Pauline Hanson’s popularity may have slipped a little. Her appalling comments that domestic violence is a “two-way street”, blaming women and saying they just “shouldn’t put up with it” drew outrage. Hanson is a long-time supporter of “men’s rights” activists and has previously accused women of using domestic violence “as a weapon” in custody disputes in the Family Court.
But One Nation’s support remains disturbingly high. Newspoll still has the party on 30 per cent of the vote nationally, level with Labor.
A Redbridge poll of 6500 people for Victorian Trades Hall Council showed the party could win up to 19 seats at November’s state election. This would likely see the Liberals forming a coalition with One Nation to take government.
Panicked, Victorian Labor has installed a new leader, Ben Carroll. But Carroll is taking Labor further to the right.
Anthony Albanese says Labor is the only “mainstream” party capable of stopping One Nation. But it is precisely his right-wing, middle-of-the-road approach that is feeding its rise. Labor has presided over declining living standards, rising rents and obscene housing prices.
And Labor is conceding to One Nation’s lies over immigration and fear-mongering over refugees. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is reportedly preparing a press club speech restricting asylum seekers’ work rights and changing migration settings. Hanson is setting the agenda for mainstream politics.
Hanson’s true colours were on show as she recently toured Europe. In Britain she called for “mass deportations” and spouted racist lies about Muslims.
On Seven’s Spotlight program Hanson endorsed the “remigration” plans of far-right party Reform UK, which wants to deport two million people from the UK, saying “I love it” and was “very much on the same page”. She later said she wanted to deport immigrants who were unlawfully in Australia.
Remigration is the slogan of European Nazis that has been taken up by March for Australia, which is led by openly fascist sympathisers of the former National Socialist Network such as Bec Freedom.
In Britain, to chat with Nazi and convicted thug Tommy Robinson, Hanson bemoaned the end of the White Australia Policy, saying it meant Australia “started bringing in the different migrants”—people from outside Europe.
Hanson spewed racist lies, claiming Muslims were “ripping off” the NDIS in Australia, based on a false report claiming the Sydney suburb of Lakemba had a large number of registered NDIS providers.
She then “toured” suburbs including Luton near London, expressing outrage that 30 per cent of the population there are Muslim.
She told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that, “I see in Australia the problems that you have in Britain. I see immigration is destroying our country as it has destroyed yours.” Hanson only wants white European immigrants.
Fighting racism and low pay
Unions in Victoria are running an election campaign “to protect our workplace rights and public services” from the threat of a Liberal and One Nation government.
Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari has rightly pointed out that, “Working people would be fundamentally poorer if One Nation and Pauline Hanson had her way”, given her history of voting “against things like industrial manslaughter, minimum wage increases” and the fact she has “come out against penalty rates”.
But it is not enough to point out Hanson’s anti-worker stance, such as her remarks at the National Press Club about workers being lazy or sponsorship by billionaire Gina Rinehart.
There are two significant ways unions and the left can stand up to Hanson.
The first is to take both the mainstream and Hanson’s anti-migrant racism head-on. Both Albanese and Liberal leader Angus Taylor have helped legitimise One Nation through saying they want to cut migration, remarks which have largely gone unchallenged.
Racism and anti-immigration politics are the centre of what Hanson stands for, as her trip to Britain revealed. She is channelling anger about the cost of living against immigrants.
The racist March for Australia rallies on 30 August are calling for “remigration”—these rallies need to be opposed on the widest basis.
The second is to back, and organise, militant struggles to fight the cost of living crisis that Labor is presiding over that has seen wages fall far behind inflation.
Unions and workers must learn from the revolt of rank-and-file Victorian teachers, who have rejected two proposed deals from the state Labor government and pushed their union leaders to call more strikes demanding real improvements on pay and workload.
A serious movement against racism coupled with a real fightback for wage rises is the key to driving back One Nation and building a left-wing alternative to Labor and the bosses’ system of crisis they are running.
