Less than eighteen months ago, Western Australian Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia comfortably held the seat of Secret Harbour, in Perth’s southern suburbs, with a two-party preferred vote of 61.5 percent in the state election. The by-election on Saturday wasn’t even close.
For three years in a row, Britain has been seized by summertime racist rioting. Islamophobes and nationalists seem to have laid claim to UK streets for the months of June through September. But this is not without precedent: summer has always been high time for bigots and diehard patriots.
There’s a power in collective resistance and solidarity that, if only it can be organised, could flush away Hanson and her ilk into history’s septic tank. Yesterday, students pointed the way forward.
Hanson is making no attempt to sanitise her politics for the sake of broad appeal. On the contrary, she is hardening her political positions, becoming more unapologetically fascistic, and encouraging her supporters to follow.
