Australian Politics

One Nation’s voters are people who in Andrew Hastie’s words, don’t recognise Australia as the country they grew up in. Like Tony Abbott, they are nostalgic for the days of the White Australia policy, when such anti-migrant prejudice as existed was directed against Italians and Greeks. And Hastie’s comment reveals the fact that there is now no significant policy gap, between One Nation and the now-dominant right wing of the Liberal-National coalition. Both want (mostly unspecified) cuts in immigration, oppose any kind of action on climate, and trade in anti-Islamic rhetoric. But One Nation is loud and offensive, while the LNP tends to trade in euphemisms.