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One Nation’s Darren Hercus is mounting a serious challenge in Saturday’s Nepean by-election, dismissing Liberal attacks and positioning himself as the true alternative for frustrated conservative voters.

One Nation Victoria candidate for Nepean, Darren Hercus, has laughed off the personal attacks he has received from the Liberal Party ahead of the by-election on Saturday.

The major moderate-conservative party put out an advertisement in mid-April showing Hercus stumbling over his words.

That was when he was asked how Rosebud Hospital in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs on the Mornington Peninsula would be funded at a press conference, where The Age in particular went after him.

Liberals “Playing Dirty Politics,” Says Hercus

But Hercus said he had thick skin and knew he would have to deflect these kinds of attacks due to One Nation’s traditionally conservative stance, which has its fair share of city-based detractors.

“Unfortunately, the Liberals have been playing dirty politics, and that’s affected us a bit,” Hercus told The Daily Declaration.

“But we’ve done the right thing. We’re sticking to the moral high ground and campaigning the best we can.

“I don’t take anything personally. I just laugh it off. You’ve got to show a bit of restraint, but I’m quite thick-skinned, and it’s not really impacting me that much personally.

One Nation Victoria candidate for Nepean, Darren Hercus, with supporter Michelle at Safety Beach. Picture: Facebook.

“My wife gets a bit upset about it, but personally, I can see what it’s for. They’re trying to drag me through the mud, and it’s not sticking that well.”

Hercus said the Victorian Liberal Party would do much better if it concentrated on its own performance, given it has had three different leaders since December 2024.

And that is without mentioning its loss to a poor-performing Labor Government at the last state election in November 2022.

The incumbent government from 23 of the past 27 years has been largely responsible for a net debt expected to reach $185 billion by June 2028.

And Hercus said many in his electorate were growing frustrated at the Liberal Party remaining in opposition.

“You look at the factional infighting in the Liberals at the moment with their leadership, and there’s no direction,” he said.

“If you look at the left side of the Coalition and the right side of Labor, there’s not a big difference.

“I guess that’s why they call them the uniparty.”

The Liberal Party’s candidate for Nepean is Anthony Marsh.

He received unfavourable media coverage after leaked text messages revealed he was “stoked” when Labor’s Paul Mercurio beat his colleague Briony Hutton for the seat of Hastings in the 2022 Victorian election.

Marsh is the current Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Mayor, while the Labor Party has not put forward a candidate.

Hospital Funding at the Heart of the Contest

As for the ageing Rosebud Hospital – a big focal point of this by-election after deputy opposition leader Sam Groth vacated the seat in February – Hercus said One Nation Victoria’s plans were simple.

The emerging conservative party would use a public-private partnership to fund it, if Hercus prevails at the ballot box this weekend.

“The Rosebud Hospital has been a massive issue. And the dirty tricks of the Libs saying we’re going to privatise it are just not true,” he said.

“We’re going to try and get private funding for it, and it’s still a public hospital. That’s a big priority, if we can help get that over the line.

“I know the Libs want to do it through the state, but the state just doesn’t have the funds.

“It (public-private partnership) was a model used for the new Footscray and redeveloped Frankston Hospital. In fact, the Liberal Party used it to build the Mildura Hospital in the late 1990s.

“So it’s quite ironic, really. But unfortunately, these kinds of scare campaigns do work sometimes.

“They’re promising the world, and they’ll probably deliver an atlas.”

Housing, Cost of Living Driving Voters Toward One Nation

Hercus said residents in the Nepean District were doing it tough over current cost-of-living pressures.

“It’s hurting everyone,” he said.

“You look at the housing issues, energy crisis, the fuel crisis – there’s just not enough money for infrastructure for road maintenance.

“It’s just endless, really. Housing affordability is a big issue down here.

“You’ve got dual-income families – they pay rent, pay the bills, put food on the table, run their kids around to sport, but they just can’t save for a deposit to buy a house.

“And unfortunately, more and more people are getting priced out of the housing market.”

Hercus has spent about 15 years running Mega Joist – a floor and truss fabrication business that supports the building industry.

Like many small and medium businesses across Victoria, he has seen conditions worsen dramatically, with rising costs, massive tax increases and a sharp downturn in employment hitting local industry hard.

These pressures have led to local residents desperately wanting bureaucratic change.

“I’m finding a lot of hard-working middle-class people are gravitating towards One Nation,” he said.

“Traditionally, it was Labor for the working class. But they just haven’t been doing enough for the people.

“The government’s tax regime is making things even harder.

“I’ve canvassed a lot of businesses around the Peninsula, and I reckon there’s probably one in three who don’t think they’ll be around for much longer.

“That’s really sad. For every business that closes down, there are probably three or four jobs that go out the door.

“It’s not good for anyone.”

Hercus said One Nation’s federal policy of cutting immigration from about 400,000 to around the 130,000-per year mark would help those seeking to enter an increasingly-competitive housing market.

