The cost-of-living squeeze is worsening but Labor is doing nothing to protect living standards. This will only fuel the rise of One Nation.
Inflation was up to 4 per cent in August, due to a 15 per cent spike in fuel prices. With no end in sight to Donald Trump’s war in Iran, higher petrol prices will continue.
The Reserve Bank’s response was to hike interest rates to 4.6 per cent in the fourth increase this year, taking them to a 15-year high. This will increase the pressure on anyone with a home loan and push up unemployment.
The government’s reduction in fuel excise and its power bill subsidies, which temporarily brought down prices, have now both ended.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has cast doubt on the prospect of any further cost-of-living relief. The ruling class and media establishment are demanding that Labor impose new budget cuts to bring down inflation.
Chalmers wants to give in to their campaign, saying “the need to find more savings” would shape his budget update in December.
One Nation is feeding on bitterness about housing prices and the cost of living, posturing as an alternative to the mainstream parties.
Hanson wants to turn anger against immigrants, refugees and Indigenous people. Her newly released immigration policy calls for savage cuts to net migration of 750,000 over three years, targeting international students and families of those on skilled work visas.
The Liberals are trying to compete, with their own policy to cut net migration by more than half to 100,000 for two years. Leader Angus Taylor declared it would be “the biggest cut to immigration in the history” of Australia.
Instead of standing up to this, Immigration Minister Tony Burke has announced his own measures to cut immigration.
The government will launch increased efforts to track down and deport visa overstayers, with 100 extra compliance officers and a new detention centre in Melbourne.
But its main targets are international students and backpackers on working holiday visas.
Labor is demonising international students as “visa hopping” to try to stay in the country. But studying here, after paying huge student fees, is a recognised pathway to staying permanently as a skilled worker.
Burke presented Labor’s approach as different to One Nation’s demands. He said he was against “drastic cuts” to immigration because this would only “hurt the economy”, and defended immigration as necessary to bring in the construction workers needed to build more houses.
But his measures are a capitulation to claims that migration has driven up the cost of housing and rents, fuelling the racist idea that migrants are a threat to living standards.
Anthony Albanese was forced to rule out plans to reduce the refugee intake following an outcry from refugee organisations and his own backbench MPs.
But Labor reportedly wants to remove the right to work for asylum-seekers appealing the rejection of their claims and to reduce appeal rights.
This would require legislation, which has stalled after the Coalition withheld its support in the senate.
Victorian election danger
The threat from One Nation is not going to fade away. A new prediction for the Victorian election on 28 November says it could win 16 seats. This would force the Liberals into coalition with them to form government.
One Nation’s Victorian campaign launch called for more cops and harsher sentencing laws, tearing up Victoria’s Treaty with First Nations people, cuts to jobs in the public sector and cancelling renewable energy projects.
Reports said the event had the feel of one of Trump’s MAGA rallies.
We need an anti-racist campaign that stands up to One Nation’s anti-migrant racism instead of pandering to it as Labor does.
Just pointing to Hanson’s anti-worker record, as the Getup and Victorian Trades Hall campaigns in the Victorian election do, is not enough.
The party uses racism as a false explanation for the cost-of-living crisis—and these lies need to be countered. The rally against racism and One Nation on 24 October in Melbourne is an important start.
One Nation feeds off despair about falling wages and the failure of governments to protect living standards.
More serious union campaigns for wage rises could counter this. In Victoria there have been strikes against the state Labor government by teachers, council workers, doctors and allied health workers. University staff at Sydney Uni, Melbourne Uni and in Queensland have all taken strike action.
In France high school student protests and blockades of schools against overcrowded classrooms, lack of teachers and funding have transformed the political situation.
Teachers and other workers have gone on strike in support.
This is the kind of fightback that can stop racism, low wages and budget cuts and show a real alternative to Labor’s failures.
