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One Nation’s meteoric rise continues, with the party nabbing another high-profile recruit. The announcement of former senator Cory Bernardi was made as One Nation announced their plan to blitz the upcoming South Australian state election with candidates in every seat.
Recruits like Bernardi, following on from the defection of former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, will go a long way to bolstering One Nation’s electoral credibility. The party’s biggest weakness is its reliance on a charismatic leader and the perception that it is inexperienced and unready for government. Other touted recruits, such as former Northern Territory chief minister Adam Giles and current SA Liberal senator and powerbroker Alex Antic, would bolster One Nation’s experience base.
The South Australian election will be a critical test of whether One Nation can translate opinion poll numbers into electoral success. Even a modest success in SA, one of the most left-leaning states in Australia, will have Anthony Albanese worried. Currently, One Nation is polling ahead of the Greens, with numbers as high as 27 per cent in some seats.
The main game has shifted, and it’s now the rocket-fuelled rise of One Nation in the polls. It would seem that Barnaby Joyce played a blinder; from mainstream outcast to political heir apparent in a few scant months.
The biggest shift has been the Overton Window. Where once many people wouldn’t have dared openly voice support for One Nation, that’s changing dramatically. It’s purely anecdotal, of course, but I’ve personally heard people who, just a month or two ago were sneering at One Nation, saying, ‘You know, I’ve been listening to Pauline and she’s making a lot of sense…’
These are not disaffected Coalition voters, either, but formerly rusted-on Labor voters.
I know many people who have joined One Nation in the past six months. And they’re normal folk in a range of professions, ages, men and women, single and in relationships. At first it felt a little bit like Fight Club in that the rule seemed to be that if you’d joined, you certainly didn’t talk about it.
Not any more. Conversations I’m hearing are out and proud. Loud and defiant. The reasons are all fairly unremarkable. Frustration with a terrible government and a useless opposition. Cost of living, unvetted mass immigration. One person told me they’d never been a member of a political party before and that Bondi was the breaking point for them, the proverbial last straw along with issues such as stagnant productivity, bloated government and social engineering. This person is not alone.
The media-political establishment will, of course, trot out their ancient canards about ‘racism’, but not only are many voters too young to remember, but Hanson herself has grown up and past her ‘swamped with Asians’ rhetoric. One Nation has in recent elections fielded Asian and even Muslim candidates.
And even many migrant communities can see how the country has changed and not for the better.
What people are seeing in One Nation is simple. It doesn’t seem to hate Australia or systemically seek to undermine Australian values. It is not afraid to raise uncomfortable issues even if the methods can be a bit crude. It wants to revive the economy and reduce government spending. There is a pride in Australia, an imperfect country that hasn’t always got it right but once was the envy of the world. The truth is, everyone knows what this team stands for and that is a rare thing indeed.
One Nation is also showing the starkest divide in Australian politics and society: between the wealthy and the working-classes, the inner-city elite and the suburban mortgage belt, between university-educated ‘progressives’ and those with fewer credentials but far more common sense.
The Newspoll demographics analysis shows the coalition losing ground mainly among older voters and Australians without a university education, who are moving to One Nation.
In terms of primary vote, households earning less than $100,000 per year are putting One Nation ahead of both Labor and the Coalition.
