Which party improved its performance most on Saturday? If you only read the mainstream media, you’d think it was the LNP in Queensland, which picked up a surprise swing that saw Labor go backwards in the Sunshine State. Except, the LNP only got a quarter of a per cent swing, according to the current AEC count. And nationally, the victorious Liberal party went backwards on its primary vote by nearly 1%; in Western Australia, another graveyard of Labor hopes on Saturday, the Liberals lost nearly 2%.
So who did best? Pauline Hanson. In Queensland, One Nation secured over 200,000 House of Reps votes and a swing of over 3% — and they did it without even a tiny fraction of Clive Palmer’s $60 million in advertising, which bought him just 80,000 Reps votes in Queensland on current numbers.
That’s barely twice as many as Oswald Mosley’s racist “Conservative National Party”, which also did surprisingly well. In the Senate in Queensland, One Nation got a smaller swing on a higher vote, and secured just under 10%, which will likely be enough to return bug-eyed conspiracy theorist Malcolm Roberts to the Senate. Nationally, the swing to One Nation in the House of Reps was 1.69%, the highest of any established party. Mosley is currently on 63,000 votes nationwide as well.
Not that you’ll know this from the mainstream media: some quite senior political journalists were only discovering yesterday that the swing in Queensland hadn’t been to the LNP, but to ON and Palmer first, despite it being clear even early in the count on Saturday night. Rashida Yosufzai at SBS has been the only journalist to detail One Nation’s success. As Yosufzai noted, ON had also turned in a remarkable effort in the NSW seat of Hunter, where Hanson’s candidate boasted “the damage that One Nation did down here is now going to be talked about around the country for weeks.”
Most of those votes appear to have come from former Labor voters, not LNP voters. The LNP more or less held steady in Queensland, but receive a strong preference flow from ON and Palmer candidates. This is the worst possible outcome for Labor, which had been expecting to pick up disgruntled LNP voters directly. Instead, its own voters abandoned it for ON and Palmer candidates and didn’t even preference Labor.
Nor have the media really grappled with the implications of this. Hanson could not have faced a more difficult election environment: the disgrace of having her party revealed as treacherously seeking foreign help to undermine our gun laws, brawling with political rivals in Parliament House, conspiracy theories about the Port Arthur massacre, the scandal around Steve Dickson and a wealthy rival pumping tens of millions into advertising to compete with her. This is a party that appears to have gone out of its way to alienate all but the lunatic fringe of the far right — and yet she still emerged with a serious chunk of the vote.
Then there’s Oswald Mosley, who will not return to the Senate he briefly defiled with his presence. But more than 40,000 Queenslanders were happy to vote for candidates of an openly fascist, misogynist and homophobic party. Factor in the Palmer vote and you have nearly 14% of Queenslanders ready to support right-wing and extremist candidates; the Katter Party, which once hosted, then dumped, Mosley, picked up another 2.5%.
The LNP and Morrison will be delighted that their preferences flowed their way rather than back to Labor. The LNP will feel vindicated in its decision to preference One Nation ahead of Labor despite their efforts to subvert the Howard-Fischer gun laws. But when one in seven voters support far right candidates, there’s something more sinister than ordinary electioneering going on.
Hanson and her ilk have long had a business model of exploiting xenophobia and resentment, but for most of the last 20 years she has been excluded from the political mainstream by a tacit agreement between the major parties. The media and a desperate Coalition allowed her back in in 2016, and now she’s used that toehold to legitimise herself and her party’s core values of bigotry and hate.
As we’ve already seen with Mosley, others, even more rancid, will follow in her wake as the restrictions around what is considered acceptable and decent in politics erode before our eyes and we become inured to open racism in politics again. The media, however, appears to have little interest in what is stirring on the far-right fringe or the dangers it poses.
There is no reason at all that xenophobia, open racism and resentment cant be a left wing thing as well.
The ALP of the 1950’s and 60’s was the mothership of racism.
What the ALP needs is another party to go into coalition with…call it country Labor or even Country Labour for that matter…load it up with ratbags like Hanson, racists and loons ….you know, Queensland and WA types….protectionists and flat earthers….Fitzgibbon he’d be perfect as the Captain of Country Labour.
Bring the nutters into the tent.
No thankyou.
