Ross Stitt thinks Australia is about to get a real taste of nationalist populism as practised by the radical right overseas

26% of male Gen Xers in Australia now support One Nation, a political party that promises to deport ‘75,000 illegal immigrants’, to withdraw Australia from the UN Refugee Convention, and to ‘refuse entry to migrants from nations known to foster extremist ideologies that are incompatible with Australian values and way of life’.

That’s the finding of a Redbridge/Accent Research poll for the Australian Financial Review.

And it’s not just male Gen Xers. According to that poll, support for One Nation among the general population is now running at a record 18%. This is backed up by the latest Guardian Essential poll that has One Nation on 17%. This level of support is a quantum leap from the party’s 6.4% vote in the most recent election last May.

Compare these numbers with those of the Coalition (between the Liberal and National parties) that has dominated centre-right politics in Australia for decades. The primary vote for the Coalition at the last election was 31.8%. In the recent Redbridge/Accent Research and Guardian Essential polls it sits at 24% and 26% respectively.

These figures indicate a huge shift on the right from the Coalition to One Nation in just seven months.

One Nation is a conservative right-wing populist party founded in 1997 by Pauline Hanson, a controversial Queensland Senator who ran a fish and chip shop before arriving on the national political stage.

Hanson is a zealous nationalist and her defining political stance is her opposition to immigration. Last month she wore a full burqa in the Senate, a repeat of a stunt she pulled in 2017.

Until recently, Australia had appeared immune to the rise of the nationalist populist right. There’s been no equivalent to President Trump in the US or Nigel Farage’s Reform in the UK. Or to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France or the ADF in Germany.

Much of the rightward shift in those countries is the result of voter grievance driven by some combination of the culture wars, racial tension, rising inequality, deindustrialisation, and post-Covid economic stagnation. These problems have been less acute in Australia and therefore the solutions offered by nationalists and populists were thought to have less appeal down under.

Is that now changing?

The traditional two-party model in Australia has been breaking down over the last twenty-five years. Labor on the centre-left and the Coalition on the centre-right have been steadily losing support to the Greens and various smaller parties and independents.

The once dominant Coalition is looking increasingly unstable. Its Liberal Party arm is undergoing a crisis of identity following its disastrous performance in the May election. There’s an internal clash between moderates and conservatives.

The former want the party to remain centrist, the latter want it to shift further right, particularly on climate change and immigration. The conservatives are no doubt influenced by both the electoral success of right-wing populists offshore and the recent rise of One Nation in the polls.

The problem is that the Liberal Party has already lost many wealthy inner-city seats it once held to so-called ‘teal’ candidates because of its right-wing policies.

The Coalition’s challenge is compounded by increasing ideological conflict both between the Liberal Party and its coalition partner, the National Party, and within the National Party itself.

In November Barnaby Joyce, a National MP (and former leader of the National Party and former Deputy Prime Minister), resigned from the National Party. Last week he joined One Nation and is now tipped to replace Pauline Hanson as the party’s leader.

In announcing his new allegiance, Joyce said that ‘a nation can have multiple faiths, race and colour but not multiple cultures’. We can expect to hear a lot of anti-migrant rhetoric, everything from blaming migrants for the housing and cost of living crises to demanding less multiculturalism and more integration by migrant communities.

Immigration and climate change will form the battleground on the right between the Coalition and One Nation. The key question is whether the Coalition can move further right on those issues to stem the flow of voters to One Nation without driving away more centrist voters. Absent some very gifted politicians, the answer is probably no.

The latest wild card in this analysis is the brutal Bondi terrorist attack by a foreign-born father and his Australian-born son. The father, Sajid Akram, came to Australia in 1998 on a student visa, transferred to a partner visa in 2001, and has subsequently been on resident return visas after various trips overseas.

It would be naïve to think the anti-immigration brigade won’t seek to use this horrific event for political advantage.

There was a time when Pauline Hanson and One Nation were viewed as political pariahs, and their supporters as fringe ‘deplorables’. The polls suggest that is changing for a meaningful section of voters. But are we witnessing just a temporary protest or a true political shift?

Only time will tell, and in the interim Australia may get a real taste of nationalist populism as practised by the radical right overseas.

But to be clear, when it comes to political skills, Hanson is no Marine Le Pen, and Joyce is definitely no Trump.

*Ross Stitt is a freelance writer with a PhD in political science. He is a New Zealander based in Sydney. His articles are part of our 'Understanding Australia' series.