What to expect from the Farrer byelection   

New Daily.
Mar 08, 2026


The by-election will be  a significant early test for Angus Taylor’s leadership..



A month ago, Sussan Ley was the leader of the Liberal Party.

Two weeks later, she retired from parliament altogether after losing the leadership to Angus Taylor.   


And now, Speaker of the House Milton Dick has announced the date for the byelection to replace her: Saturday, May 9   

Ley’s seat of Farrer, which spans most of the NSW side of the Victorian border – including the town of Albury –will go into a campaign frenzy as Liberals, Nationals, One Nation and Independents all seek to succeed the former Liberal leader.

The heated competition will make this a significant early test for Taylor’s leadership of the embattled Liberals.

So, who are the candidates likely to be, and what will the campaign look like in this sprawling rural electorate?

farrer

The last result
Ley had been the member for Farrer for almost 25 years, since winning the seat after the retirement of then Nationals leader Tim Fischer in 2001. 

After she saw off the Nationals’ candidate in 2001, the Coalition agreement guaranteed that Ley would not face an opponent from the junior Coalition partner for the rest of her time in politics. 


Until 2025, Ley held the seat with over 60 per cent of the vote in every election, leaving it classified as “safe” by the Australian Electoral Commission.

But at last year’s election, independent Michelle Milthorpe gave her a run for her money, reaching 20 per cent of the primary vote and reducing Ley’s two-candidate preferred margin to just 6 per cent.   



The Liberal hold on the seat is further in doubt because of the party’s crashing poll numbers, now below 25 per cent in most opinion polls.

Who might the other candidates be?
Milthorpe has continued to campaign in the community since the 2025 election and will be a candidate in the byelection. Having been 6 per cent away from winning the seat less than a year ago, Milthorpe will likely be a top contender.

One Nation has confirmed that it will contest Farrer, though it is yet to find a candidate.

With the party polling in a clear second place in national opinion polls, Farrer will be one of the first tests of whether the party’s high polling numbers convert into actual votes.

Helen Dalton, member for the NSW state seat of Murray, which covers much of the same area as Farrer, said her phone had been “burning up” since Ley’s exit. She is considering a run for the federal seat.

Dalton was elected as a member of Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers in 2019, but left the party three years later over a bill on water usage in the Murray-Darling basin. In 2023, she was re-elected to Murray with a 16 per cent margin.

Two of the people “burning up” her phone were Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce, with Dalton initially considering a run with One Nation.

Since then, One Nation announced its pre-selection shortlist, where Dalton did not appear, and she announced she won’t be a candidate in the byelection.

The National Party seems likely to mount a challenge for the seat it lost 25 years ago.

Labor hasn’t reached 25 per cent of the vote in Farrer since 2007, and would be unlikely to run a candidate, especially in what will likely be a crowded field. 


The Greens have little chance of victory in Farrer, having received 4.9 per cent of the vote in 2025. But state MP Amanda Cohn, who lives in Farrer, has confirmed the party will run a candidate.    

The right-wing minor parties Family First and People First have also announced plans to run.

What to expect from the byelection
With a Liberal, a National, an independent, and a One Nation candidate all contenders for the seat, this will likely end up as a four-cornered contest.

Some projections put One Nation in pole position to win the seat, though these are based on national polls, and can’t take into account the complexity of candidate personalities and the by-election campaign.

Milthorpe is well-placed after coming second in 2025, and both the Liberals and Nationals have held the seat in the past.

One issue likely to feature in the campaign is Australia’s gas exports. A Redbridge poll in February, commissioned by The Australia Institute, found that One Nation voters overwhelmingly support gas corporations paying a 25 per cent tax on gas exports, with 67 per cent agreeing.

Perhaps in line with their voters, One Nation recently announced a policy to charge the gas industry royalties instead of giving Australia’s gas away for free.

Whichever way Farrer goes, it’ll be a watershed moment for Australia’s political parties.

It could hurt or help Taylor in the early days of his leadership, inspire independent candidates to run in other rural seats, or galvanise the right-wing vote behind the surging One Nation.

Now that the date for the byelection has been announced, campaigning will begin in earnest. And on May 9, the people of Farrer will choose their new member.