It’s a 1786km drive from the ­Pacific Werribee shopping centre’s gloriously shiny white tiles in Melbourne’s west to the front door of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation office at 1 Eagle Street by the Brisbane River.

 

For reasons that are best summed up by three words – cost of living – the once unthinkable is starting to unfold in Victoria, as it did in South Australia last weekend and in the seat of Oxley, Queensland, in 1996, although in very different circumstances.

 

Mother-of-four Meesha Ali, of Werribee, speaks for many when she talks about growing up in a Labor family but is now contemplating voting for One Nation, even though she has questioned some of the leader’s extreme views in the past.

 

“All options are in the air,’’ she said outside Pacific Werribee, lamenting soaring education costs, the impact of fuel increases on her husband’s construction business and a rolling political crisis in ­Victoria.

 

“You are truly paying extreme prices,’’ she said.

 

Ten minutes down the road near the Werribee railway station, 30km west of Melbourne, local Elizabeth Masterson, who thought she would be retiring at 64, is a swinging voter who once backed Bob Hawke but is now all the way with Pauline.

 

“I should be retired now. I am voting for her. I sure am,’’ she said.

 

Ms Masterson is helping her adult children as they negotiate relentless price increases and her views on Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan are even stronger than Canberra.

 

“Victoria is the worst. I can’t believe what is going on here.

 

“She (Ms Allan) has got to go as well. All my family is voting One Nation.’’

 

One Nation’s strong showing in the South Australian election could follow in Victoria, with a ­potentially defining impact at the November 28 state election, followed by the federal poll due by May 2028. And let’s not forget the Farrer by-election on May 9.

 

For Anthony Albanese and Ms Allan, the suburb of Werri­bee in the federal seat of Lalor is ripe for One Nation-style disruption, a demographic that is matched by much of western Sydney. Highly multicultural and a complex socioeconomic mix with a heavy dose of welfare.

 

The Victorian One Nation story is not just about Labor and Mr Albanese, although his government faces its toughest electoral test in its best state since the 1990 rout caused by the collapse of the Cain-Kirner governments, when then PM Bob Hawke lost nine seats but won the overall poll.

 

The surge of interest in the Queensland-based One Nation may also come at a huge cost to the Liberal Party at the next Victorian election if Senator Hanson strips the Coalition vote in enough key electorates and muddies the brand in enough progressive seats.

 

Remarkably, Labor is still the effective frontrunner to win the state poll, even though it is spinning its bald tyres in debt, building corruption, congestion, housing shortages and public sector incompetence.

 

Mr Albanese, in many ways, should be happy if Ms Allan loses the election, delivering him instant product differentiation and a gap between him and the Andrews-Allan pandemic years.

 

The state Coalition has also been so incompetent for so many years, until the elevation of new leader Jess Wilson, that it’s all become political quick sand, riven as usual by internal powerplays.

 

One Nation Victorian president Warren Pickering says he is playing a long game and won’t reveal which seats the party will ­target, although it plans to run everywhere with greatest hopes in the regions and outer suburbs.

 

“It’s an endurance race,’’ he says. “But obviously the South Australian election is encouraging. We know regionally people are generally our demographic.’’

 

The party has previously stated it wanted to focus on Victorian issues such as intrusions on farming land via power lines and solar energy developments, less government intervention, “more commonsense”, sensible immigration levels supported by contemporary infrastructure, and fighting corruption in the building industry.

 

At the same time, Pauline Hanson has become a topic of dinner party conversation in Melbourne, sometimes in the most unlikely places, breaking the inner eastern city barrier where it’s becoming more common to hear of One Nation converts, ­particularly among estranged ­Coalition voters.

 

The One Nation influence is probably going to be greatest in the Victorian Upper House, where it can win five or more spots and potentially the balance of power, causing grief for the Nationals in the lower house seat of Morwell in Gippsland, and possibly challenge Labor in the regional seat of Hastings, held with a margin of just 1.4 per cent.

 

Hardheads on either side of the political divide are unsure how the One Nation preferences will play out in Victoria, but for Labor to lose, its vote must continue to crater from its already parlous position in the mid to high 20s.

 

“They are f..ked,’’ one Liberal warrior suggests of Labor. “It will get worse for them.’’

 

Another Liberal veteran: “As it stands, Labor gets back in.’’

