People First has selected architect Jamie Bonnefin as its Farrer candidate. Gerrard’s vanity project picked up less than 1% of the national vote at the 2025 Federal Election. He’s unlikely to have his ego stroked in Farrer in 2026.
The Liberal and National parties make up the has-beens.
Between them, they have had a stranglehold on Farrer since 1949, including a deputy PM in Tim Fischer and a leader of the Liberal Party in Sussan Ley. Ley was first elected in 2001 and held the seat at the 2025 Election with over 43% of first preferences despite an 8% swing against her.
Historically, it has been the bluest of blue-ribbon seats, but then Angus Taylor rolled Sussan, Sussan resigned from Parliament and everything changed.
Because the seat became vacant, the old convention whereby the Libs and Nats agreed not to contest any seat held by the other no longer applied.
So both of them are having a go.
Raissa Butkowski is the Liberal candidate.
According to The Conversation:
‘While she will be at the top of the ballot paper, Butkowski, a lawyer with a community legal service and an Albury councillor, has a massive struggle in the contest.’
Brad Robertson is the Nationals candidate,
The ABC reports:
‘The Nationals have selected former military commander Brad Robertson to contest the Farrer by-election.’
Robertson is, if nothing else, an optimist:
“When you look at what we represent and the people of Farrer, they've been waiting for us to come back.”
There is a paucity of published polls regarding Farrer, but the next best indicator is the mug’s game of betting odds, and these indicate both the Libs and the Nats are on a hiding to nothing.
Nationally, both parties have lapsed into irrelevance, and this downward spiral looks set to continue on 9 May and probably beyond.
The apparent collapse of the Coalition has left the real contest in Farrer between independent Michelle Milthorpe and PHON candidate David Farley.
Milthorpe, who ran second to Ley in 2025, has drawn second spot on the ballot, is well-funded and has the advantage of having freshly campaigned at the 2025 Election with her volunteers and ground-game well bedded-in. She will hit the ground running, in other words.
Her chief opponent will be agribusiness chap, David Farley.
The mug’s game has Farley as favourite, but, like all betting, this reflects perceived mood mixed with rubbery fact.
Milthorpe has run a scandal-free campaign, while Farley, being PHON, has had a few missteps, beginning with his OnlyFans post, which incensed Lyle Shelton.
The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that Farley had tried to join the Labor Party. The Guardian reported that Barnaby Joyce rebuked him for rejecting PHON’s keystone immigration policies.
Farley also fudged knowing whether Gina Rinehart was funding his campaign and besmirched Griffith — the second largest city in Farrer.
And lastly, Farley actively endorsed the divisive Ben Roberts-Smith, including emotive posters around the electorate.
Farley has probably carried out other foot-shooting exercises, but that lot will give voters something to think about. Unless they are PHON voters, in which case they will be water off a duck’s back.
At the recent 2 May by-election in the Victorian electorate of Nepean, PHON candidate Darren Hercus polled 24.66% of the primary vote, while the winner, Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh, polled 38%.
The Sydney Morning Herald ran with:
‘In Nepean, one in four voters chose One Nation. Both major parties should be worried.’
Of course, three in four voters did not vote for One Nation; that is why a Liberal won.
Farrer is not Nepean; the latter had a Labor MP from 2018 to 2022 and is a little redder, but both by-elections were called because the Liberal member quit before their term expired.
Despite PHON’s pre-poll hype, Nepean was not even close.
Farrer will have radically different preference flows, the machinations of which are beyond ken for non-psephologists.
All will be made clear on Saturday night.
It might all come down to preferences, dreamers versus RWNJs.
Are we gambling here? Milthorpe, easy.
Ross Jones is IA's investigations editor and the author of the two-year investigation, Ashbygate: the plot to destroy Australia's Speaker, published by IA in 2015 and available HERE.
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