The Idealisation Of The Past Is A Never Land
You know a lot of the apparent support for One Nation comes from older white Australians. Pauline Hanson and her campaign machine promote the idea that things were better back in the day. This right wing idealisation of the past, of there being some sort of golden age, is nothing new. Fascists in Hitler’s era promoted the concept of the pure German who lived during a bucolic time of yesteryear. Romanticising the past appeals to older folk especially. Contrasting it with the present and focusing on negative stuff like urban crime and demonising special interest groups plays well with this audience. Hitler and the Nazis attacked the immorality of the Weimar Republic, which won them electoral support from conservate Germans. Pauline Hanson attacks Muslims, refugees and immigrants, as all things bad for Australia. The idealisation of the past is a never land, in that it never really existed the way they say it did.
One Nation & Its Idealised Monoculture
Hanson’s call for a return to a monoculture, as some sort of remediation for multiculturalism, is extraordinary in itself. The One Nation leader has been decrying the dangers of the wrong sort of immigration into Australia for 30 years. First, it was all Asians and, more recently, it is all Muslims. In truth, a hegemonic monoculture has always existed downunder. The Anglo roots of colonialist Australia have long been favoured culturally in a hierarchical sense. Pauline Hanson has spent decades claiming victimhood status for herself and those she supposedly represents. In actual fact, Hanson is now worth millions and boasts backing from billionaires and oligarchs. Her claim to represent the little Aussie battler is a sham, as it is the bosses rather than Australian workers who have benefitted from her parliamentary voting record over the duration. The proof is in the pudding and Pauline’s is a rich one.
White Supremacy & An Idealised Past
I meet quite a few of Ms Hanson’s supporters in my day to day existence. Living in Queensland, in a semi-regional area, this is par for the course. In discussion with a few of them, I invariably here the opening refrain, “I’m not a racist” before they go on to say something like, “why can’t we herd them all (refugees) into the desert?” Or some other racist remark. A lot of Australians really have no idea what racism is! One Nation’s support is strongest in regional areas where very few immigrants actually live. It is easier to believe bad stuff about those you have no real experience of. Thus, the far right demonising of ‘others’ is effective. Blame your woes on foreigners. Blame your troubles on the LGBTQI community. Blame stuff on lazy Indigenous folk. Blame it on the dole bludger, which led to the Robodebt betrayal of 500, 000 Australians by the Coalition federal government. Division and disunity is the name of the game for these right wing hate campaigns.
Aussies Scammed Online
Older Australians are vulnerable to online campaigns as well. Most folk have no real conception of how the internet works, they just use it and consume stuff from it. Too many have a few drinks and go online, this is a very bad idea. Aussies have lost tens of billions to scammers online in the last decade alone. It is not just money, however, being scammed. Social media is an American invention and is largely controlled by US billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Musk and his ilk are busy promoting and funding far right groups around the globe. Uneducated Aussies getting their news from Facebook, X and the like are ripe for disinformation and misinformation. Far right extremists have infected us with Sovereign Citizen bullshit, which has cost the lives of police officers in Victoria. American Chistian cults have likewise poisoned the minds of Australians resulting in more cop killing in Queensland. We do not hear Pauline Hanson referring to these acts of terrorism. The spread of lies and extremist BS via the internet is as a result of the absence of regulation in the US covering digital media. Trump continues this right wing support for further deregulation, so that billionaires can make even more money unhampered by any guardrails. Pauline Hanson has expressed her enthusiastic support of Donald Trump. Indeed, she is modelling her campaign on the Trump way of doing things. Abusing and insulting female journalists, as if she has some right to avoid scrutiny. Hanson and One Nation receive lots of public money and are accountable on that basis alone. Politicians are required to answer questions about their policies and how they go about their business.
Far Right Never Land News
Fox News and Sky News Australia are both Murdoch platforms feeding the far right. Objective news is rarer than Tasmanian tigers in this News Corp realm. Commentators on these platforms frequently attack the ABC for bias. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The ABC is a paragon of objectivity in comparison to what passes for news in this right wing echo chamber. Interestingly, this is another Trump technique, which is to accuse your opposite of the very things you are doing yourself. Wife beaters often do this in domestic violence relationships. Donald Trump never admits failure or responsibility, never apologises, and is always on the attack, accusing the other of his own crimes. The right wing audience for these platforms eats up this unbalanced fare like Maccas home delivered. They are continuously blaming the other for everything and taking no responsibility for where they find themselves. This is the One Nation paradigm. The shame is that in regard to the ABC, the national broadcaster is always trying to educate its audience, whereas this right wing distortion of the news is not. We have seen a dumbing down of the world via the extreme polarisation of the news as entertainment. The news used to be boring but at least it had a basis of factuality – not anymore on Fox.
The idealisation of the past is a never land, in that it never really existed the way they say it did. You can never go back in time. Albert Einstein told us that. Imaginings of the past are just that, imaginings. Do you really want to go back to a time when you couldn’t get a decent cup of coffee in most places around Australia? Back to a white bread Australia? Hey, just come to Queensland. Pauline Hanson told us, in her speech at the National Press Club, that we live in a multiracial society. That 51.5% of us were either born somewhere else or our parents were. However, despite this, according to her, we must be a monoculture downunder. WTF? Now, Pauline is not the smartest of us, I mean, she struggles with the English language at the best of times. Does she want Australia to be filled with people like her or who have to act like her? Is mediocrity the new black? Is whinging about foreigners the defining element of this monoculture? Bagging stuff we don’t understand? Is that the solution for a better Australia? Mmm, I don’t know, it sounds suspicious to me.
One Nation Means Assimilation
“Whilst watching a documentary about Nazism and fascism in America back in the 1930s, my ears were pricked by the repeated expressions ‘ make America great’ and ‘one nation’! The modern day use of these terms as names and tag lines are by no means accidental. The white supremacist beliefs and racism, which lie at the base of MAGA and One Nation, in the US and Australia respectively, are the foundation of these movements and political parties. If you have read DH Lawrence’s book Kangaroo or seen the movie based upon it, you will know that Australia was not immune from the rise of fascism post WW1.”
“On 31 August 2025 members of the National Socialist Network and various white supremacy groups participated in March for Australia anti-immigration rallies in Australian capital cities.[179] National Socialist Network leader and known Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, along with various other far-right figures addressed protestors in all major cities calling for an end to immigration in the country. “
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The Stoic Golfer; The AI Heresy; What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
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