 

Former Labor assistant secretary Kos Samaras, now of ­RedBridge Group, says proper analysis based on seats, overlaid with polling, paints how difficult it is for the Victorian Coalition to win the 16 minimum needed for a majority.

 

(The Liberals will struggle to hold the former Greens seat of Prahran and are in a fight in seats like the inner east’s Hawthorn, so may need 18 extra seats or more in an 88-seat parliament to hold a majority.)

 

It is marginally ahead on the two party-preferred count in published opinion polls.

 

“Where is your 16?’’ Mr Samaras asks. “Where are they getting them from?’’

 

To add to the complexity, it is widely accepted that Ms Allan’s premiership is failing and her ­government has turned Victoria into a national political freak show. It will only get worse if the economy tanks further and the cost-of-living crisis deepens.

 

Golf course designer Bernard Hogan, 67, also of Werribee, underscores the challenges facing Ms Allan and Mr Albanese.

 

He needs to fix a front tooth but has discovered, like many ­others, that people are deferring paying their bills, saying: “Your money just goes nowhere.’’

 

Coming from a lifelong Liberal-Catholic voting family, Mr Hogan is not heading down the One Nation path but grieves for the state of the economy and the pressure on families.

 

“Fifteen dollars for a pint of beer,’’ he says, adding that “the cost of living is terrible’’.

 

The Albanese government is worried about the failing Allan government but Mr Samaras believes Labor is already at its lowest ebb in Victoria.

 

“It’s at its rock bottom,’’ he says as Labor strategists mull the extent to which the unelected premier Ms Allan should try to distance herself from her predecessor Dan Andrews.

 

Ms Allan, he says, is a net-positive among Labor voters but is copping the ire of Liberals and One Nation backers. She is also “wearing” the effects of Mr Andrews’ pandemic decisions.

 

But some of her internal opponents who have spoken to The Australian also believe she has failed terribly on budget management, lost the war on crime, been either mendacious or cute on building site corruption, and will be walloped in the regions because of a controversial fire services levy and renewable energy project intrusions.

 

Based on what The Australian saw in Melbourne’s west this week – a snapshot of voter stress in the state – none of these issues will go close to the impact of the cost-of-living crisis facing low to middle income earners.

 

Another veteran Labor strategist says the question of “how do these people keep the lights on?’’ is at the core of the national debate.

 

There are nine federal Labor seats that are marginal in Victoria of the 22 overall tightest electorates. The One Nation factor plus state failures will impact on special interest seats including Aston in the outer east, McEwen in the outer northeast, Menzies in the east, Deakin and Calwell.

 

Lalor, which includes Werribee, has a margin of more than 13 per cent but for years voters in the west have become increasingly grumpy with Labor.

 

There are a stack of state Labor and Liberal seats that are vulnerable (including to the One Nation effect), including Hastings, Berwick, Pakenham, Bass and Narre Warren North. Mr Samaras says western and northern Labor state seats such as Werribee, Melton, Sydenham, Greenvale, Kororoit and St Albans are worth watching.

 

The sharp difference between the South Australian election and Victoria is that SA has a highly popular premier and Ms Allan is widely disliked.

 

Adding to this ocean of contradictions and clashing possibilities, is the strong performance of new Liberal leader Ms Wilson, who has been arguably the best alternative Liberal leader since Jeff Kennett, although Ted Baillieu won the 2010 election.

 

At just 35, Ms Wilson has so far done pretty much everything right but faces preselection turbulence and the One Nation conundrum, with the preferencing decision vexed.

 

Drawing on the differences between the South Australian and Victorian polls, she said: “In South Australia we had a popular first-term government. Here in Victoria we have a tired government, a corrupt government, and a government that Victorians want to see the back of.

 

“But what I say (to) Victorians (is) – if you want to change the government in November this year, you have to put a No.1 next to the Victorian Liberals or Nationals. We have seen it play out in South Australia, where a protest vote only sees a re-elected Labor government.”

 

With the Liberals on their knees nationally, failure in Vic­toria this year would be about as helpful as a long-term closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

 

While a lot of battlers will switch to One Nation – including from Labor – there are unique issues in Victoria for the Liberal-National parties that go well beyond the legacy of Dan Andrews and the unelected Premier Jacinta Allan.