Independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe has sharpened her attacks on her One Nation rival’s credibility, accusing the frontrunner of concealing a political past at odds with the conservative identity he is now presenting to voters in the tightly contested Farrer byelection.
With pre-polling in the southern NSW electorate opening on Tuesday, Milthorpe seized on revelations that Pauline Hanson’s party’s candidate, David Farley, once sought Labor preselection under Anthony Albanese and donated to the party as recently as 2023. She argued it raised serious questions of trust in an electorate deeply sceptical of Labor, particularly over water buybacks.
The community-backed candidate said voters wanted a representative who would hold the government to account, not someone who had privately aligned himself with the party he now campaigns against, and cast the issue as emblematic of a broader frustration with politicians who tell voters one thing before an election and do another in office.
“My opponent knows this. Which is why he must know it is a serious breach of trust for him to hide from voters that he applied to run for Labor, and donated to the party as recently as 2023,” Milthorpe said. “By saying one thing while doing another, my opponent has not treated voters with the respect they deserve. We are fed up with party politicians who will say one thing to win an election and do something else once in office.”
Milthorpe – who has accepted teal-aligned Climate 200 funding – also used the moment to reinforce her own conservative credentials, noting she had long supported retiring Liberal MP Sussan Ley, admired former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and came from a Nationals-voting family. She also pledged again to fight for more regional GPs, an end to water buybacks and a new hospital for Albury.
The attack cuts to the core of One Nation’s anti-establishment pitch in Farrer, where Farley has emerged as a genuine contender and, according to published polling and betting markets, is running neck and neck with Milthorpe while the Liberal vote has fallen away.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan, visiting the region alongside Liberal leader Angus Taylor on Monday, also piled in, suggesting Farley’s call for a royal commission into water policy sat awkwardly beside his past overtures to Labor.
“We now know why David Farley is backing a royal commission, because it will give power to his mate, Anthony Albanese, who he wanted to join and run at the ’22 election with,” Canavan said.
Losing Farrer – which has been held by the Liberals or Nationals since its creation in 1949 – to Milthorpe or One Nation could be a blow to the new Coalition leaders, who both made their pitch on winning back lost voters to Hanson.
The Nationals in particular have attacked One Nation, launching a series of online and television attack added criticising Hanson’s decision to employ convicted rapist Sean Black. Black, who in 2018 was jailed for rape and subsequently lost his appeal against the conviction, was initially rehired by One Nation in 2020 as a campaign director after serving his time.
But Farley found support from former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, his would-be One Nation colleague in the House of Representatives, who dismissed the controversy as an attack born of political nerves.
“People obviously think he’s going to win, so they’re trying to throw whatever mud they can, and that happens,” Joyce told radio station 2GB.
He said many people moved across the political spectrum over a lifetime, adding: “We’re all on a journey, and we, you know, we look at the circumstances before our nation and see the party that suits it best. Mr Farley has said it’s One Nation.”
This masthead revealed Farley approached Labor figures in 2021, completed an expression of interest to run in 2022 and, according to Labor sources, made a small personal donation to the party’s Aston byelection campaign in 2023.
The revelations complicate One Nation’s attempt to present Farley as a pure outsider in a byelection increasingly viewed as a test of Pauline Hanson’s broader ambitions. They also hand Milthorpe a late opportunity to argue she, not One Nation, is the more credible outlet for conservative protest voters.
With both Coalition parties directing preferences to Farley ahead of Milthorpe, the final fortnight is shaping as a contest fought not just on water, cost of living and regional services, but on who voters believe.
Farley has not responded to detailed questions.
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Rob Harrisis the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect viaemail.
