The message from strategists was blunt: do not, however tempting, personally attack Pauline Hanson or call her a racist. The request has been made to progressive campaigners and unionists who have been asked to start one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters before the Victorian election in November. It is also indicative of a strategic rethink in response to One Nation’s sustained surge in public support and the party’s recent wins in state and federal byelections and in South Australia.
Separate training sessions run by the peak body for unions in Victoria, the Trades Hall Council, and the progressive campaign group GetUp, have warned members they may be inadvertently pushing people to One Nation by not respectfully engaging with their legitimate economic concerns. The ads, which linked the pair to Donald Trump, had little impact. One Nation comfortably won the seat.
The reset, based on research conducted by the polling company Redbridge after the Farrer byelection, brought GetUp in line with advice from Trades Hall, which has been hosting training sessions for major unions in recent weeks. Oscar Kaspi-Crutchett, a senior researcher at Trades Hall, says people thinking about voting for One Nation shut down when they perceive personal attacks on the party’s leadership that do not acknowledge their legitimate concerns. It manufactures differences between groups which have none.” GetUp has also told campaigners to not personally attack Hanson’s billionaire benefactor.
Senior state and federal Labor sources, who declined to be named so they could speak freely, say these changes makes sense. They argue the group’s personal attacks on rightwing figures, including Peter Dutton during the 2016 and 2019 federal elections, were not helpful. GetUp’s decision to unveil a banner behind Hanson during her National Press Club address in June caused disquiet among Labor ranks, with some arguing it was unproductive.
While the banner’s message focused on her record on wages, it also included cartoon images of cash flying around her. Kaspi-Crutchett and his colleagues at Trades Hall are telling unionists to listen carefully for any hint of economic concerns that may be underpinning opinions about immigration, crime or culture wars. He says campaigners should resist the urge to fact-check conspiracy theories.
Instead, conversations should be respectfully redirected to the economy. Kaspi-Crutchett said one-on-one conversations are vital because the politicians that once persuaded people against voting for Hanson had “lost credibility with the people she is targeting”.
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