To rein in Hanson, her political foes must stop making One Nation’s case
This column argues that mainstream political parties are inadvertently strengthening One Nation by adopting similar rhetoric regarding globalism and migration. It highlights how Liberal figures like Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have used language that mirrors Pauline Hanson's nationalist platform.
Why it matters
It explores the political consequences of mainstream parties shifting toward populist rhetoric and the potential normalization of far-right narratives.
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Share A A A A column in two halves. Let’s start with the Liberals. In 2019, then-prime minister Scott Morrison spoke of “a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community. And worse still an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy.” Only an Australian government could defend its national interest: “We can never answer to a higher authority than the people of Australia.”
So my ears pricked up when I read about Pauline Hanson announcing that Warren Pickering would lead One Nation in Victoria. Here – as reported in this masthead – is what Pickering was saying last year: Australia is “in the grips of a bunch of unelected foreign bureaucrats … Let’s tell those globalists … what it means to be Australian.”
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