One Nation now speaks for a generation politics ignored
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natemanos
artsrc [OP]
Is it economics?
As a media phenomenon I see the rise of One Nation as an echo or shock wave from the media attention to Trump and Maga. Some Australian see Trump, Maga and like it. One Nation wear Maga hats so you know they are playing up to it.
Although I agree that neoliberal economics, and mainstream economics in general is a dismal failure, I am not convinced that is the issue for One Nation voters.
Although I posted it, I am not convinced with the evidence, unstated the political science of the article, that the failures of neoliberal economics are the cause of the rise of One Nation.
I do agree with this part, One Nation voters believe:
something has gone badly wrong, and that somebody is responsible for it.
The question is: Which things which have gone wrong? What are they upset about?
I see the rise of One Nation as part of the global move to the populist right, not a response to peculiar Australian economic circumstances.
And there are social as well as economic issues, end of the white Australia policy, indigenous rights, multiculturalism, environmentalism, abortion rights, rights for women in general, taxes on cigarettes, rights for gays, rise of other religions, etc. that One Nation voters may feel have gone wrong.
RecipeSpecialist2745
Nailed it, it's MAGA Australia 2.0. Populism just manipulates as Bernays taught them to do. Trump hasn't solved problems, he has just created more. He is now just distracting from the problems he said he would fix and hasn't. As well as running away from questions about a 13-year-old.
Forsaken_Alps_793
The question is: Which things which have gone wrong? What are they upset about?
My answer, people had been conditioned or shielded, or ignored that reality is "messy, risky or have high degree of uncertainty or shocks".
Perfect examples:
- When is the last time we have a recession?
- Would everyone be so ignorant enough to believe of Rob Lowe's faux pax prediction.
- Our oil reserve - we can blame the politician but we did not hold them accountable, repeatedly [*]
- Believing economic models have some kind of magical super predictive power AND called it "scientific" [AFR and ABC used to do this, ALOT!!!].
- Complaining OCR 4% is high vs 1990's 12%
Because of it everyone fools themselves [myself included] to operate on "JIT with no buffer principles",
No "margin of safety".
Living pay check to pay check, or assuming cash flow stream is predictable.
No regards to Risk Management.
Nassim Taleb labelled this as living in Mediocristan vs Extremistan [**][***]
Now that delusion is broken, they are looking someone to blame, - a simple fix - believing removing it will solve the problem - so the can go back to the "false" certainty but unrealistic world.
Best example of this is the self reliance concept. There is an oil shock therefore we must produce our own without indepth analysis.
This is like saying "every time i step out the door, I have a small chance to get rob, get into an accident, hit by a car. So when that small chance do happen, I will say - stuff it, From now on I am not go out. I will grow my own vegetables, I will make my own furniture so that I don't have to deal with the big bad world!"
If that play out on a personal level, would that asinine or not?
Yet it is being played out.
And the "absolutely" sad part is that "the silence of any op-ed or thread" talking about "what opportunity this event presenting to us, such that we can exploit it" [****]. That silence is deafening [*****],
As Parkinson Law of Triviality pointed out, people willing to discuss more of the bike shed vs atomic reactor because, everyone can visualized the former not the later.
Scapegoating is easier than the actual structural fix no?
EDIT: sound familiar - it is just GFC in different form.
* and we celebrated the pork barrelling that would otherwise can be earmarked to top up the oil reserve.
** might explain why productivity is stagnating.
*** Probability, Risk, and Extreme - FAT TAILS STATISTICAL PROJECT
**** US is looking to stockpile metal that is being depleted - something we can be "cutting deals" [homage to Richard Holden of AFR].
***** Dynamism and productivity matter, no?
sien
Why now though?
You could probably guess that I might post this one :
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/
So, say 10-15% of Australians voted for One Nation or some Palmer thing.
So it's gone up recently, after the year where house prices shot up in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
That Libs are in a mess and so people are looking at housing affordability and immigration and have started shifting votes.
There is also what happened in December.
craftymethod
"we want nazi's to exist"
'fuck off' /australia
tempco
The article’s timeline of events and impacted voters doesn’t seem to line up. “Middle-aged workers” impacted by closures of Ford, Holden and other blue collar industries aren’t the ones who bought houses in the last 10-15 years when prices were at eye-wateringly high levels. These older workers should be towards the tail end of their mortgages paying down their principal and would be less impacted by higher interest rates.
I personally focus on economics, not politics, and I've largely been highlighting the same economic issue.
The issue post-GFC is not only that Australia's average GDP growth declined, but also the way it achieved that growth, with a higher share coming from housing and housing-related services. Wages largely stagnated. This isn't just Australia; it's a global thing, and because we don't admit that what actually happened was way worse and is quantifiable as a depression (loss of previous growth potential and long-term structural change). People don't understand what's happened, but they feel the change societally. Anger festers, and it usually gets directed in incorrect ways, where the pendulum swings in opposite directions.
FDR in the 1930s, with the New Deal, was considered a radical of that time. Even FDR himself was more fiscally conservative. While I personally don't think he and the New Deal fixed the issues, radical change occurs because, to the population, staying the course seems worse. The hard part for those in power refusing to change is that they aren't willing to amputate a limb to save the body. The hard part is to break the fourth wall and be honest with the public, even though people largely recognise the facade.
artsrc [OP] 4 points · Mar 2026
The article focuses on economics too, which is why I think it is wrong.
I don't think the rise of One Nation is an economic phenomenon. One Nation popularity did not rise when those car factories closed. It did not rise when those refineries closed. It rose when they attached themselves to the Trump media juganaut.
natemanos 2 points · Mar 2026
While I may not necessarily disagree with that in itself, I guess my point is that the economic issues don't help the situation. The reason it doesn't happen immediately is that people don't recognise the slow decline as it occurs. In many ways, cars not being manufactured in Australia didn't seem bad because Japanese and Korean cars were cheaper, and the trade-offs didn't become recognised until afterwards. Now, as globalisation has gone to extremes, with almost everything manufactured globally and some local manufacturing requiring government support, people are starting to recognise it. Still, they also don't fully understand it. Trying to explain trade-offs with everyday people is complex, and many aren't willing to fully listen; they generally turn to oversimplifications instead. But a party recognising a problem even badly is still seen as better than a party choosing to ignore it and pretend it isn't an issue.
sien 2 points · Mar 2026
Why didn't One Nation's popularity go up during the first Trump administration?
Do you think the rise of Reform in the UK is driven by Trump?
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/
The AfD in Germany ?
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/
RN in France ?
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/
Is there any particular event that happened in Australia that seemed to drive One Nation ?
Why isn't there a big popular far right party in Canada ?
Another way to look at it is that it was weird that there wasn't a popular hard right party in Australia until now. Australia was behind France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Spain, the UK and the US.