politics
Dennis Altman
Foreword by Robert Manne
Two Nations: The Causes and Effects of the Rise of
the One Nation Party in Australia
Bookman Press $19.95pb, 194pp
1 86395 177 6
EVEN IF PAULINE Hanson's One Nation party were to self-destruct after the next federal election, which I suspect is a real possibility, it has earned itself a position in Australian political history. Hanson herself must be one of our most remarkable political figures, having risen within three years from the obscurity of a Liberal nominee for an unwinnable electorate to a politician with media coverage almost equivalent to that of the major party leaders.
Hanson unsettles us because she has challenged what seems to have been the accepted policies of the past decade, both the social and cultural changes towards a more multicultural and diverse society and the triumph of economic rationalism and a particular view of the imperatives (and advantages) of globalisation. On social issues she is 'hard' where the national consensus (around guns; Aborigines; immigrants) seemed 'soft' but on economic issues the reverse seems to be true: while Howard and Beazley speak of 'the battlers' Hanson claims she alone stands for defending traditional protection against the lure of internationalism and big business.
Understanding the appeal of Hanson has become a smal lindustry, and this book is another step towards this. Unfortunately the book epitomises the problem as much as it offers solutions, being essentially another exercise in demonising Hanson rather than seeking to come to terms with the challenge she presents. How much more effective a collection it would be had a couple of contributors sympathetic to Hanson been asked to contribute. While the contributors divide in their explanations of One Nation's appeal none of them speak from within, though McGuiness's spleen towards the 'politically correct' means he seeks to make support for Hanson appear more respectable than for Labor.
Not only are all the contributors from one side of the divide, their average age is certainly well into the fifties and only one I believe is of non-Anglo-Celtic background. Mark Davis would see in Two Nations further evidence of his belief that a small group of tried and true middle aged dominate public debate in Australia, and in the case of this book he would be right. It is particularly odd that while opposition to Hanson seems a requirement for inclusion the unnamed editor has not sought the voices of either Aboriginal or Asian Australians. How much more interesting a book this would have been had he(she?) discarded some of the predictable contributors in favour of, say, Lillian Ng, Roberta Sykes, Christos Tsiolkas and Mischa Schubert.
There is something of a consensus amongst a number of contributors that a gap has emerged between two groups in Australia, a gap which Michael Wooldridge calls that between the 'policy culture' and the 'community culture'. (Wooldridge's contribution to the book suggests he may be the only intellectual in the current cabinet, a position one imagines must leave him fairly isolated.) While the latter term is rather odd, the theme recurs in a number of essays, and is developed in Robert Manne's introduction.
Just why this gap has occurred is less clear. The contributors appear to divide between those who want to blame Paul Keating and those who suspect the question is more complex. Thus for Ron Brunton, Hanson is supported because of 'the arrogant and intolerant way that Keating and his supporters were promoting policies supposedly designed to ensure racial tolerance.' The same claims are echoed by Tony Abbott and P. P. McGuiness. Given the venom with which Keating's 'vision' was consistently attacked on some of the highest rating radio programs in the country I have never understood the claim that during Labor's period in office the politically correct drowned out free speech, but then I did not suffer the same brutal silencing of my views obviously encountered by McGuiness and Abbott.
The contrary view, which sees Howard as far more culpable in his failure to meet the challenge of Hanson, is particularly held in the press gallery, and is argued here by Michele Gratton, Greg Sheridan and Paul Kelly. The argument seems to me persuasive but it does not go far enough: given Howard's lack of charisma I rather doubt whether his opposition would have made that much difference, though it would certainly have helped our image internationally.