Labor’s cautious path to a third term may be electorally defensible, but avoiding a fundamental argument with Pauline Hanson leaves both Hansonism and Labor’s own weaknesses untouched.

Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party have set their course for facing the next federal election. It’s not a bold strategy, but it’s a careful, cautious and conservative one, avoiding risks that could stand in the way of comfortable progress to a third term in government. It lacks the confidence and resolve that its current majority and dominance in the opinion polls would allow. But it is arguably defensible if one is gloomy about whether the Pauline Hanson One Nation campaign is yet played out. Or if one is gloomy about Albanese’s capacity to puncture the One Nation balloon.

Some friends of Labor might gush at the cleverness of such a small-target strategy. Pauline Hanson does not really have policies yet, and if, or when she does, we can expect these will be divisive and vulnerable. Why should not Labor keep its powder dry, hoping that she will dash herself against the rock of her own weaknesses? Why risk putting up adventurous policies which might be polarising, running the risk of Labor losing an election on its own merits rather than Hanson’s deficiencies.

Hansonism, like Trumpism and other similar cruel, racist and nationalist phenomena it resembles overseas, is a cancer on modern society. Far from promoting or coming out of any sort of Australian ethos, present or past, it is an alien idea appealing to the worst instincts of the individual. Its nihilism and bitterness pitch citizen against citizen and reduce the power of the community to advance its interests by agreed common action. It deserves to be rejected and defeated on its merits and eradicated for good.

Its culture of meanness, exclusion and cruelty should be rejected as unAustralian, unworthy of any of the classes and types of people we really are. If Albanese is an unworthy standard bearer for such a fundamental argument, and he may well be, he ought to get out of the way and let someone more articulate, more charismatic and more invested with the qualities of national leadership take his place.

We can be reasonably sure that Albanese is not holding back for fear of a resurgent opposition. On the people representing it, he and Labor have no occasion to hedge their bets. Angus Taylor would lack the policy skills and the political cunning to organise and mobilise his party for victory even if Pauline Hanson were not in the field. Strangely, the National Party, under Matt Canavan, might be more up to such a job, in terms of calculating the odds and the opportunities, such as they are. But Canavan is handicapped by understanding that a Pauline Hanson movement is likely to do more damage to the Nationals than the Liberals in rural and regional electorates.

Traditionally, a substantial rump of Nationals survives big swings against conservative governments, even increasing their power in the opposition afterwards. But the One Nation push is aimed at the National Party heart and its brain. The party is the more vulnerable from years of complacency, the soft corruption of patronage and pork barrelling, and its misconceived preference for mining interests ahead of agricultural and regional constituencies.

The Nationals, like the Liberals, cannot improve their political position by imitating or attempting to align themselves with Pauline Hanson. They can be only pale copies anyway, and what would be........

© Pearls and Irritations