In any event: in other election years, One Nation has effectively been that party with loads of disgruntled voters going One Nation first but still preferencing Labor, often completely disregarding the preference deals done and Hanson’s own clear and stated preference for the Libs. I think it would be a mistake to think that, in the absence of One Nation, these voters would have voted Labor, but since One Nation was there they voted One Nation and preferenced the Libs. They turned against Labor – they aren’t thrilled with the Libs either (hence the lack of first preference) but were more strongly against Labor.
Why all the Oswald Mosely references?
Frazer Anning is no where as influential nor likely to found a similar dynasty. It seems to be dragging a long dead creature from far way across the lounge room
Indeed. Oswald Mosely is famous decades after his death. Do we really want to elevate FA (whose name will soon fade) to this prominence?
Yes I agree. Call Anning for what he is, don’t drag in someone of similar political inclinations, from another time and place. If we don’t name and call out Anning for what he is, we risk letting him off the hook. His situation is not like that of the alleged Christchurch murderer whose name has been suppressed for other, very sound reasons.
To put a human face to this ALP -> One Nation I offer myself. I’m regional Victorian, I’m a leftie from way back – care about forests, clean food and water – would generally vote Greens then ALP. I couldn’t vote in Bill Shorten as Aus PM, and most people reading will probably have an instinctive understanding of that position.
In the Senate I put One Nation, and Fraser Anning’s parties ahead of the ALP – and you ask why.
I had a strong “No” position on changing the marriage definition. Through this debate I had been very disturbed by the totalitarian repression of speech that emerged towards the survey time. Opposing opinions were sought, and then smashed down in prime time (QandA, The Project). I think this is where Scott Morrisons ‘quiet Australians’ came from. The various Left-ish totalitarian lobbies need to learn that people who have their heads stamped into the ground don’t get up and vote for their repressors.
This speech repression came out again with what was mislabelled as “Islamophobia” – again people’s opinions on immigration and religious expression were being sought, and if they expressed the “wrong” opinion they were smashed down. There is no careful listening anymore. There is no wanting to understand the various positions of Australians and represent them, or use this knowledge to re-set policy.
It’s gone totalitarian. When one hears one’s a-political dentist of decades say over one’s head, while drilling, that he’s sick of TV show presenters (Kochie in his particular example) trying to sell their own opinion rather than listen to what their callers are saying, one knows things have gone too far. I felt this totalitarian repression of views was more associated with the ALP than LNP.
I was disgusted by the major parties’ gross hypocrisy in censuring of Fraser Anning, as though the major parties and msm (including the ABC) hadn’t been ramping up anti-Islamic fear in the Australian electorate since 9/11, to engineer a social licence for the money spent dropping bombs on Islamic countries. The memory of Julie Bishops face repeating IS, Islamic State, Daesh, ISIS, jihadists, beheaders, is burnt into my brain, where earlier “osama bin laden”, “taliban”, the anti-terrorism fridge magnets, terror warnings over every railway station. Then, with the simultaneous message “Islam is a religion of love”, it’s no wonder that a very confused,uneducated, and probably psychotic (judging from his manifesto) Australian considered we were being taken over, and decided to pick up a gun and do his bit to save his tribe. I watched Kochie and Hinch belt up Pauline Hanson. So I put Pauline Hansen and Fraser Anning’s parties ahead of the ALP in the Senate (being a usual left winger I didn’t put a vote for the LNP).
In short, I considered ON and Anning to be less dangerous for Australia than the major parties. Re their fringe issues on guns, etc, I wasn’t worried because I knew there would be enough moderate senators to counter this. I’d also been happy that Pauline had spoken for Julian Assange, whereas ALP politicians such as Tanya Plibersek had been propagating lies about him.
How long will I keep refreshing to see if my comment’s been published? I note other comments submitted at a later time have been published. If you don’t intend to publish, it would be polite to let me know. You’ve got my email.
Well you got your entry in Madeleine, but it is not a wonderful contribution. And if your dentist watches Sunrise, why do you trust him with your teeth?
The ABC has lots of faults currently, and with further attacks on their funding starting already there will be more, but repressing free speech is not one of them.
Your anti-equality beliefs shows you as bigot in the same mould as Anning, and clearly you have no thoughts on environmental destruction – the greatest threat our progeny will face by far.
