The Pauline Hanson One Nation (PHON) party’s victory in the federal seat of Farrer by-election is an advance for racist, anti-immigrant and right-wing politics.
This is the first time PHON has won a seat in the House of Representatives since it formed in 1997, after Hanson won the seat of Oxley in 1996 as an independent.
Since then, the major parties have adopted parts of PHON’s racist anti-immigrant policies, helping “mainstream” these ideas. PHON capitalised on widespread dissatisfaction with the major parties in the March 21 South Australian election, winning seven MPs.
Progressives cannot be complacent. If PHON’s momentum fcontinues on to the November 28 election in Victoria and the March 2027 New South Wales election, it will reshape politics in a dangerous way.
PHON MP David Farley, a corporate farmer, agricultural investor and former National Party member, campaigned on an anti-establishment and explicitly racist platform of “We want the country back. We want our culture back”.
Farley won 39.5% of the vote, receiving a +33% swing. Independent Michelle Milthorpe won 28.4% (+8.2%), and the incumbent Liberals received just 12.4% — a swing of -31%. Labor did not run a candidate.
Farley tapped into widespread dissatisfaction with the Murray-Darling Basin water buy-back scheme arguing, disingenuously, that water should be a “sovereign asset”, rather than an “environmental asset”. He called for Australia to withdraw from international water treaties, including the Ramsar Convention.
The Liberal Party directed second preferences to PHON, while the Nationals directed theirs to PHON through a more circuitous route.
PHON paints itself as being an anti-establishment party that represents “battlers”, despite it doing the bidding of the ruling class. Farley, a former CEO of one of Australia’s biggest cattle enterprises in northern Australia, epitomises conservative establishment politics.
It is no secret that arch-conservative Gina Rinehart of Hancock Prospecting is a big influence, having donated millions to the party, including a private jet.
The Farrer by-election demonstrates that not only are the two major parties losing support from working people, the ruling class is looking around for the best vehicle to push its neoliberal agenda forward.
This is why the apparent surge towards PHON represents a big danger. Its anti-immigration policies, alongside Islamophobia and refusal to acknowledge First Nations peoples’ unceded sovereignty, will help normalise racism. It will contribute to more racial vilification of Muslims and people of colour.
We saw this in the big March for Australia protests last year, which brought hardened racists and the far right together around opposition to “mass immigration”.
The growing electoral support for PHON is a consequence of the broader crisis of capitalism.
The traditional capitalist parties are unwilling to address the causes of the decline in living standards and face a collapse in support. Australia is not immune to these international trends; there has been a steady decline of people voting for the major parties.
PHON has tapped into people’s alienation from politics, after decades of neoliberalism and the decline of the trade union movement. But how long its tactic of trading on the politics of resentment lasts depends, in part, on the ability of progressives to promote practical policies and politics that highlight the establishment parties’ hypocrisy.
The Socialist Alliance (SA) has long argued that immigration is not to blame for the housing crisis. We say supply is only one part of the solution and that building public housing now would have the biggest positive impact on affordable housing.
This was the thinking of Labor governments after World War II — and it makes sense to revisit those policies now.
The SA believes that racism can only be countered by education, truth-telling and standing with those communities under attack.
We have marched alongside Palestinians demanding justice for two and half years and will continue to mobilise against Islamophobia, antisemitism and against racism towards First Nations peoples.
However, without a concerted plan to counter this PHON-inspired resurgence of racism, both within the union movement and more broadly, it will be hard to counter.
Running progressive candidates will not be enough, given that the two major parties have helped normalise PHON’s positions.
The ruling class’ push for more militarism, war and genocide can only be countered by tackling racism here. That means looking for openings to build the anti-war movement to force Labor to stop supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the illegal wars in Iran and Lebanon.
PHON’s political ascendency is not a given. As the recent British Greens’ council election results show, working class communities embraced progressive anti-capitalist politics.
However, winning a hearing among disaffected working-class communities, including in rural areas such as Farrer, is going to take a concerted effort and a high level of organisation.
If you want to join the fight against racism and help workers develop solidarity with each other, get in touch with the Socialist Alliance.
[Jacob Andrewartha, a national co-convenor of Socialist Alliance, is running for the seat of Pascoe Vale in the Victorian elections. Sue Bolton is a long-term SA councillor in Merri-bek City Council, is running in Broadmeadows.]