Behind all the culture war bluster and appeals to rural reaction, Pauline Hanson’s key function in Australian politics is to popularise policies and measures that guarantee the further enrichment of the capitalist class and its authoritarian power. Her main enemy, then, as much as migrants and Muslims, is the Labor Party and the labour movement.
Hanson claims to be against the two-party political system—what One Nation calls “the uniparty”—but the ALP and broader labour movement are consistently the main target of her attacks.
In One Nation’s eyes, the ALP is one step short of being an enemy to the nation, a front for subversive forces that threaten the fabric of the country. One Nation associates the labour movement with communism or foreign interference. So Hanson described the May budget as “Marxist, socialist, communist”, out to strip wealth from “hardworking Australians”. Senator Malcolm Roberts usually accuses Labor of being soft on, if not in league with, “Communist China” and, more broadly, with the “globalist agenda” of organisations like the United Nations, which supposedly want to use “mass immigration” to swamp white-majority nations. In the same vein, net-zero climate policies are, according to One Nation, “a vehicle for creating a socialist Australia in which citizens are forced under comprehensive government control”.
Labor’s links with trade unionism are a large part of One Nation’s hostility to the party. Trade unions are a threat to the small businesses Hanson champions. Hanson told the Senate earlier this month, “Labor’s project to hijack the Australian economy for corrupt union bosses is becoming relentless”. She has joined in the hysterical media campaign to demonise the Allan government in Victoria as a tool of the CFMEU, and calls for a ban on union donations to political parties.
If an illegitimate government has seized power and is proceeding to wreck the country, the ordinary rules of parliamentary democracy can be dispensed with. In her National Press Club speech, Hanson called for the governor-general to sack the Albanese government, just as Whitlam was sacked in 1975. That both governments had only recently been re-elected, and in the Albanese government’s case with a massive majority, apparently means nothing to these supposed people’s representatives.
One Nation’s hostility to Labor and the labour movement has been bread and butter for the right throughout Australia’s history. Much as Labor may rule for the rich, its associations with the trade unions and its very faint identity as “the workers’ party” make it suspect, a foreign entity. The ruling class in most cases works with Labor governments, but that doesn’t change the fact that Labor is not its natural and preferred party. For decades, the capitalists could rely on the Liberal and National parties to fight for them. Now that the right-wing parties’ electoral support has plummeted, the capitalists are tolerating Labor but casting an eye over One Nation to see what it might viably offer. Hanson’s agenda of popularising anti-worker policies and attitudes aligns with their interests.
The class prejudices of One Nation are woven through the very constitution of the party. Its leading representatives overwhelmingly come from middle class or small capitalist backgrounds. Hanson herself owned a fish and chip shop and several investment properties. Malcolm Roberts was general manager of the Gordonstone coal mine in central Queensland. Recently elected MP for Farrer in NSW David Farley is a wealthy agribusiness consultant and commodity trader. Western Australian Senator Tyrone Whitten, elected last year, owns an earthworks and construction business with a $200 million turnover, while Victorian upper house MP Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell is a dairy farmer.
One Nation has consistently raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the party’s base, particularly small business owners. Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, has been an important exception to this pattern. For years, Rinehart has supplied One Nation with in-kind support, such as use of her private jets. With Barnaby Joyce coming on board last December, Rinehart has increased her support. Two executives at Rinehart’s business empire, Adam Giles and Ian Plimer, have each donated $500,000. Rinehart has also opened doors for Hanson on the international far-right circuit, including flying Hanson to a CPAC conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and hosting fundraising events aboard her luxury cruise ship The World.
With One Nation becoming a serious political force, hefty business donations have now begun to come in. Stockbroker Angus Aitken and his wife Sarah have donated $1 million. In Victoria, where One Nation may hold the balance of power after November’s election, some former Liberal donors are now switching to One Nation. Property developers are leading the charge, outlaying hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in return for Hanson’s promise to scrap the Allan government’s property taxes. Small and middle-sized businesses are also lobbying Hanson for reductions in “business red tape” and the cancellation of work-from-home policies (even though small businesses are already exempt from them). The media either openly boost One Nation or make only mild criticisms. All of this is happening as Hanson becomes ever more brazenly fascistic, most recently recording a podcast with British fascist and street thug Tommy Robinson.
One Nation’s meteoric rise over the past nine months is extremely dangerous. Even if it does not form government in its own name or as part of a coalition, it is hardening up what was an already growing far right movement and pushing mainstream politics to the right. The party can no longer be dismissed; it must be fought.
But to fight One Nation, we need to understand that it is peddling more than just bigotry, but also a coherent and well-resourced ideological and economic agenda. For decades, the far right in Australia has been relatively marginal. Now, as capitalism decays and the mainstream parties that have ruled for nearly a century lose much of their popular bases, One Nation is seizing its moment. It wants to smash working-class solidarity and impose a hard right agenda, and the capitalists are accordingly eyeing it as a potential player in government. To fight it effectively, we need to understand what makes it tick, and the system it aims to serve.
