Fuelling the resurgence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) in multiple opinion polls is the fact that wages have not kept up with spiralling costs of living.
Hanson and other right-wing populists are channelling the resultant growing anger into racist scapegoating of recent migrants from non-European countries.
However, the far right’s response to the June 1 decision the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to raise the minimum wage by 5.97% (from $24.95 to $26.44 per hour) reveals their reluctance to support any measures that will even begin to address the cost-of-living crisis for workers.
Hanson said she opposed any wage rises above the rate of inflation. Then she qualified this, saying she does not “begrudge” the $1.40 pay rise, although she fears that more small businesses may become insolvent.
Trade unions have detailed Hanson’s long record of opposing better wages and conditions and the raising of welfare payments.
Hanson’s hypocrisy is astounding. Apart from enjoying the largesse of Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest billionaire, Hanson received a $100,000 pay rise in March as a result of former National Party MP Barnaby Joyce’s defection to her party.
Rinehart nailed her anti-worker colours to the mast in 2012 when she infamously declared that Australian wages had to compete with African wages of $2 an hour.
In reality, as the FWC admitted, its latest minimum wage rise may not even cover the real wage loss over the past year as a result of inflation. It said award wages will “remain lower than what they were in July 2021 prior to the post-pandemic spike in inflation”.
Right-wing populism is built around a big lie: it defends the very capitalist system that has created — and continues to intensify — the widespread pain and insecurity it seeks to channel into racist scapegoating.
This glaring contradiction revealed itself when the federal Labor government announced its light-touch budget reforms to the three most notorious tax lurks for the rich — negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount and discretionary trusts.
Hanson branded it a “horrible … Marxist, socialist, communist budget”, echoing the Coalition’s howls of outrage.
It shows that while Hanson seeks to differentiate herself from the Liberal and National parties, as well as Labor, PHON is as fully committed to serving the billionaire class as the traditional parties of government.
The right-wing populists’ message that life has got harder for most strikes a chord among many because it is true. The housing affordability crisis is at the heart of this.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has calculated that while home buyers had to borrow roughly three times their annual income in the 1980s, now they have to borrow up to 10 times that amount.
This crisis means that buying a home is out of reach for more workers than ever before.
To reverse that, wages will either have to more than triple or house prices will have to fall by two-thirds.
Would Hanson or any of the other right-wing populists support either of those things (or a combination of significant real wage rises and cuts to house prices)?
Pigs will fly, first.
Will the populists support caps on spiralling rents, or a significant allocation of funds to build public housing? No, they would be squealing about “communist” measures even louder!
All this underlines the fact that Hanson and other right-wing populist politicians have zero solutions to alleviate the economic pain they cynically manipulate.
They have no solutions for the climate emergency and the United States’ endless wars of choice. In fact, they promote policies that will intensify these crises: climate change denial and racist xenophobia.
Sadly, if recent polls are accurate, PHON is now the most popular party. A June 1–4 nationwide Newspoll gave PHON 31% of the primary vote (up four points since the previous Newspoll taken after the May 12 federal budget), Labor 30% (down one), the Coalition 18% (down two), the Greens 11% (down one) and all “Others” 10% (steady).
A week earlier, a Redbridge and YouGov polls showed PHON had taken the primary vote lead from Labor.
To reverse this disturbing trend, the big lie at the heart of right-wing populism has to be exposed.
Green Left is committed to playing its part in this challenge. Our role is all the more important because the big-business media is more discredited than ever before. You can help by getting Green Left more widely read by encouraging friends, family and workmates to become readers and supporters.