I have a lot of thoughts on environmental destruction, particularly on the extinction thing. Over the last 11 years I’ve been a voluntary grassroots community researcher into GM food and crops, and their associated pesticides. It’s not rising temperature at this time, so much as habitat loss and pesticides – a more urgent crises it appears with 70% loss of insects in a couple of jurisdictions that have actually measured. After six years of reading 10’s of 1000’s of pages of Monsanto et al regulatory documents I co-published a review as an independent scholar with a genetic engineer in New York and an environmental scientist in Switzerland on the GM crops that contain novel genetically engineered pesticides. I did it so that there was “public scientific evidence” to demonstrate that FSANZ is a corrupt regulator that is willing to lie to the public. I’ve learnt that neither of the major parties attend to this issue, after writing thousands of well-researched letters to every politician in Australia. We desperately need a science ombudsman, because audits of FSANZ stopped where the corporate science began.
Also on the environment, I live in Marysville, apparently surrounded by forests. However if one goes beyond the horizon of the tourist roads one sees forests destroyed. We’ve had some very hungry families of bower birds dropping in. This is happening all over Victoria. Beautiful forests are being destroyed and mis-managed. Pre-election I received an email from the Greens stating all the issues we care about in our Indi electorate. It seemed the Greens no longer cared about forests, because that issue was not on the list. Before the election likewise Di Natale said that the Greens were going to continue to focus on social issues. I didn’t think that any party was going to represent what I cared about. The ALP put out a statement on forests – this looked good – but then there was countering evidence of mass forest destruction by the State labor Andrews government through Vic Forests, often illegally. I really actually got scared of the ALP after I read Shorten saying that they’d have a plebiscite on the Republic – I see a republican head of state as an easier access for the US corporate interest than the monarchy. For the first time in my life I was actually relieved that an LNP government was elected, and it had nothing to do with economics.
When one reads that one is worried about one’s forests but one doesn’t give a dam about social issues, one has identified quite clearly who ‘one’ really is. The Greens realise that the environment and social change are both important. For ‘one’ and all.
Well Madeleine what was the repression of your voice exactly, apart from others stating views opposed to yours. You need to ask whether you should not take opposition for what it is. I and my wife strongly disagree with you on same sex marriage, although we are in a happy heterosexual marriage, and this the view of many like us – most of the 72% who voted “Yes”, in fact. There has this repressed you? Or do you simply recognise that I strongly disagree with you on this and other issues, especially racism. Once again, my wife and I hate racism. We can see what harm it has done over the years. I am puzzled why you don’t seem to register that harm and oppose people who want more of it. I could, just on this ground, never vote for ON or FA (this could but does not mean F…All). There: once again very strong disagreement. Were you repressed? Now, think about the minorities that are vulnerable to the support you give to people who will not just disagree with them but try to expel them from this country or leave them as outcasts in their own lands. Do you think you might have repressed them, if only by making their oppressors stronger than they were?
Thank you for pointing out the issues with Vic Forests though. I think you will find that many of the problems in this industry are historical. (for example, have a look at who the Hamer government had as head of national parks in Victoria back in the 1970s). The timber industry are well connected. Another example of the Australian environment being considered a resource to be destroyed for the profit of a few.
Methinks thou handle the truth carelessly madeleine, I doubt if you have ever voted labor and sound like a typical one nation voter, labor lost the unlosable election because they did not research their own policies and therefore did not articulate them clearly, scomo never won, labor lost, but much like keating in 1993 the tables will turn in 2022 simply because scomos government is leading us into a deep and dark recession, so enjoy the fruits of your efforts in helping inflict this disater on the rest of us, so enjoy your recession, you`ve earned it.