“The other problem in Melbourne is there is a lot of foreign ownership. Something like 17,000 homes are under foreign ownership and left empty,” he said.

“So we’d ban foreign ownership, which would free up a lot of these properties for Australians. Also, look at local government here – they claim it only takes 60 days to get a planning permit, which most of the time is true.

“But then you’ve got 20 out of 30 conditions attached to those permits, and they can take you 18 months to work through.

“I think some of those planning processes could be improved, to encourage more building.

“The state taxes are hurting builders, like the land taxes. And even for mum-and-dad investors, a lot of holiday homes and rental homes are being dumped on the market now because it’s not viable having investment properties anymore.

“Unfortunately, the people renting those properties can’t afford to buy them. This is what I’m hearing from real estate agents. So we want to ease a lot of state taxes to help those conditions.”

“A Real Horse Race”: Hercus Confident Heading Into Saturday

Like many conservative-minded voters, Hercus said it wasn’t long ago when he was putting the No. 1 next to a Liberal candidate’s name at the ballot box.

But he has grown frustrated at the lack of accountability the Allan Government has received from its major opposition.

“If people really want change, they have to vote One Nation. The Liberal Party just hasn’t done enough to hold this state government to account,” he said.

“That’s why not long ago, I was a Liberal voter myself. They haven’t held the state Labor government to account, and we need One Nation to do that.”

It was only when Hercus met One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, at the premiere of A Super Progressive Movie in January that he decided to switch to her party.

One Nation Victoria candidate for Nepean, Darren Hercus, said party leader Pauline Hanson was treated “like a rock star” when she visited his electorate. Picture: Facebook.

“I was impressed with the way she conducted herself. She was happy to stand there and talk to everyone who wanted to meet her,” he said.

“She did the same thing when she came down to the Peninsula. When 300 people wanted to talk to her, she wanted to talk to them all.

“She’s like a rock star. A lot of people came up, shook her hand and said ‘we’re voting for you’. I think that helped our campaign tremendously.”

Contrary to the way Hanson has been portrayed by her detractors and in sections of the media, Hercus said he has not found her to be someone who discriminates on race.

“I listened to her messages – it wasn’t about being racist,” he said.

“It was about cutting immigration regardless of nationality. And she just wants a fair go for all Australians, and for everyone to be treated as equals.

“I thought ‘it’s so simple – if government policy was based on that, we wouldn’t be in the mess that we’re in’.

“So at that point I went from wanting to vote for her, to ‘how can I help her?'”

As for his prediction on the results of Saturday night’s Nepean election – tipped to be a two-man race between him and Marsh – Hercus said One Nation Victoria’s odds looked good.

“We’re a genuine contender, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

“It’s quite unique down here on the Peninsula. It’s traditionally a blue-belt area. There are a lot of older rusted-on Liberal voters.

“But certainly a lot of younger and middle-aged voters are coming across. So it’s a real horse race.”

Meanwhile, Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson threw her support behind Marsh on Friday night.

She said if he was elected, the Liberal Party would commit to upgrading Rosebud Hospital, fixing roads and boosting police numbers as part of its top priorities.

“The fact we’ve seen the residents of Nepean neglected for decades under this Labor Government makes me really angry and frustrated,” she told Steve Price on Sky News.

“Rosebud Hospital desperately needs an upgrade. That’s why I’ve been really proud to stand together with our candidate, Anthony Marsh, to announce that if we win government this year and I become the Premier of this state, my commitment to them is to make sure that we give the residents down here at Nepean and the Peninsula the hospital they deserve.

“Under a government I lead, we will rebuild Rosebud Hospital. It’s more than just the healthcare services. The roads are littered with potholes. This is a government that has completely neglected the Mornington Peninsula, and enough is enough.

“We’ll be putting more cops on the beat here. We’ve heard that residents down here don’t feel safe because of the crime crisis gripping this state.

“And my commitment in our first term to put an additional 3,000 police on the beat will mean that there will be more police down here at Rosebud, Rye, Sorrento, Dromana and Flinders.

“That’s what we need to see – a government that’s going to go back to basics and actually deliver the services that Victorians need, particularly in an area that’s been neglected by the Labor Government for too long.”

In other election promises, Marsh posted on Facebook that he will commit $500,000 to tackle homelessness on the Mornington Peninsula, and he will make it a crime to desecrate a war memorial.

Hercus has also promised that restoring law and order will be one of his top priorities.

One Nation Victoria has been sceptical of the Liberal Party’s promises in the lead-up to the Nepean by-election on May 2.

“The Liberal Party has held this seat for 16 out of the past 20 years, and now, before an election, they come with big promises,” the conservative party posted on social media.

“Give us a chance to represent you and we will deliver.”

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Featured image: One Nation Victoria candidate for Nepean, Darren Hercus, with voters at the pre-polling centre. Picture: Facebook.