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This weekend I caught up with One Nation’s candidate in Bruce, Bianca Colecchia, who came to Australia eight years ago on a student visa and now manages a gentlemen’s entertainment club in Melbourne’s CBD.

She doesn’t see her migrant background or her work in the adult entertainment industry as inconsistent with the right-wing political party’s conservative values.

“It’s actually really interesting,” she says.

“People go to clubs thinking they’re going to enjoy the night and end up talking politics with me all the time. We actually have a lot of party members who I end up bumping into at work.”

One Nation secured just under 5 per cent of the primary vote at the 2022 election with other right-wing minor parties United Australia (8.7 per cent) and the Liberal Democrats (5 per cent) also taking sizeable bites of the primary vote.

Colecchia relinquished her Italian citizenship this year in the hope of entering parliament, but if attendance at her political events are anything to go by, she might be waiting a long time for this sacrifice to pay off.

The Age popped into Colecchia’s event at Pioneers Park in Berwick on Saturday afternoon, to find no more than a dozen people huddled around an orange and blue marquee.

An Australian flag hung from the tent as attendees spoke of how Islamophobia “isn’t real” and the benefits of “Judeo-Christian” values, while munching on orange and blue cupcakes.

One Nation advocates for “net zero migration” and an end to “student visa loopholes” – policies that would have disadvantaged people such as Colecchia when she arrived in Australia, as well as many of the constituents of Bruce.

“People say it’s hypocritical for me … I get it, I get where that can come from,” she said. “If that means at the time, these policies wouldn’t have allowed me in, I guess that’s fair enough.”

One Nation is number one on the Bruce ballot paper, one of six minor parties running in the electorate. Colecchia said new members have joined from both Labor and Liberal, as support for the two-party system declines.

More on this issue in our ‘hot seats’ blog.