One Nation’s resurgence
Pauline Hanson meets the press
Pauline Hanson’s Press Club presentation exposes not only the hollowness of her platform, but also the supine gutlessness of the journalists at that gathering.
You can gain quite a few insights into Pauline Hanson if you watch her first ever Press Club address.
Her presentation comes across as the semi-literate whining of a child — an infant — who has suffered some monumental inequality in the playground. At times in her 50-minute speech she barely holds back her tears. This gives way to a more aggressive mood in the 40-minute Q&A session, but in both parts there are non-sequiturs, blatantly false statements, and numbers quoted out of context, all with a strong emotional setting.
Her overarching message is that she hates Australia.
She hates not only what Australia has become over the last half-century as most of us have embraced and celebrated multiculturalism; she also hates the institutions of democracy, including a free press, institutions protecting human rights, and a professional apolitical public service.
John Hewson writes in the Saturday Paper about her contempt for the institutions of democracy – institutions built up over many years, which she would tear down. He writes:
Pauline Hanson’s speech to the National Press Club should have convinced most people of her incapacity to govern our nation. She was on song with her written speech, cataloguing resentments and grievances, and was both unscripted and unhinged in response to media questioning – which, to be fair, wasn’t all that incisive.
She expresses a nostalgia for an Australia that never existed — a solidly monocultural Australia. Her statements on monoculturalism have led to some weird commentary – her own follow-up statements adding to confusion (our monocultural soccer team!), and have prompted Angus Taylor to refuse to state whether he supports multiculturalism.
She has succeeded in exposing a deep rift in the Coalition ranks, particularly the Liberal Party, between those who seek to compete with One Nation for the hard right authoritarian populist vote, and those few so-called “moderates”, survivors of Howard’s, Abbott’s and Morrison’s purges, who take the party back to the centre right.
And she leaves us to guess what constitutes her ideal monoculture – boiled mutton and three veg, BBC cop dramas on TV – the English working-class culture of the 1950s perhaps?
The main points of her speech are summarised in Sally Sara's Breakfast Wrap on the ABC, which includes comment from the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia and the President of the Human Rights Commission, who understandably comment on her contempt for basic non-discriminatory decency. The session also includes a broader summary of her points, pulled together from her tirade of spite and anger, by Tom Crowley, who finds four themes in her speech.
- Migrants are to blame for most of our problems, ranging from housing shortages through to Islamic terrorism. Closing our borders to migrants from certain countries, and deporting others —policies replicating Trump’s ICE operations – are the solution, all within the broader framework of monoculturalism.
- Renewables are responsible for high energy prices. She repeats her assertion that global warming is a “hoax”. If One Nation has a say in government, subsidies to renewables will end, wind energy will be prohibited, solar farms will be prohibited because they take over agricultural land, there will be subsidies for coal and gas generation, and there will also be nuclear power. Don’t look for any logic or basis in fact in these policies, but they seem to align with One Nation’s policy statement that “Net zero is … a vehicle for creating a socialist Australia in which citizens are forced under comprehensive government control.”
- We have a crippling level of public debt. Australia is one the highest taxed countries in the world. Excess government spending is responsible for inflation. Therefore there must be dramatic cuts in government programs. (Again don’t subject these claims to any level of scrutiny.)
- One Nation will use its political power to push against rights for transexuals.
Crowley notes that while One Nation’s ideas on immigration, renewable energy and gender issues are reasonably well-known, that third point about overall fiscal policy has generally been missed by most commentators. It was the subject of a well-executed stunt by Getup! who pointed out the hypocrisy in One Nation’s claim to be defending the interests of the disadvantaged while it has been using its Senate numbers to oppose legislation that extend workers’ interests.
As Hanson displays in the Q&A session, particularly in her answer to a question from a journalist from The Australian, she is prepared to defend that position on cutting back on workers’ rights: government programs have to be cut. But she is softer on public expenditure that directly helps the poor — transfer programs.
This is where her Trumpian populism meets Regan-Thatcher “small government” neoliberalism — two streams of right-wing ideology that don’t always come together.
It sets her apart from many of the anti-immigrant movements in European democracies, which, rightly or wrongly, accuse immigrants of being too dependent on generous social security programs, thus threatening to undermine public support for the social-democratic systems in these countries. Their opposition to immigration comes from an insular “left” standpoint, rather than an alliance with the extremist right, although the left and right ideologies often intersect. Hanson’s view on immigration comes from the other end of the political spectrum.
