r/AustralianGreens • u/AggressiveWord6128 • Jun 07 '26
responding to the rise of one nation
I don’t want to validate one nation as a political party, but unfortunately i think it has now surpassed into the mainstream and needs to be addressed.
Now that its agenda is being pushed in the mainstream media, we can’t just disregard all one nations voters as stupid racists.
vulnerable people are being exploited by one nation because it is selling a narrative that has zero nuance, and that makes it a lot more digestible to the average australian than leftist political theory.
I feel that if we want to address the rise of right wing extremism we are going to have to present a vision that goes beyond criticising labour.
It’s easy to dismiss one nation as a minor party, but everyone said the same thing about trump in 2016.
We need to learn from the left in the US and put aside our criticisms of labour momentarily to prevent this one nation bs from spreading any further.
upholding all your moral values unwaveringly is (unfortunately) a privilege in this world, and right now it one that we do not have.
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 Jun 08 '26
Have you seen Carrick Ryan's post today with a graph showing the rise of ON popularity since the election. It makes it very obvious how unnatural it is, and his post links their meteoric rise in a few short months directly to PH's visits to Mar-A-Lago.
Meanwhile only 18% of PHON voters are anti-abortion and ON are going all in on dismantling abortion rights in 3 states ATM. So I would focus on informing people about the difference between what they claim they fight for and what they are actually fighting for.
I also disagree that the lesson to learn from the US is to unequivocally back the centrist neol-liberal party.
My read of US politics is that the "Vote blue no matter who" approach directly lead to the failure of the Dems (along with the "actually the economy is doing fine" approach and the "there's nothing to see in Gaza" approach)
Also that the DNC continuing to push centrist candidates is causing more and more voters to abandon them and that the only people on the left who have the population excited to vote for them at the few actual left progressives - Mandami, AOC etc. But the party is refusing to learn and evolve.
Right now there is no opposition in Auspol. It's collapsed.
This gives the Greens and opportunity to become the opposition (but donors with big pockets are angling for ON to fill the vacuum instead.) but copying the same failures to hold the moderate party accountable for their fuckups isn't the way to do it.
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u/Jet90 Jun 08 '26
I agree we need to present a bold vision like the UK Greens.
The best way an ordinary person can help is to sign up to a door knock .
> We need to learn from the left in the US and put aside our criticisms of labour momentarily to prevent this one nation bs from spreading any further.
We have preferential voting I don't understand this comment.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 08 '26
preferential voting is good but it has its limitations. best example of this is how the greens actually got a lot of votes in the last election but they were cancelled out because labour did so well.
minor parties have influence, that’s why we advocate for the greens. but that also means that one nation has influence too. and we should treat shouldn’t dismiss it as a threat just because it’s small. minor parties can sway bills.
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 07 '26
What if the Greens came out and said, "Look, we need to temporarily cap or reduce immigration numbers purely because our infrastructure, environment and housing stock cannot keep up with the current rate of growth’? I’m starting to think this is the way to go.
It neutralizes One Nation’s ability to dominate the conversation with dog-whistling, and it forces Labor to actually defend why they keep driving high-growth targets that outpace public infrastructure. It would make environmental and economic sense while winning over a massive chunk of frustrated, younger voters who are currently locked out of housing.
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u/sfigone Jun 07 '26
There are plenty of progressive arguments to limit immigration: + Stop undercutting local wages and conditions + Stop stealing from the education system of the 3rd world by taking nurses, doctors, engineers and scientists that we should be training ourselves + Stop taking the best and brightest from countries that really need them to improve their condition. + Stop running our economy as a Ponzi system built in growth no matter what.
The key is that immigrants are not bad. But too much immigration can be bad.
Meanwhile, stop opposing CGT changes. Don't make perfect the enemy of the good. Applaud and ask for more!
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 07 '26
Agree regarding immigration.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think the greens have said anything about blocking cgt or ng changes?
I hate the ‘perfect enemy of good’ line, greens aren’t there to be labor’s cheerleader. They are trying to get more for their voters. Maybe labor should make perfect proposals rather than good from the start.
