The success of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is dominating conservative thinking in Australia. Some see Gerard Rennick as the leader of such a movement, but with his pending defeat by One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts in the Senate, Rennick has been unable to do what Pauline Hanson did after she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party in 1996.
If there is any chance of a Reform Oz party, it would be via One Nation, but it couldn’t do so with the moniker ‘Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’.
Like the Liberal Party was to Menzies, One Nation must be distinct from its founder. That’s not a bad thing.
I will never forget Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech. I remember listening to the ABC’s coverage of Parliament while I was studying for my undergraduate degree in political science. She was an anti-Woke crusader before I even knew what that was.
I also remember the 1998 election when I was in the electorate of Dickson fighting against former Democrats’ leader and cranky Labor candidate, Cheryl Kernot. I helped the enthusiastic One Nation team by showing them how to scrutineer. They’d spent the day driving around the booths of Dickson in a tiny Suzuki 4WD dragging around an Australian flag twice the size of the car. Otherwise, they had no idea what to do at the time.
I will also never forget that Pauline Hanson was Australia’s first political prisoner. Rennick will need another 30 years to be in the same class as Senator Hanson, but we don’t have that long to wait. Conservatives can win, but now they have been abandoned by the conservative major parties, it is time to get a move on.
The major problem with One Nation is its moniker. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) is great for a minor party. But if it wants to become a major party, which it can and in my view should, then it needs to look at a succession plan that is more than just Senator Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson, who at this stage looks unable to dislodge Jacquie Lambie from her Tasmanian Senate seat.
If we look at all the conservative minor parties, except perhaps the Libertarians (although in my view they were first movers in capitalising on the dissatisfaction with the conservative majors but have managed to do nothing much else since), they are all named parties: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Jacqui Lambie Network, Katter’s Australian Party, Nick Xenophon Team, Gerard Rennick’s People First, and Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots Party.
Each of these are based on personalities but only One Nation has longevity. And while One Nation was certainly founded by Pauline Hanson, Sir Robert Menzies’ Liberal Party outlasted its founder’s retirement by some 60 years.
Will Pauline Hanson’s One Nation become One Nation and pick up where the Coalition parties have abandoned their followers and become the Uniparty by being Labor-lite?
I hope so, but there is much work to do.
As a member of Gen X, I believe that nobody gives a toss about your feelings. Ante up and look after yourself like everybody else. I agree with a recent reader’s comments about the state of political affairs stemming from woke Coalition politicians:
‘Hurty feelings don’t win elections.’
As I contemplate our future under a Labor government that wants us to keep working until we die unless we are on the NDIS or we are one of the 13 per cent of people who are members of a union, I take solace in the thought that Sir Robert Menzies had to create a new party after the United Australia Party lost its way.
If we are ever to have a Reform Oz movement in Australia, it won’t come from the Coalition. Nor will it come from Rennick or the Libertarians.
If there was ever a party that could achieve what Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is doing over there, then it would be Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
It’s not how I wanted things to be, but as the Coalition continues to ignore the people who have sweated blood for them over the years, then it is time for a huge change.
Loyalty works both ways. If you value loyalty, the organisation you give your loyalty to must return the favour. If it doesn’t and you keep doing what you do, then you don’t value loyalty at all.
Whether One Nation can attain such a momentous transformation remains to be seen. In the meantime, it is becoming entirely clear that the Coalition doesn’t give a toss, so its conservative followers might think twice about where their loyalties lie.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is The Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. All opinions in this article are the author’s own.
