A surprising January Newspoll is showing that One Nation has nearly quadrupled its support since May’s federal election. The poll, taken after the Bondi attack, has One Nation on 22 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Coalition on 21 per cent.
Nearly one third of those who voted for the Coalition at the last federal election now say they would vote for One Nation, according to another poll.
Even before former Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce defected to One Nation, polls showed that conservative voters would more likely vote for One Nation if he led the party.
Underlying the polls is the continuing collapse of support for the mainstream parties. Labor’s primary vote is just 30 per cent, down almost 5 per cent since the election. Fully 47 per cent of voters back independents and minor parties.
Pauline Hanson seized on the Bondi attack to continue her racist anti-immigration diatribes, visiting the memorial at Bondi and declaring, “Certain countries they should not be allowed to migrate here.”
But it is mainstream racism that is fuelling the racist surge. Albanese would not condemn the racist March for Australia rallies even after the open involvement of Nazis was revealed. Labor has boosted the idea that mass immigration is the cause of the housing crisis by cutting immigration numbers.
Albanese similarly set the tone for the rise in Islamophobia after the Bondi shootings, using the attack to link pro-Palestinian demonstrations for increasing antisemitism.
In October last year, pollster commentator Kos Samaras reported that One Nation’s increased support was drawn “almost entirely from Gen X and younger Baby Boomers without university degrees in periurban, regional, and rural areas”. One Nation had doubled its support by “drawing from Coalition voters, rather than building across the political spectrum”.
This means the main electoral impact is likely to be that One Nation will take seats from the Coalition. This could help keep Labor in power but there are no guarantees as Labor’s primary vote drops and Albanese popularity has fallen in the wake of the Bondi shootings.
One Nation’s rise is still a serious danger for the left. Support for the party signals a growth of racism and extreme anti-immigrant policies. Labor has shown it is quite willing to adopt anti-migrant and anti-refugee polices to try to outflank any shift to the right.
Without struggles against racism and the cost-of-living crisis the far right can grow out of the disillusionment with the two major political parties.
Membership
Since the May federal election, One Nation has begun opening new branches, claiming that they now have 70 across the country.
The Tamworth branch in the NSW electorate of New England, which Barnaby Joyce represents, is one example of how One Nation is gaining from National Party defectors.
When former Nationals Tamworth branch chair Steven Coxhead resigned and joined One Nation, most of the Nationals Tamworth branch followed (as did Barnaby Joyce). One Nation is also likely to target the Nationals’ seats such as Tamworth in the 2027 NSW state election.
One Nation branches risk becoming places where far right and fascists groups can infiltrate and recruit, as the openly fascist National Action did in the 1990s.
Hanson and One Nation have already proved themselves to be willing supporters of far-right and Nazi initiatives. Hanson and other One Nation candidates have been prominent speakers at the March for Australia anti-immigration rallies orchestrated by the Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN).
Joyce spoke at the far-right Put Australia First rally in Sydney in December in front of 200 people, where he described those who marched over the Harbour Bridge for Palestine as “filth” and “rubbish” and blamed Palestine protests for the Bondi massacre.
The NSN has declared they are disbanding because of Labor’s new laws making the group illegal. But the Nazis have declared they intend to register a new electoral party so they can continue to organise.
One Nation’s rise in the polls will only encourage racists and fascists to call more racist anti-immigration rallies, like the March for Australia rallies planned for 26 January in direct opposition to the Indigenous Invasion Day rallies.
The largest possible Invasion Day marches are the best immediate response to counter the racists and the Nazis.
But we can expect more anti-immigration marches, fuelled by Labor’s anti-Palestine hate laws and its Royal Commission. Anti-racists and the Palestine movement will need to mobilise to push back the racism that is fuelling One Nation’s rise.
By Luke Ottavi