Throughout her speech she shows unswerving admiration of “small business”: in fact she comes close to admitting that her policies are based on conversations with people in small business, and she asserts that her experience running a fish-and-chip shop gives her particular skills that can be turned to public management. It’s a dangerous illusion, to which many right-wing politics are subject, because there are huge and essential differences between public and private sector enterprises. As for the idea that small business is intrinsically virtuous: who are responsible for most wage theft, enslavement, tax evasion, neglect of OH&S laws …?
Her address is not only about Pauline Hanson and One Nation; it’s also about our supine press gallery.
As her whining rant went on, it was clear she was filibustering the session, reducing the time for Q&A. The chairperson, a journalist from Sky After Dark, was indulgent. He had clearly not negotiated a time limit. Nor did he pick her up when she uttered obvious lies about Australia having high taxes, about renewable energy, about immigration numbers. It would have been quite in order for the chairperson to have interrupted with questions such as “can you please explain where that number comes from?”.
As Annabel Crabb writes, Hanson wasn't there for the National Press Club. She was there for Fight Club, and the chair was on her side. In the Q&A session, after having promised to emasculate the public broadcaster, she launched a savage personal attack on Sarah Martin of The Guardian, described in detail by the ABC’s Jake Evans: Pauline Hanson's criticism of Guardian reporter labelled an “assault on free press”.
But the chairperson didn’t pull her up, and there was hardly a murmur from the journalists, even though she was being grossly offensive – not just to the journalists, but more generally to the people of Australia, to whom she was showing contempt.
The journalists present should have demanded an apology on behalf of their readers, and had she not apologised a walkout would have been quite in order, because it was clear by then that she had no intention – perhaps no capacity – to give clear answers to journalists’ questions.
What is One Nation?
One Nation is registered as a political party but it does not behave as a political party: it is more akin to a cult that has attracted unsavoury supporters who seek to destroy Australian democracy.
We get a strong clue about how One Nation works from the Electoral Commission’s Register of Political Parties, where it is registered as “Pauline Hanson’s One Nation”. A search through the list does not find an entry for “Angus Taylor’s Liberal Party”, or “Larissa Waters’ Green Party”.
Political parties are generally formed around people with some level of shared values, who, in processes that are collaborative if not fully democratic, work out policy principles and platforms to present to the public, and they elect a party “leader”.
Marcia Langton, writing in the Saturday Paper – Can Pauline Hanson be stopped – describes something quite different, a “leader cult”, in One Nation. She goes on to explain:
This is not a metaphor but a clause in a party’s constitution. In August 2017, One Nation’s governing document was rewritten so Hanson would serve as president “for as long as she may wish”. She was given the power to hand-pick her successor, who would serve indefinitely before any return to internal elections. … Hanson herself explained that she dissolved the party’s original branch structure because ordinary members caused her “trouble”.
That means Hanson is more a lone warrior than the public representation of a political party. There seems to be a handful of others in her policy circles: much has been reported about the influence of James Ashby and of Barnaby Joyce, but there is not much mention of the rank-and-file or the few One Nation MPs. She has friends among the hard-right global Conservative Political Action Conference, who invited her to speak at their gathering at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to enlighten the participants with her views on “mass migration, climate change, indigenous rights and gender expression”. (Did they get value-for-money from their $US5 000 to $25 000 tickets?)
Also present at that Mar-a-Lago gathering was Gina Rinehart, who let it be clearly known that she was supporting Pauline Hanson during the Farrer by-election, most spectacularly with the donation of a $1.5 million Cirrus SR22 G7 airplane. You can read about the way that election was conducted in a Saturday Paper contribution from Michelle Millthorpe, the independent candidate. Her article A warning from the people of Farrer describes the difficulty an independent candidate faces when the local media are besotted with the One Nation spectacle.
In a public display of her support for Hanson, Rinehart appeared on stage with her in a stunt – the “toy bulldozer stunt” – at a political rally in Townville. The event was extraordinary for its cringeworthiness as we heard Rinehart’s patronising treatment of her audience, literally treating them as infants.
Although the setting was childish, the message was strong. It was an explicit local version of Elon Musk’s mission to take a chainsaw to government – a bulldozer in Australia’s case – to wipe away Commonwealth Government agencies. This means that if One Nation could exert its political influence, it would gut the Commonwealth’s capacity to deliver services — including economic services.
If we want to see the consequences of that policy we can look at the UK, which is suffering the long-term effects of neoliberalism, pursued initially by the Thatcher regime, but subsequently embraced by that country’s two main parties. As the “small government” ideology weakened the social wage (health care, housing and education) and weakened the nation’s public infrastructure, demand for social security transfer payments rose, further strangling the government’s capacity to provide economic services. (Miriam Lyons and I in our work Governomics, drawing on the work pf Dani Rodrik, pointed this out: it’s not a new finding, but it does much to describe the destructive consequences of the “small government” movement which emasculates government capacity.)