Madeleine, as an Aussie Muslim I can understand your concerns which are well expressed. However I don’t understand how you could vote PHON and Anning ahead of the established parties even as a protest. Yes it’s true that some of the established parties have paved the way for PHON and their ilk by their dog-whistling but Hanson’s whole schtick is scapegoating and demonizing Aboriginal, Asian and Muslim Australians. At the height of the Coalition government’s shouting at Muslims some years ago I landed in a neighbouring country to visit old friends. I was shocked, as an Australian who loves Australia and will always call it home, to find that I landed in that foreign country with a feeling of relief to be away from all that in a place where it was “normal” to be Muslim. I’m a retired Aussie worker, the father of sons and daughters who are contributing to Australia in their various ways, the husband of a woman whose Muslim ancestors first set foot on land that is now called Australia back in the 1830s. This is my only homeland. It’s my children’s and granchildren’s only homeland. The stepfather of two of my grandchildren is an Aboriginal Australian and a wonderful young citizen. The Hansons and Annings of this world have no business “othering” us and our fellow citizens should not support them against the very imperfect alternatives of the Libnats and Labor.
Thank you Rais. Madelaine Love claims to be a ‘leftie’ from way back, but I doubt this very much as social justice has always been strong on the left side of politics. She then goes on to say she put Anning and Hanson ahead of Labor. This is not something any left thinking person would ever do. So I wouldn’t give her comments any credit. Perhaps if she told us who the voluntary grassroots movement she has been working for is? No left winger would give oxygen to Anning or Howard. She is a fraud.
Left wing, right wing, both sides clearly miss the point. Both have horrible histories full of murder and human suffering, and both claim the moral high ground. Either one is a disaster full of lethal good intentions. No left winger should be given oxygen more like it, nor any right winger either. If you identify with either label you ARE the problem.
Interested freeloader, I am not the problem. I did not divide politics into ‘left;’ and ‘right’. Nor do my opinions fit neatly into any box. That aside, I think you will find that it is the extreme right in Australia CURRENTLY is feeding the likes of Anning and Hanson. THIS IS THE PROBLEM. Historically you may be correct but we are talking about what happened last week. Not last century. Your reply clearly indicates that all current political discourse, and all voters are the problem as the left, right label is well entrenched in the political language of this country. This may be true. Social media is undermining the democratic process and governments seem unable to control the effects of this. The debate is becoming increasingly hostile and divided along political, religious and social lines. Extremists will always win when chaos abounds.
Penny,
“claims”
I grew up in the ALP. We had the entire branch around for Sunday lunch for years. My father stood in State Elections when Clyde Holding was leading the ALP. He was union treasurer of the Victorian Secondary Teacher’s Association for years. I went to school wearing “It’s Time” and “Smash Apartheid” t-shirts.
I was shocked when Bob Hawke said “we have to look after business”. I got disappointed in the ALP when they stopped fighting for indigeneous issues, and the apology. I moved left to the Greens.
In 2007 I stood for the senate for the micro political party “What Women Want (Australia)” – a party founded by independent midwives that had very left issues. NB: In this party I faithfully represented Same Sex Marriage. In hindsight I think this party was probably supported as a feeder for Greens and ALP.
After the election I wanted to do something helpful for ‘the people’. I saw people dealing with the family courts in the most trouble. I would’ve done something there but I knew nothing of law. With a science background I thought I could do something on GM food and crops – this story is elsewhere. I joined as a volunteer researcher with the grassroots group MADGE Australia. See press releases to 2011 at madge dot org dot au.
“She is a fraud.” Would it be wrong to suggest that you are used to looking like an idiot?
Hi Rais, Thanks for your calm and kind reply.
Every party has elements to their policies that look abhorrent to individual voters, that from year to year become more or less important in a voting decision. No party universally pleases me. I suppose I’d just have to say that at this election I uncharacteristically put these right wing parties ahead of labor because, of all the issues, I thought the repression of speech, the end of listening, responding and representing, expected obedience to another’s values, the use of mainstream media to disparage and silence, was most dangerous. I voted in protest to support those who had been brutally disparaged, like me, in the SSM debate.
I interpret that you place racism as an absolute ‘no’ for a party. Who wouldn’t? I see the ALP and LNP weakness in joining in with the US to kill 100’s of 1000’s of people on first strike, for oil, or to repay debts, leading to mass exodus of people from their home countries as another abhorrent, and THE root cause of this new racial/religious instability here. I saw through wikileaks such a large number of ALP politicians/operatives crawling to the US embassies for advancement, as informants or as US plants. Bill Shorten was one of them.
