One Nation: 'A challenge we must rise to'

June 24, 1998
Issue 

By Arun Pradhan

MELBOURNE — The One Nation party here is attempting to step up its activity and profile. New state convener Robyn Spencer is well qualified for the job, with over a decade's experience campaigning against migrants in the group Australians Against Further Immigration.

Spencer claims that 15 Victorian One Nation branches and candidates are ready for the next elections.

Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett has been quoted as being prepared to stay in politics longer than planned in order to "chase One Nation and its current philosophy down every burrow". Government ministers have written to the Age defending multiculturalism and citing Victorian business initiatives that look only at the colour of people's money, not of their skins.

Maurice Sibelle, a Democratic Socialist candidate in the upcoming federal elections, commented on the contradiction. "The Coalition used One Nation in the early part of its term", Sibelle told Green Left Weekly.

"The Liberal-aided rise of Hanson shifted the political spectrum to the right and allowed the government to kick new migrants off welfare, cut the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and launch an offensive against Aboriginal people."

Sibelle, who helped to organise large anti-Hanson demonstrations last year as a spokesperson for Campaign Against Racism, saw the One Nation "breakthrough" in Queensland as a reflection of the bankruptcy of parliamentary politics.

Arguing that many people identify Liberal and Labor as two sides of the same coin, Sibelle said that it was disappointing that the solution many have looked to does nothing but further divisions amongst working people through racist misinformation. "However, the popular support for One Nation policies like increasing corporate tax and stopping privatisation shows that people realise that radical solutions are required."

Sibelle argued that this new phenomenon raised a clear choice. "The challenge is for anyone who calls themselves progressive to be a part of a radical left alternative to undercut both Hanson's racism and the existing parties' economic rationalism.

"Now is an opportunity to popularise left demands that can help unite working people, migrants, women and Aborigines. It is a big challenge, but one that we must rise to."

Sibelle explained that the Democratic Socialists are organising a broad campaign to fight One Nation's politics and popularise a real option that would help shift the political agenda to the left. Their first initiative was a suburban street rally on June 20, in which supporters of Resistance and the Democratic Socialists marched through Coburg and Brunswick. More than one hundred people gathered at Brunswick Town Hall, then marched up Sydney Road behind a huge banner that read, "Fight Hanson's Racism, Blame Labor and Liberal, not Migrants and Aborigines".

Democratic Socialist Party Melbourne secretary Jorge Jorquera said that the rally would be followed by similar actions in other migrant communities. "It's not enough to ignore Hanson and hope she'll go away. We have to build an active, campaigning opposition to her racist nationalism. We have to put forward socialist solutions to unemployment and poverty."

As well as a range of campaigning stalls and street spruiking, there are plans for a public meeting on June 30 entitled "Alternatives to Hanson's racist nationalism". To get involved and find out more call the Resistance Centre on 9329 1320.

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