There was more MAGA absurdity in Rinehart’s presentation at Townville, including a suggestion that Queensland should offer some of its islands to Elon Musk. But the main message, particularly in relation to the influence of Musk and the Conservative Political Action Conference, is that support for One Nation is coming from outside Australia.
In the last few days it has become evident that “meme factories”, operating in foreign countries, are providing material for social media disinformation campaigns, in support of One Nation.
In a seven-minute speech Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson describes what he knows about foreign influence operating through social media, generally directed against the incumbent government and in support of One Nation. Someone, in Australia or overseas, is paying for this, and it is effective in influencing political opinion. The content is about fuelling conflicts about immigration and undermining our energy transition. Whish-Wilson calls for an official inquiry into these sources of influence.
This is not to suggest Hanson or her known close supporters are driving these campaigns. But there are plenty of people in the world, including those working for sovereign states, who would like to see Australian democracy destroyed. They have been wreaking their damage on the UK and the US, and are now after other vulnerable democracies. Australian Nazis for example, who like to present themselves as a fringe and disadvantaged community (victims of “replacement”), include many well-off members, who will quietly support any movement likely to sow division and hatred.
It is reminiscent of Australia in the 1950s, when strong communist movements, originating in the Soviet Union, set out to destroy the political prospects of social-democratic parties in democracies. With help from the Liberal Party they were influential in keeping Labor out of office from 1949 to 1972. With different actors, that scenario could be played out in Australia in coming years.
Who is supporting One Nation?
We have a reasonable picture of those who support One Nation and other far-right populist parties, but we don’t know why they choose to support movements whose policies are hostile to their class interests.
Many people are offering explanations for One Nation’s surge. The South Australian election, the Farrer by-election and polling are providing a clearer picture of One Nation supporters, but it will take a lot more research to find any clarity about the reasons people are voting One Nation. Are they registering a protest vote (yet to be tested in any election with significant consequences), or are they genuinely attracted to the party’s platform.
On the former we know, from the South Australian election, and from some other polling, that the level of people’s education, particularly their post-school education, is a strong negative predictor of support for One Nation. If you missed out on schooling, you’re more likely to vote for One Nation.
Sydney Morning Herald journalists James Massola and Brittany Busch report on a Resolve Poll, which found support for One Nation had risen across a range of demographic classes from different bases. In particular:
There is a strong age gradient: 31 percent of people aged 55+ would vote for One Nation, compared with 15 percent of those aged 18 – 34. (This suggests traditional media may still have some influence on the party’s support.)
The further one moves from capital city centres, the stronger is One Nation’s support. This was a clear feature in the South Australian election. Its support in outer suburbs poses a threat to many Labor electorates, but its strong support in rural electorates presents an even greater threat to the National Party.
Income is a reasonably strong predictor of support for One Nation. It is strongly supported by those with low income, and it finds less support from those with middle and high income.
For a time men were more likely than women to support One Nation. This has reversed, with women now more likely than men to support One Nation, but the differences are slight.
Martyn Goddard. in his Policy Post, gathers data about the rise of far-right populist movements in the UK and other countries: A lovely day in dystopia. There are some general patterns, particularly the way they have drawn support from those who once supported traditional conservative parties on the “right”. The rise of far-right populism has coincided with fracturing of the “sensible centre” and the rise of political polarization (but are the relationships causal, and if so, in which direction?). Opposition to immigration is a common theme, but it is manifest in different ways in different countries.
Goddard has some observations on the beliefs of those who vote for the UK’s Reform movement, which show them to be strongly in favour of redistribution from the rich to the poor. It would be informative to learn the political views of One Nation supporters: if they hold similar views on redistribution, they would be rather shocked to learn of Hanson’s policies.
We get a broader perspective about growing support for populist movements offering simple solutions for complex problems, in an Atlantic article by David Brooks: History is running backwards: why reactionaries are taking over the world. He goes beyond the usual “left”-“right” and “conservative”-“progressive” classifications, to look at the underlying social conditions, summarizing his finding:
The traditionalists are right to say that one of the central problems in America and the West today is that many people have lost that secure base—a stable home and community, solid emotional connections, financial security, a coherent culture, and an understanding that our lives are contained within a shared moral order.
Is our public sphere, where we can have civilized discussions about public ideas, capable of a discussion on this level?