In a rare public appearance, the mastermind of Labor’s election wins in 2022 and 2025 has declared his party’s next contest will be as much about fighting One Nation as its traditional Coalition opponents.

ALP national secretary Paul Erickson’s sensible and practical assessment came as Liberal party figures continue to scrap publicly over how best to grapple with the surge in Pauline Hanson’s rival conservative movement.

During Labor’s highly stage-managed national conference in Adelaide last week, Anthony Albanese again demonstrated his iron-grip over the party, as his Government eyes a likely third election victory.

Following the three-day Labor love-in, where debate and dissent was tightly controlled, Paul Erickson predicted that in future the Liberal and National parties “can’t govern without One Nation” and vice versa.

“The situation that we’re preparing for is an election where we will face an opponent in the form of the Coalition and One Nation working together because they have to, because the polls show that neither of them can win without the other,” he told Sky News.

“At the next election, the choice will be between a Labor government that’s delivering real change… or an alternative of a chaotic and divided Coalition-One Nation government.

“That’s the case that we have to build and set out over the next two years.”

Erickson’s analysis also reflects months of work behind the scenes by Labor hardheads as they study the rise in One Nation and fine tune their best attack lines ahead of the next election, expected in 2028.

It was fitting that Labor’s 50th national conference took place in Adelaide, because back in March the South Australian election was seen as one of the first major tests of One Nation’s ability to translate surging popularity into parliamentary seats.

Four months ago, Senator Hanson’s party managed to clinch four Lower House seats and three in the Upper House but has since rocked the Coalition by decisively winning the New South Wales seat of Farrer vacated by ex-Liberal Leader Sussan Ley.

The ALP’s national secretary isn’t keen to speculate on how many Federal seats are now also under threat from One Nation, but insists the party is planning for that electoral scenario.

“One of my rules in life has always been not to make predictions about the outcome of any upcoming election, but instead to prepare,” the respected political operative said.

While Labor hones its attack lines against One Nation ahead of 2028, senior Coalition figures are still squabbling among themselves over how best to deal with the rival party.

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg on Friday repeatedly declared that his party and the Nationals would enter a coalition with One Nation to form government at the next election.

“We would definitely work out whoever would be interested in being in a coalition with us, if that’s what the numbers were. Of course, we’re not crazy,” the moderate Liberal said.

Within hours his leader Angus Taylor rebuked his colleague’s comments declaring: “there will be no coalition with One Nation. Our coalition is with the National Party”.

Over the weekend the increasingly outspoken right-faction Liberal MP Alex Antic told a conservative podcast that: “I just don’t think that it is helpful to be fighting with One Nation”.

The continuing spats are a gift for the Albanese Government as it steps up its warnings that a vote for the Coalition is effectively a vote for Pauline Hanson.

South Australia’s highly popular Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas has also declined to predict how One Nation will fare in the 2028 election but calls the right-wing party’s rise “the biggest upheaval … in terms of the Australian political dichotomy”.

“And I don’t think anyone really knows how this movie is going to end,” he told Sky News on Sunday, adding that he thought it “incomprehensible only a few months ago that another party would out-poll the Liberal Party”.

Federal Labor would do well to study how the SA Premier has operated since winning office in 2022, the same year Anthony Albanese led his party out of opposition for the first time in almost a decade.

A new RedBridge poll shows his Government has jumped 3.5 points since its landslide election win in March to snare 41 per cent primary vote support, while One Nation and the Liberals were unchanged at 23 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

While Premier Malinauskus again talks down speculation about possibly moving to Federal politics and trying to become prime minister, another Labor figure in his State continues to be discussed as a likely replacement to Anthony Albanese.

Earlier this year The Nightly reported on growing chatter in Labor about the steady political rise of Health Minister Mark Butler, a leading member of the dominant left-faction.

After last week’s Labor talk fest in his home town, the discussion about his future leadership prospects has only grown louder.