Pauline Hanson might be described as a dog whistler… but it’s been said that dogs without strong masters form packs, if you accept that it’s ok to call an Australian a dog. I’m hearing there’s been too much change in the social environment, too quickly, for people in particular areas. As much as the narrative might go ‘we’re all humans, all the same’ – not in the sensory elements. People hungry and dependent on their usual social stability feel unbalanced in streets full of people who look and smell and sound different. People, values, tribes… Australia was full of indigenous tribes, and they fought. The people who profit from immigration – property owners, property developers, the building industry – seem to be suffering an addiction.
I have no words for the experience of a large percentage of indigenous Australians, nor any non-indig Australians, similarly stuck in a cycle of poverty and abuse. No party has found the key or resources to solve that. I’d support looking after the mothers and babies – good food and safe place through pregnancy and after, and a natural environment to live in, clean water to drink and swim in. Some one’s probably tried that.
“people hungry and dependent on their usual social stability feel unbalanced in streets full of people who look and smell and sound different. People, values, tribes…” your quote. Your problem. Not everyone feels xenophobia. Anning and co are looking for this who do. And you voted for them.Your claim of being a leftie Madelaine was invalid the moment you voted for PHON and Anning. Its very easy to understand why I challenged your claim of being a leftie. What you meant was ‘I used to be a leftie’. That is the point I am making. You say you moved to the Greens, I have been involved since they first started in Australia and social justice was always on their platform. So not sure why you stopped voting green when you say you care about racism, the environment etc.
Your passive aggressive response: “Would it be wrong to suggest that you are used to looking like an idiot?”
And then “Australia was full of indigenous tribes, and they fought.”
I think it might be you looking a bit foolish here.
Before we continue, who are you Penny? What’s your full name?
I’m fully exposed in this discussion and I want to see your comittment to it.
I am wary of giving my name. I have already been threatened by trolls once on this crikey site, so I consider it too dangerous. I appreciate the work you do to expose Monsanto and the danger of GM crops, but your other comments are alarming and with the rise of facism in Australia and after what happened in Christchurch, I no longer feel safe on forums such as this. I am committed to this conversation, but ask that you understand that as a potential target of extremists, and having already been threatened once on this website, I cannot give you my full name until such time as I can be guaranteed that I am safe. We are living in dangerous times, and I have a child to protect as well. I am prepared to let you know privately however, so you can be assured that you are talking to a real person.
“I had a strong “No” position on changing the marriage definition. Through this debate I had been very disturbed by the totalitarian repression of speech.”
That’s such a sad story Madeleine. Apparently you weren’t around to read the anti free speech pogroms of The Australian and the Daily Tele against anyone who offered a dissenting opinion to theirs, Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and the rest can be added in there.
The pile-ons you saw were the lemon next the pie compared to what I witnessed, and yet I didn’t sacrifice the environment for a get square vote.
I suspect yours might be a common scenario, it’s just that the trigger for what one decides is repression of free speech will be different for every voter.
I wonder what you would have thought was a reasonable response to Anning’s hate filled bigotry?
Silence? You seem to be suggesting that. History is full of examples of what happens when good people remain silent.
That line was so absurd. Both sides got plenty of representation throughout, despite how popular changing the Marriage Act was. The public went through the whole song and dance for these folks who couldn’t let go of their prohibition on SSM. Then one of them comes in here and cries “totalitarians!”
Kindly bugger off, Madeline. I’m sorry Democracy didn’t work out for you and people voted ‘the wrong way’. Those authoritarian civilians and their tyranny over the political class.
“the trigger…will be different…”
Yes. It was my turn to be silenced.
So weird to be ‘liking’ Devine’s, Bolt’s and Bernadi’s tweets.
Having experienced that, I was more alert to subsequent pile-ons, and protective of the repressed.
Re: “I wonder what you would have thought was a reasonable response to Anning’s hate filled bigotry?”
I would’ve expected the federal parliament to first own its culpability for Islamic fear in the community rather than deflect it onto a fringe senator with low media power. So, after their full and frank apology for their role since the 2001 World Trade Tower incident in ramping up Islamic fear to support their participation in destroying Islamic countries, what do I think they should then say to the statement by Fraser Anning, spawn of their violent actions?
