Pauline Hanson’s podcast interview with far-right British figure Tommy Robinson has cleared up any ambiguity about the meaning her One Nations party’s call for a “monocultural” Australia.
She means a return to the notorious, racist White Australia policy, which was formally ended by the Gough Whitlam Labor government in the 1970s.
In her interview with Robinson, Hanson said that Australia’s “migration issues” started when Whitlam “opened up and got rid of the White Australia policy” and “they started bringing in the different migrants”.
“We had a lot of people come out after the second world war, Italians, Germans, Polish, and these people, but they integrated into the system. A lot of them couldn’t speak English but they learned to speak English. They had to work. These people who came in and really assimilated.”
Hanson made the false claim that, in contrast to these European immigrants, migrants from Muslim backgrounds came to Australia to rip off the welfare system and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
This podcast with Robinson, who has been convicted of fraud, assault and contempt of court and is considered a thug even by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, bare the real nature of One Nation’s call for monoculturalism: It is a call for a return to the white White Australia Policy.
Australia never had one culture or one ethnicity under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 in effect from 1901 to 1973, but it was based on white supremacy.
The right-wing attacks on “multiculturalism” began long before Hanson entered politics. Federal Opposition leader John Howard called for “multiculturalism” to be abolished when he launched his “One Australia” policy in 1988 in a speech to Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils.
This formed part of Howard’s campaign to re-legitimise racism by dividing older Europeans from Asian, Middle Eastern and African migrant communities. The Coalition has, since then, used attacks on “multiculturalism” as a racist dog whistle.
Now Hanson has made it clear just what these attacks are about. While she was spending time with Robinson and other far-right figures in Britain, Barnaby Joyce, Formerly from the Nationals was left to explain what One Nation’s call for “monoculturalism” meant.
“I don’t believe in multiculturalism either, so let’s be really clear about that,” Joyce said, before claiming that it licensed Muslim extremists to do things that are against “Australian values”.
Joyce has denied that One Nation wanted to end all Muslim immigration or that it wants a return to the White Australia policy. However his party’s policy is to “refuse entry to migrants from nations known to foster extremist ideologies that are incompatible with Australian values and way of life” and to withdraw from the United Nations Refugee Convention “because Australia will not be dictated to by foreign organisations”.
Many of One Nation’s racist and Islamophobic positions have increasingly become part of the policies the Coalition and Labor adopts when in government.
Australian governments — Labor and Coalition — have led the Western world in the implementation of cruel, discriminatory and inhumane policies against refugees and asylum seekers for decades. They have ignored their obligations under the UN Refugee Convention and promoted racism under the guise of “Australian values”.
The idea that there is a set of “Australian values” has always been a lie. This is a deeply class-divided society for a start and there is no “fair go” because of how the billionaire class and the giant multinational corporations continue to ruthlessly exploit people and nature.
Violent racism is the lived experience of all First Nations people and many non-Europeans (especially those perceived to be of Muslim background), trampling the ideal of “mate ship”.
By aligning herself with racist thugs such as Robinson, Hanson may have punctured One Nation’s rise in the polls and sent her dream of becoming prime minister down in flames.
Many people have recoiled in horror at the images of racist thugs on the rampage in Britain and Northern Ireland. They can see for themselves the ugly racism of the right-wing trolls that now infest social media.
The differences between the hardcore racist element and the softer sections of more recent One Nation support may blow it apart. However, toxic and divisive racism will continue to fester under the major parties’ policies.
Sections of the billionaire class, including Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, may have chosen to boost the second rise of One Nation in a bid to secure, or deepen, the bi-partisan commitment of Labor and the Coalition to their racist policies. They may be looking to see if by growing the sort of far-right populism that has fabulously enriched Trump’s billionaire buddies they can gain something for themselves. They don’t care about the social costs.
Socialist Alliance is committed to exposing Hanson and One Nation’s toxic lies that help further the interests of big business and the billionaire class. We will help build the broadest possible independent mass movement against racism, as well as campaign for real solutions to the economic, social and environmental crises.
[Peter Boyle is a member of the Socialist Alliance National Executive.]