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In ordinary times, Pauline Hanson’s first address to the National Press Club would have been viewed as a 90-minute political suicide note. Her calls for an end to multiculturalism and for Australia to be a monoculture were nothing short of extraordinary, and they were among several impossible-to-deliver ambitions, alongside a number of flat-out lies.
She claimed global warming was a hoax; decades of scientific research prove otherwise. She claimed ASIO had 18,000 people on a watch list; ASIO has no such watch list. She claimed she was not a racist, but the comments she has made over 30 years in public life demonstrate otherwise.
She described Britain, Canada, Germany and France as “absolute s-holes”; whether you like those countries or not, they are four of the richest nations in the world and among Australia’s closest allies.
And it continued, with Hanson questioning why childcare workers had just received a pay rise and promising to shut down SBS and radically cut the ABC’s funding and reach. The woman who presents herself as the battler’s friend spoke of lazy workers and said it should be easier for businesses to sack people.
While Hanson styles herself as a conservative, these are deeply radical comments. And such is the frustration in the Australian community with the status quo, rather than being a suicide note, her speech probably won her new fans.
It wasn’t all upside for Hanson. Though she might seem unstoppable now, over the next two years, both sides of politics will be using some of her spicier comments against her in an attempt to bring her down to earth. The union movement is not going to let her forget her crack at “lazy” workers.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s response to the rise of Hanson has been cautious, as if he is tip-toeing around the phenomenon rather than confronting it, and it is not working. The opposition leader has ably prosecuted the case against Labor for breaking promises not to touch capital gains tax breaks or negative gearing, and the popularity of Labor’s tax changes sank markedly in this week’s Resolve Political Monitor.
‘Is Hanson going to regulate cultural practice in Australia? Can I still attend the opera or do I have to go to a league game?’
Opposition frontbencher Garth Hamilton
The major measures in Taylor’s budget-in-reply speech, including indexing personal income tax rates and linking immigration numbers to housing completions, were well received, according to the Resolve poll. In ordinary times, they would have translated into a boost for Taylor and the Coalition. Instead, just 20 per cent of people told the Resolve poll they would give the Coalition their first preference – a record low. It’s even worse for the opposition leader himself: just 16 per cent of voters named him as preferred prime minister, while 33 per cent nominated Hanson and 29 per cent plumped for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Here’s the problem for Taylor: he is fighting an orthodox left-versus-right battle against a Labor government’s economic program in a moment when voters are fed up with the old orthodoxies and want change, which Hanson represents. His response on Thursday to Hanson’s call for Australia to have a monoculture was typical. He didn’t overtly condemn the One Nation leader but said “if she wants to judge people based on the colour of their skin or their race, One Nation needs to explain that”. And then he spoke about new migrants needing to adopt Australia’s “core values”.
Many Coalition MPs have taken this approach of not wanting to call out Hanson, perhaps for fear of losing more votes to her, though there are some notable exceptions, including frontbenchers Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie, and junior frontbencher Garth Hamilton. You’ve probably never heard of Hamilton. He’s been in parliament for six years, is deeply conservative, holds the Queensland seat of Groom centred around Toowoomba, and he has strong concerns about Australia’s current immigration rates. His seat is high up on One Nation’s target list and Hamilton has decided to tackle the party head-on and tell the truth about its policies, rather than sit shtum.
“We have never been a monoculture,” Hamilton tells me. “The only country in the world with a monoculture is North Korea. This is big government at its most extreme; this is [Hanson] telling people how to live.”
Hamilton asks: “Is Hanson going to regulate cultural practice in Australia? Can I still attend the opera or do I have to go to a league game? Can I practise Lent or should I be an evangelical? I like a kebab at the end of a big night – is that still OK?”
“Conservatism isn’t constrained to white people,” he stresses. “Conservatism believes in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of association. It’s not a conservative position at all to tell people how to live. We aren’t going to win this fight by hiding or rolling over.”
It’s a stark contrast to Taylor’s messaging, though the pair communicate regularly and Hamilton has the opposition leader’s OK to take on One Nation.
A fundamental reshaping of the Australian political landscape is under way and no one knows where or when it will end. There is no sign that Hanson’s popularity is about to, or even that it has peaked.
As a supporter of Sussan Ley noted this week, Taylor inherited conditions that she never enjoyed as opposition leader: “party unity, a stable Coalition partner, more favourable media coverage from News Corp, a weakened prime minister, and the worst budget ever. Yet his numbers have dropped below Sussan’s worst.”
A growing number of Australians agree with Hanson and want to upend the established political order. The surge in her popularity has steamrolled Taylor and left him looking like roadkill. Whatever the answer is to combat her, Taylor does not seem to have it – at least, not yet.
The One Nation leader’s performance at the National Press Club on Wednesday was, in one sense, impressive. She was composed throughout, with a lengthy opening speech followed by close to two dozen questions and she didn’t miss a beat when a protest banner unfurled behind her – an idiotic stunt by left-wing campaign group GetUp.
It was also a deeply unimpressive speech because Hanson made things up, sought to divide Australia and attacked journalists she didn’t like, rather than answering questions.
It is impossible to know whether Hanson can ride this current wave of popularity through until the next election. Some of the claims she made at the press club will come back to haunt her in the next two years. She showed in that speech that the rules of the game have changed in Australian politics: ideas once deemed radical are now called conservative; ideas once thought unsayable are now said with glee.
Australia has never before had to grapple with the rise of populist right movement like this – not even the travelling Joh Bjelke-Petersen for PM campaign, which ultimately sank without trace. Hanson has left the establishment reeling. If the Coalition can’t figure out how to fight back against One Nation, there won’t be much left of it after the next election.
James Massola is chief political commentator for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
James Massola is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X or email.From our partners
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