In short:
One Nation has entered the increasingly crowded battle for Werribee, unveiling Paul Pateras as its candidate for a marginal seat Labor retained by just 693 votes after preferences at the 2025 by-election.
Much Anticipated Spanner In The Works
The battle for Werribee has officially shifted into overdrive, with One Nation unveiling Paul Pateras as its candidate for the marginal seat.
One Nation Victoria announced Pateras through its social media channels this morning, alongside a fresh slate of candidates contesting seats across the state.
While the party has yet to reveal Pateras’ personal or professional background, his entry adds another serious threat to John Lister’s hold on the marginal seat and Labor’s decades-long dominance of Werribee.
Labor’s vulnerability was already laid bare at the 2025 Werribee by-election, when now-MP John Lister failed to win the most first preferences.
Liberal candidate Steve Murphy finished 39 votes ahead, securing 28.98 per cent of the primary vote to Lister’s 28.89 per cent.
(Werribee MP and Victorian Premier Ben Carroll.)
Messy Three-Way Contest Shaping Up
It was only after preferences were distributed that Lister emerged victorious, defeating Murphy 50.82 per cent to 49.18 per cent, a margin of just 693 votes.
Pateras now enters as a serious third player who could capitalise on voter fatigue with the major parties and broader populist discontent in an outer-suburban seat.
One Nation’s statewide primary vote currently sits in the low-to-mid 20s across several measures, with Roy Morgan recording 23.5 per cent, Plain Politics’ polling trend at 23.5 per cent and Australian Election Tracker’s seven-poll average at 23.8 per cent.
Even a substantially smaller One Nation primary vote in Werribee could matter in a contest decided by hundreds of votes.
Even if Pateras is eliminated, his preferences could prove critical to Liberal candidate Reece Clark, while preferences from a large field of minor left-wing parties are likely to flow back to Labor MP John Lister.
Who Will Win Werribee?
Growing Suburbs And Millennials May Favour Major Parties
One factor that may work to Lister and Clark’s advantage on the campaign trail is their age.
At 33 and 30, Lister and Clark are younger millennials and roughly the same age as many voters in the rapidly growing communities of Manor Lakes, Wyndham Vale and Mambourin, where median ages ranged from 30 to 31 at the 2021 Census.
Those growth areas are becoming increasingly important. Werribee’s electoral roll grew from 49,962 voters in 2022 to 56,464 by the 2025 by-election, an increase of 6,502 voters, or about 13 per cent, in little more than two years.
Much of that population growth has been concentrated through the western growth corridor, with Wyndham Vale, Manor Lakes and Werribee West adding more than 20,000 residents between 2016 and 2021, and that rapid growth continuing.
Pateras will join Cameron Reid in Point Cook and Fiona Lopez in the upper house in One Nation’s bid to make a dent in Wyndham’s political landscape.
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