Processing…
“Yes. It was my turn to be silenced.” Several people have responded to you in this thread Madeleine but none has silenced you. There is no legal right of free speech in Australia but fortunately most Australians more or less support the principle of free speech. In a forum like this one Crikey readers express opinions and other readers respond, sometimes with vigour and passion. Even an angry response is not an act of silencing. If I express an opinion and someone responds with an opposite opinion or even a reproach that’s not silencing. Expecting to express an opinion and other people who disagree not to respond is, by implication, wanting to apply silencing.
Congratulations Madeline on a considered and eloquently-expressed position. Your analysis of environmental issues is accurate; and the Greens are no use there, having “progressed” to social engineering.
To genetic engineering as an environmental/health issue, we can add:
. the massive use of nanoparticles in food and products without sufficient safety testing; and
. incoming 4G cellular technology, also without valid safety testing.
The climate change religion is a distraction from things that matter much more to the future of humanity. Warming should be tackled in ways advocated by Bjorn Lomberg among others.
Other than opposing warmists as misguided and hypocritical fundamentalists who cling to their dogma for need of a comfort blanket, I placed the Greens last and Labor 2nd last in the Reps because of their stridently and incorrectly assumed superiority on social issues – they are causing more harm to vulnerable youth than are the fading religious beliefs they criticise.
Agreed on a republic, where the ultimate horror would have been Bill’s mummy-in-law as our first president. Gulp! But of course a republic will never get up in a referendum, for the same reasons as last time around with a big one one being Australians understand that our politicians will never offer a model where the political class cedes control of the presidential appointment process to the great unwashed.
I can understand your replier Rais’s feelings as a Muslim Australian. Western politics on Islam and Muslims unfortunately are driven by a century of lies in the Middle East, continuing currently in Syria where the US (with the aid of their vassals including us) created and supported terrorist forces in an effort to bring down an elected government. Just like they supported the overthrow of Syria’s first elected government in 1949, and Iran’s in 1953. I can’t see an answer on this, but the local climate(!) is made worse by the divisive approach of the left and the mainstream leftist media – ABC, the old Fairfax – who seem to prefer virtue signalling to genuine efforts to soothe troubled waters.
Thanks Madeline for your contribution and I wish you best of luck in your efforts on the environment.
Thank you for piercing the substantial and well fortified Crikey echo chamber Madeleine!
Hear hear, Isaac – I second that! Very brave of Madeleine.
The righteous left manage to hold forth on this topic without demonstrating a skerrick of understanding as to possible concerns over the global cult of Islamism. It’s little wonder that the vilification heaped on anyone raising such concerns directly results in the growth of the far right movement. We’re seeing it in Europe, now we’re seeing it here.
That said, I accept that one has to choose words carefully to avoid raising the temperature. The victimisation of innocent Muslims in our community (especially women) is an ugly by-product of the wrong tone of discourse. And anyway, I find Hanson’s views on indigenous issues to be ignorant and offensive. On that alone I could never vote for her but it doesn’t change my views on the wrong-headedness of the scolding, righteous left and the unintended consequences of their censoriousness.
People are right to be wary of extreme religious dogma, of all faiths. We need less of it, not more.
Hence the fear of the religion called Islam as it is very much in the public’s face at the moment and the region’s of the world where it is practiced are places nobody wants to live in. So I feel that even though they’re lovely people who’d give you the shirt of their backs probably, it’s not unreasonable to want less religious fanatics of any stripe in your community.
Scott Morrison is a religious extremist. Have a look at the beliefs of his church. It is exclusive. Only followers of his church will be spared the rapture and the rest of us will go to hell. This is what he says he believes in. And every Sunday he goes to worship his ‘god’. How do we get rid of extremists in our government when most Australians dont yet realise that this new religion is not the christianity they know? There are 260,000 followers of this cult in Australia. This is my immediate concern.
Scott Morrison’s cult membership is indeed a valid cause for concern and should have come under far closer scrutiny during the election campaign.
Do you think that racist people love their white pets more than their black/brown ones, if not, then why dont they adopt the same love for the different colours in humanity, just thought I`d ask, maybe pauline can help me. on second thought, she probably does`nt like animals, yeah, thats right, she wants more guns allowed into the country to shoot them does`nt she.
This entire article is based on the premise that the One Nation vote rose substantially in QLD, but neglected to point out that ON candidates only ran in 12/30 Qld seats last time, and this time they ran in 29/30. That’s the main reason their vote increased. I think it’s important to write and discuss the rise of the insidious far right but you can’t base it on faulty psephological analysis.