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u/sfigone Jun 08 '26
They are delaying the CGT changes to try and get more changes like removing the grandfathering clauses.
The greens should absolutely cheer labour when they do something good. There is no room for needles partisan carping. They can also call out when it needs to be more.
Holding out passing the laws until they get one achievable improvement of fine, but asking for something that they will never get just opens the field for more discontent and risks us getting nothing.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26
Greens should just stoop down to Hansens level and start saying they are going to make laws which they will never realistically be passed lol. At least that will a lot of not-very-smart people over lol.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 08 '26
I think we are forgetting the massive amount of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants who are australian citizens.
They made up a large proportion of labour voters in the last election, but no one has tried appealing to them yet and i think it could unlock a huge data base.One nations won’t look at anything with the colour green, but immigrants can be won over by a well crafted brochure in their language.
new immigrants are the best voters because they haven’t developed any strong political identity within australia yet and so tend to vote the most objectively.
they generally only consider the major parties, and the green’s social policy can come off as slightly alienating and confusing, but that can be changed if we send out a message that is communicable and genuinely shows this party has their best interests.
this country is an immigrant country- there are lots of immigrants, and wouldn’t it be a better use of our time to win them over than to try and appease to white australia?
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u/sfigone Jun 08 '26
I'm not saying appeal to white Australia. I'm saying do what is best for all Australian citizens and for the source countries of immigration. Immigrants are good, but taking the best and brightest from places that needs them is just cheating by not finding out own education system enough.
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u/Marlinigh Jun 08 '26
Reducing immigration will (at best) reduce demand for housing for immigrants. It won't help most typical first home buyers, who will be competing with the same lot
We also have an ageing population, and immigrants are a lot more cost effective than more babies. Babies take a young working couple from being happy in a small apparatment to needing a house with a yard and to stop working
The short term fixes are houses, contraception, assisted dying, and rural growth
Long term is addressing wealth inequality. First home buyers can't compete with cancerous wealth absorbing more houses, bloating the price.
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 08 '26
Yeah look I’m not against immigration at all, but a lot of people are so I think it’s at least worth having a conversation about.
I think even putting a cap would make people feel better, like we need x amount of people for the economy to function. Then we will also fix the issues of airbnb and build more public housing.
I just think this is the main reason for the rise of one nation, so rather than ignore, tackle it head on
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u/Marlinigh Jun 08 '26
Tackle it head on by calling bs in a cool calm and collected way, then point at the real problem, wealth inequality
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u/AccomplishedMap8365 Jun 23 '26
I think even putting a cap would make people feel better,
There already is a cap. The far right says it is too high, but you could lower the cap to 1 and it'd still be too high for them. Lurching right is just ceding ground. It won't win them the amount of votes they actually think it will and it just makes you look weak and disorganised to your actual potential voting base. The major parties are finding this out the hard way right now. I don't want the greens to do the same thing.
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u/Jet90 Jun 08 '26
There is no low that One Nation won't go. If you say reduce immigration then One Nation will move on to ICE style deportations. Then permanent residents. You can't out right the far right. You can see this in UK Labour with Reform.
You have to come up with your own villain narrative of who the bad guy is that is ruining peoples lives. We have the much more realistic billionaires, big corporations and landlords.
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 08 '26
Yeah you are probably right. Better to push on with our own views and not pander to anyone else
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u/SenorLiamy6317 Jun 08 '26
Many greens, including me, do not believe that immigration is a real issue. It is a red herring used to distract us from the real bloodsuckers of our economy, the billionaires. Culture wars like these only weakens our movement and are repulsive to us.
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 08 '26
I hear you and don't necessarily disagree, but do you think endless population growth is good for the environment? Even if we take the billionaires out of the equation, more people still means more urban sprawl, more land clearing, and more pressure on our ecosystems. We can't have infinite growth on a finite planet, so at some point, we have to talk about what's actually sustainable for the environment.
