I work in a highly unionised workplace. The Maritime Union has a long history of collective struggle and solidarity with the oppressed. Yet even here One Nation’s ideas are getting a hearing.
Workers who have never expressed support for One Nation before are sharing its content and calling for “Pauline for PM.”
The Bondi massacre was a real turning point.
For the last two and half years, the Palestine movement has been relentlessly attacked in the media and by politicians. After the Harbour Bridge march, some of my workmates complained that there are too many “foreign” flags being flown, and asked why Australian flags aren’t being flown instead.
After the Bondi attack, it was commonplace to blame the Palestine movement. Someone complained that “politicians let them into our country. Then they let them shut down our cities protesting their overseas wars on our streets.”
This shows that anti-immigration sentiment is not really about the numbers coming in, but about which migrants are welcome.
Another worker spelled this out, saying that Greeks and Italians had been good for Australia, but Muslims are not.
These ideas have been egged on by Labor’s despicable apologism for genocide, dehumanisation of Palestinians and Arabs, and dog whistling about “social cohesion” and “turning down the temperature”.
Some on the left want to comfort themselves with the idea that these are workers who would have voted Liberal in the past anyway.
This is simply untrue. Decades of frustration with Labor, disdain for the Liberals, and alienation from The Greens means One Nation is a dangerous alternative for people without a political home.
Internal polling by Victorian Trades Hall Council showed approximately 30 per cent of people who work in container terminals in Melbourne prefer One Nation.
But there is no need to despair. I have had many other conversations with workers who hate Pauline Hanson, reject her racism and support Palestinian liberation.
Unions and others on the left are now recognising One Nation as a serious threat.
But many are making another mistake—challenging Hanson’s record on workers’ rights without taking up her racism. This won’t work. The bigotry needs to be tackled head on.
And unions won’t have any credibility unless they also lead the fight for real solutions.
That means fighting Labor, breaking the anti-strike laws, fighting for above-inflation pay rises, and uniting the wider left in real campaigns to turn back decades of neoliberal attacks on our services and living standards.
By an MUA member