Good point Qld contributor. On that basis alone you might expect the PHON vote to more than double.
Also, in general, there is perhaps a bit too much emphasis on Qld. Huge swings to be sure, but Labor lost only 2 seats there. The election seems to have been lost evenly across the nation. Taking immediately prior expectations as the base line, Victoria was as responsible as Qld – weren’t Labor hoping/expecting to hold the line in Qld and gain up to 4 seats in Vic?
Mind you, Crikey contributor Madeleine Love placing PHON ahead of Labor is a very interesting and significant straw in the wind.
For those of us on the pointy end of PHON’s aggressive bigotry it’s not just “interesting” it’s dismaying and somewhat incomprehensible. If you shout at and abuse a group of people for long enough, if you encourage anger and violence against them through demonisation, the kind of atrocity that was visited upon Christchurch becomes almost inevitable. You may have heard some comments on the Christchurch attacks along the lines that “I was shocked but not surprised.” Do we want more of this in Australia or don’t we?
“For those of us on the pointy end … it’s not just “interesting” it’s dismaying and somewhat incomprehensible”
I take your point, Rais. It is all very well for person of my background (agnostic ex-Anglican, UK ancestors in Australia since five generations back) to affect a quasi-sociological detachment about it in the interests of civility and inclusive discussion.
I too can’t get my head around such a decision, from anyone really, let alone a person with her other expressed views. She appears to think we can discount PHON incitements of Islamophobia because the worse culprits are the major parties with their foreign policy decisions and rhetoric, as a result of which, outrages such as Christchurch are “no wonder”. She is not worried by PHON policies such as guns because there will be “enough moderate senators” to keep them in check – presumably these “moderates” will hail from the same parties who are supposed to be worse culprits when it comes to Islamophobia.
However, she has preferenced PHON over Labor in the senate, and she is telling us why she did it. I want to hear about this. I think she is being very well cross-examined without my contribution. I also take heart from “Thanks for your calm and kind reply.”
By the way, I take a sentimental pride in the five generations who have preceded me on this continent, the first in 1841 – I note your wife outdoes me in this regard. How lamentable that anyone at all should be “othered”, how utterly absurd that a family such as yours should feel that possibility from Australian politicians, and how sad that someone with Madeleine Love’s background should preference such politicians over Australia’s social-democrat-labour party. Sad, needing examination, needing attention, needing discussion … but OK, rather more and quite other than merely “interesting”.
“Incomprehensible”? Really, Rais?
Simply put, it’s fear. Fear of aspects of Islamic culture that we don’t associate with other social groupings.
Itemising the concerns that people have would only raise the temperature of the debate. Besides, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that Muslims have many varied and justifiable reasons for likewise harbouring fear and resentment towards westerners. But anyway, that’s why PHON’s message resonates with some voters: fear.
If you read Madeleine’s reasoning in this thread fear doesn’t come into it. Politicians, however, weaponise fear. Our PM shouting about rapists and murderers running rampant in our communities if sick refugees from Nauru and Manus are allowed to come here for treatment; Hanson and others like her trying to ramp up fear and hatred; Palmer shouting about China invading us through a small mining airfield in the desert. If the “safety” of our community, which the PM has again emphasised since the election, were a priority the very last thing they would do is seek to weaponise fear.
Fabrication and exaggeration are unhelpful and counter-productive, I agree. They’re also superfluous when the actual story is alarming enough. But to shame anyone attempting to name the problem as a ‘dog-whistler’ isn’t helpful either. I’m now referring specifically to the wave of hijackings and home invasions by groups of mostly Australian-born (so they appear as such in the crime stats) young men from a cultural background that is totally alien to most Australians’ way of life. The fact that some see a reference to “gangs” as more offensive than the terror unleashed in the committing of these crimes is just one of many reasons voters turned away from Labor last week.
The Mainstream media, in conspiracy with the Coalition, is responsible for the upsurge in extreme Right voters. Goebbels would have considered Murdoch a soulmate and Murdoch’s journalist lickspittles as fellow travelers. The Coalition have a distinct whiff of the Brownshirts about them, particularly with their covert derogatory treatment of Australians who are not Christians.