Australian conservatives have helped normalise the far right agenda, from immigration and environment to family law
It was revealed last week that Pauline Hanson will be deputy-chairing a “Men’s Rights” flavoured parliamentary inquiry
into the family court system – Hanson not only claimed credit for the
development but launched into an unsubstantiated rant about false claims
of domestic violence, that could have come from one of the darker
corners of Reddit.
It’s an odd and unwelcome development at a time when we might instead be addressing the national crisis of violence against women. But it offers an example of why Australia, unlike other comparable democracies, has not been subject to a populist rightwing breakout.
The thing is, there just isn’t political space for a new far right force to really flourish in Australia. Australia’s conservatives already offer enough of what the most reactionary social currents might want. Their policies tick all the right boxes – on race, gender, and the environment – to an extent that leads mainstream Australian politicians, and their policies, to be praised by extremists around the world.
The Coalition hand victories directly to the far right whenever it is expedient to do so, as they did on the family court inquiry. In doing so, they normalise the far right’s agenda. Just as mandatory detention without hope of resettlement moved from the fringe to the centre, so too might the resentful distortions of family law which are currently the preserve of family court dads.
In doing all of this, unlike in Europe and even the US, Australian conservatives encounter too little resistance inside the parliament or out.
The inquiry – originally Hanson’s proposal – is just the latest example.It’s an odd and unwelcome development at a time when we might instead be addressing the national crisis of violence against women. But it offers an example of why Australia, unlike other comparable democracies, has not been subject to a populist rightwing breakout.
The thing is, there just isn’t political space for a new far right force to really flourish in Australia. Australia’s conservatives already offer enough of what the most reactionary social currents might want. Their policies tick all the right boxes – on race, gender, and the environment – to an extent that leads mainstream Australian politicians, and their policies, to be praised by extremists around the world.
The Coalition hand victories directly to the far right whenever it is expedient to do so, as they did on the family court inquiry. In doing so, they normalise the far right’s agenda. Just as mandatory detention without hope of resettlement moved from the fringe to the centre, so too might the resentful distortions of family law which are currently the preserve of family court dads.
In doing all of this, unlike in Europe and even the US, Australian conservatives encounter too little resistance inside the parliament or out.
By giving her a platform to make false, sweeping, hateful claims about women undergoing difficult relationship breakdowns, the government is amply catering to the antifeminist segment of the electorate that resents the ebbing of unquestioned patriarchal authority in the home.
The win also helps to legitimise the other positions of Hanson, and her incompetent and morally bankrupt party.
The misogyny of mens’ rights campaigners is bottomless, and the inquiry won’t satisfy them completely. But there’s enough here so that those energies won’t require another outlet.
All over the policy landscape, there are things that the far right can take comfort in.
On immigration and refugee policy, the Australian government – indeed the bipartisan Australian political consensus – could be said to be to the right of Donald Trump, who has promoted Australia’s policies on his Twitter account as something to aspire to.
The fact that, unlike Trump’s administration, the Coalition is generally regarded as a normal, mainstream conservative government should be no comfort. It should be a reminder of how far things can go adrift under the guise of normalcy.
The government is constantly finding new ways to signal to racists that they have their interests at heart.
Peter Dutton recently described the children of a family facing deportation as “anchor babies” as he repeated his refusal to offer them asylum. But last year, he floated the possibility of creating a special visa category for white South African farmers, who have been the subject of “white genocide” myth-making in News Corp papers and bio-nazi websites alike.
In his tenure as home affairs and immigration minister, Dutton has also chosen to weigh in on a moral panic about “African gangs” in Melbourne.
By very publicly demonising brown and black people, and reaching out a helping hand to South African whites, Dutton, with the tacit or explicit support of two prime ministers, has sent a very clear signal to those who want Australia white that they need look no further than the Coalition.
All the while, Australia’s “points based” immigration policies and its punitive refugee policies are the envy and aspiration of rightwing populists the world over.
While Jair Bolsonaro attracted international condemnation for actions and inaction which led to an inferno in the Amazon, the Coalition have made policies which will ensure the destruction of another great natural wonder, off the coast of Queensland.
They have relentlessly spruiked the Adani boondoggle, even as coal prices continue to slide. Matt Canavan called a company which ended its association with the mine “a bunch of bedwetters” and “weak as piss”.
Earlier in the year, Barnaby Joyce repeated Scott Morrison’s own gesture of bringing a lump of coal into the parliament to praise and fondle.
When Pacific Island nations pressed the prime minister on climate change at the Pacific Islands Forum, his response was “insulting and condescending”, and his deputy made remarks in which he said he was “annoyed” by the leaders of countries campaigning for their own continued survival, and that their populations could “pick our fruit”.
For a second-tier power, Australia’s government proved it could still be a first-class bully. But again, voters wanting intermittent displays of quasi-colonial chauvinism, and obstinate extractive vandalism, and dumb stunts to “own the Libs” are covered.
The difference between Australia and, say, the US or the UK, is that far-right surges there have been met with outrage and resistance both inside and outside the realm of formal national politics.
The Democratic party may be clumsy, and lacking in strategic unity in their response to Trump, but there can be no doubt that they are opposed to the president’s agenda, from immigration to foreign affairs to trade.
British politics and society, meanwhile, has been cleaved in two by the conflict over Brexit, and opponents of leaving the European Union have organised mass street demonstrations, and engaged in increasingly militant street actions.
By comparison Australia, and especially the government’s official political opponents, currently seem quiescent and complacent.
Labor’s answer to its recent election loss appears to be a plan to track right. Even before the election Labor passed deeply flawed encryption laws; since it has waved through Scott Morrison’s tax cuts. It has reiterated its support for the basic framework of laws around asylum seekers, which prevent them settling in Australia. Queensland’s Labor government has facilitated the Adani project, including stripping native title from the site.
In civil society, while many activists are doing important work in resisting aspects of the government’s hard right agenda, there is not the sense of an urgent, broad political mobilisation we find in those countries where populists have taken the reins.
In Australia, there has been no galvanising crisis. All of this has happened – is happening – within the range of politics-as-normal. And much of it has been normalised, even promoted, by a news media which is dominated by a company that has worked hard to shift politics right in every democracy in which it has a presence.
Until Friday, Australia seems to have been sleepwalking.
Has it finally woken up?
- Jason Wilson is a Guardian Australia columnist
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