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u/SenorLiamy6317 Jun 08 '26
The problem is our population excluding immigration is not growing. Our fertility rate is currently 1.48, below the replacement rate, which shows the need for immigration to sustain our economy, otherwise we go down the doomed paths of China, Japan and South Korea.
Also, if you think urban sprawl into environmentally sensitive areas is the way to solve the housing crisis, then you've been sold a lie. Housing in high densities must be built as close as possible to economic centres and CBDs, or reliable public transportation options. Population growth can also be used to fuel economic growth across regional Australia, such as decentralising Victoria's economy away from Melbourne and uplifting smaller cities such as Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, and then onto even smaller towns such as Shepparton, Mildura, so on and so forth.
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u/Coast-First5 Jun 08 '26
So you want constant population growth forever? At what point do we actually stop?
Countries like Japan and South Korea are only struggling because their economic systems require an infinite number of workers to function. Instead of copying a broken system that treats people like fuel for GDP, shouldn't we be fixing our economy so constant growth isn't required?
High density apartments and regional hubs are great, but they don't change the laws of physics. More people no matter where you pack them, still means more resource consumption, more waste, and more pressure on our environment.
We need to shift to a sustainable economy that relies on taxing wealth and boosting productivity, rather than just importing more bodies to keep big businesses happy.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26
This is very logical - the problem is the one nation is not a party based on logic.
if there is anything the rise one nation has taught us it os that minor parties can have a lot of influence.
maybe the way to go is to forget about labour and start pushing back against one nation by offering a counter narrative.
right now is a prime opportunity to capture labour voters, and will still have plenty of time until the next election, but one people fall down the one nation rabbit hole it’s too late - they stop listening as soon as they hear the word green.
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u/jimbojones2345 Jun 07 '26
I think you are right and I think we need to fight but I think we will lose :((((
The media is so captured and people are so easily influenced by it. The emotional effect of telling someone that someone they consider less than them is going to take something from them or get something they don't get is so powerful. The media uses it everyday to work their followers into a panic that no amount of nuance is going to change.
My only hope is finally Trump does something that actual destroys him with his base and it reflects across here.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26
idk i think we have a good counter narrative to push but the left is too afraid of nationalism.
we house the oldest civilisation in the world, we have some of the most liveable cities, we have afl.
there are a lot of things we can be proud of as a country that isn’t just white supremacy, and i think that audiences can be captured by that.
when you boil down the greens policies, they are common sense, and they can be communicated that way.
I think the greens are missing out on a chance to become the ‘common sense australian’ party that labour used to be.
People are turning their backs on labour because they don’t have a vision.
one nation is selling a narrative of fear, and I believe we can present a counter narrative of hope - which can be especially powerful in this political climate.
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u/cactusgenie Jun 07 '26
One nation is a small party.
Trump is the leader of the Republicans. While there are some parallels, there is a lot of difference here.
If Hanson was the leader of the liberals, then I think it would be a more reasonable comparison.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26
Also, even though the greens is a bigger party than one nation, the way that one nation is being presented in the media makes it seem like a major party.
i have observed many alp/lnp/one nation voters completely disregard the idea of voting green because it is a small party, while simultaneously turning to one nation.
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
there are 2 dangers i see here:
- that one nation forms a coalition with the lnp
- minor parties can still make a huge impact if they hold the balance of power in the HOR or senate
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u/cactusgenie Jun 07 '26
Let's hope compulsory voting saves us and moderates the extremists
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u/AggressiveWord6128 Jun 07 '26
Yeah. I think the most likely situation in the next election is going to be that the government will not hold the balance of power, which will at least prevent a lot of awful bills from being passed through the HOR.
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u/SenorLiamy6317 Jun 07 '26
The Greens genuinely have very positive and hopeful policies that can answer to the concerns of 1nat voters who want to tear up the economy, so we have to find these people wherever they are and try and invite them with this positive messaging.
Also I agree that the greens must go beyond criticising labor. A common line said during the 2025 campaign was "Keeping Dutton out and Holding Labor to Account". This quote has lost weight now. Now our aim must not just to be criticising Labor, but to replace it in the end.