Has One Nation won the 'family feud' of Australian conservatives?

Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party has lots of new friends these days. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore) Link copiedShareShare articleDid neoliberals create the conditions for right-wing populist parties to thrive in recent years? That's an argument we're hearing from some analysts, such as Allan Patience, an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne in the School of Social and Political Sciences, and a graduate of Monash University and the London School of Economics. "Over the past four decades, the Australian economy has been systematically hollowed out," he recently wrote in an analysis arguing that rising inequality and economic insecurity had led directly to the rise of the populist right. "In what's left of the Liberal and National parties in the parliament, an entrenched commitment to neoliberalism remains intact, even though they are the very parties most responsible for inflicting so much of neoliberalism's damage on the Australian economy. (A notable exception in their ranks might be Andrew Hastie). "With their heads buried in the ideological sand, they studiously ignore the fact that surging inequality is a potent factor inciting voters to abandon them in droves," he argued. The attacks on democracy and freedom "have never been greater in my lifetime," warns Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. "No wonder One Nation seems more attractive than the Liberals and Nationals." Patience didn't spare the current Labor government either, which has also lost voters to independents and The Greens, as well as some to One Nation. "Some in the Albanese government remain in thrall to neoliberalism even as it has proven to be disastrous for middle- and working-class people across the country," he argued. But as One Nation surges in the polls, and as senior Liberals and Nationals jump ship to the party, we're also seeing free market think tanks joining the bandwagon. And it begs the question: Will One Nation supporters welcome the extra "help" from the same think tanks that pushed the neoliberal policies they're now apparently so angry about? Or will all be forgiven in a squabble amongst friends? For example, if you're a One Nation supporter and you hate "inner-city elites" who support "mass migration", guess what? Some of the organisations that are keen to ride the coat tails of One Nation's growing political support have been among the loudest supporters of high immigration for decades. And they used to attack people who questioned it. Some of the harshest criticism of high immigration is coming from people who work for the exact organisations that have supported high immigration for decades. When Labor prime minister Julia Gillard and Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott both raised concerns about high rates of immigration in the early 2010s, The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a neoliberal think-tank based in inner-city Melbourne, criticised them for it. In 2012, a leading IPA analyst warned that "Liberals' legacy of mass migration is at stake", with the same analyst arguing again in 2015 that, "You can't blame foreigners for high house prices." But the IPA has done a loud 180 on the topic more recently. In the last couple of years, it has reinvented itself as a vociferous critic of high immigration, and it's blaming inner-city elites for having forced high immigration on Australians for decades. Which is unintentionally true, since IPA staff are quintessential inner-city elites. The Australian Financial Review (AFR) has also noticeably changed its tune. In the early 2010s, when Gillard and Abbott were raising concerns about high immigration and long-term population growth targets, both noted that many voters were feeling uncomfortable about the rapid pace of Australia's population growth and its ability to build the necessary infrastructure and housing. The AFR said it was "disgraceful fearmongering". See this AFR editorial from 2010: But 16 years, and two Trump election victories later, the AFR's editorial writers are now criticising the current Labor government for apparently ignoring people's concerns about high immigration. See this editorial from February this year: The AFR is the paper of business and finance. Big business generally likes high rates of immigration because it means more people, and that means higher economic growth and more customers. Plenty of farmers like it too, because it gives them access to cheaper imported labour. Benjamin Harnwell, the "international editor" of Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, said centre-right politicians have "betrayed" the West by supporting "mass immigration". So the recent shift in Australia's political winds must be blowing pretty strongly through the AFR's Sydney office. "The disconnect between elites and ordinary people on migration has been one of the primary sources of disruption of the political establishments in Western democracies on both sides of the Atlantic," the AFR intoned in February. "The left c

Has One Nation won the 'family feud' of Australian conservatives?

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