Pauline Hanson’s populism is a front. But there are lessons for progressives in One Nation’s surging popularity |
With its vote surging, One Nation is throwing down the gauntlet to the entire Australian political system, not just to the Coalition but to super-progressives as well.
For those who have missed it (and to be fair, if you are reading this you are not the intended audience), “super-progressives” are the target of One Nation’s feature-length cartoon movie entitled A Super Progressive Movie – launched to boycotts and derision over summer – in which honest Aussies do battle with the “Naarm bubble” and its aristocracy of special interests united under “the victimhood”.
As the latest Guardian Essential report starkly illustrates, the party that for decades has been a political punchline with a vaudeville villain is now seen as a viable alternative for more than half of the voting public – including 45% of Labor voters and a third of all Greens.
Note, these results were gathered even as Pauline Hanson amped up her crude attacks on Muslims, a move that was a bridge too far even for conservatives within the fragile Coalition. Not so much the broader public.
It’s nearly 30 years since Pauline Hanson made her maiden speech in parliament, with its attack on Asians “swamping” Australia. This was after John Howard expelled her as a Liberal candidate after her comments about Indigenous Australians.
The consistent approach from the political establishment since then has been to dismiss Hanson and her views; the politics of putting One Nation last became a proxy for whether the conservative parties would countenance her racism.
Now, with populists gaining traction around the globe, we need to understand........