Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. This week,
Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson declared there are no good Muslims.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: You say, oh, well, there's good Muslims out there. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, how can you tell me.
Speaker 1: There are good Muslims and renewed her corps for a
Speaker 1: band on people from Gaza and other so called terror hotspots.
Speaker 1: After a backlash from across the community, she has since
Speaker 1: walked back her comments on Muslim Australians, but a track
Speaker 1: record for stoking racial division remains intact. It's language that
Speaker 1: was once politically toxic. Now it's cutting through the whole
Speaker 1: generation of voters that feel they've been dudded by the
Speaker 1: promise of prosperity through hard work alone. Today, director of
Speaker 1: Strategy and Analytics at Redbridge Group cos Samaris on the
Speaker 1: voters once known as Howard's battlers, why more of them
Speaker 1: are turning to one nation and the forces reshaping Australia's
Speaker 1: political center, the social fabric of democracy. It's Saturday, February
Speaker 1: twenty one, Cosse, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: You wrote this week about how Howards battlers are turning
Speaker 1: to one nation. Can you paint a picture for us
Speaker 1: as to who they are and why they're attracted to
Speaker 1: what Pauling Hanson is selling.
Speaker 2: They're largely in the regions in the outer suburbs of
Speaker 2: our large cities, largely in their forties, fifties, and sixties,
Speaker 2: work with their hands or work by standing on their feet,
Speaker 2: so to speak. If we're talking about Gen X, that
Speaker 2: these are people who had their lives significantly disrupted during
Speaker 2: the recession of the nineties and entered the housing market
Speaker 2: at about the same time older millennials did, so, you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the housing boom. So overall, the
Speaker 2: majority that I'm talking about here have got significant mortgages,
Speaker 2: lots of mortgage stress, declining capacity to earn money because
Speaker 2: of their age. And of course, these Gen x's that
Speaker 2: we're talking about, they may have kids in their late
Speaker 2: teens or adult kids.
Speaker 4: They've got parents.
Speaker 2: Now who are very much in their late seventies and eighties,
Speaker 2: and above all else proportionally higher number of parents who
Speaker 2: are on the pension and are not wealthy. So they've
Speaker 2: got parents who are in great need, and they've got
Speaker 2: children who are in great need.
Speaker 1: So what can they see in the fringes that they
Speaker 1: can't see in mainstream politics at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this group, you know, in their thirties and forties
Speaker 2: were voting for John Howard. They thought that if I
Speaker 2: worked hard, this political party promises me an economic and
Speaker 2: narrative that hard work rewards aspiration.
Speaker 4: How it's battlers.
Speaker 2: They were very patient throughout the Abbott Morrison Turnbull error.
Speaker 4: Again they are.
Speaker 2: Patient leading up to the federal election with Dutton, and
Speaker 2: I think the election loss and coupled with a realization
Speaker 2: of the scale of Labour's win, was a straw that
Speaker 2: broke the camel's.
Speaker 3: Back under the alb and Easy government. We've lost in housing, immigration,
Speaker 3: costs of living, this climate change bears the costs of
Speaker 3: the economy. You've got so many more public servants that
Speaker 3: being put on is straining the economy.
Speaker 1: So the scale of the wind meant that they couldn't
Speaker 1: see themselves anywhere in mainstream politics, and so they've turned
Speaker 1: to one nation. I mean, does one nation actually solve
Speaker 1: any of their problems for these voters though, no.
Speaker 4: They don't, but that's not why they're voting for one nation.
Speaker 2: And they don't care if one nation has some dodgy
Speaker 2: candidates or policies that don't stand up to scrutiny.
Speaker 4: This is about burning the place down.
Speaker 2: This is about throwing the chessboard over and sending a
Speaker 2: very clear signal to the established political parties that they're
Speaker 2: done with tolerating this version of democracy. And we see
Speaker 2: this writ large in the UK and other western countries
Speaker 2: where these types of voters have given up on the system.
Speaker 2: If you're used to this diet of the geopoly, and
Speaker 2: you're very comfortable in that system, and you play the
Speaker 2: game as everyone else has for decades, you're about to
Speaker 2: get a bit of a shock because what worked even
Speaker 2: five years ago just.
Speaker 4: Won't work now.
Speaker 2: And I've made this point with regards to their leadership change.
Speaker 2: That's a nineteen ninety six tool being applied to a
Speaker 2: new political error.
Speaker 4: It just won't work.
Speaker 2: And we know that what happened in Canberra with that
Speaker 2: leadership change has really no bearing on what's going on
Speaker 2: with this realignment in center right politics.
Speaker 1: So if the coalition is bleeding votes to the right,
Speaker 1: what about labor? If this is a protest vote, why
Speaker 1: aren't they losing voters as well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, here we get into the tribal nature of the
Speaker 2: Australian public now, and so when we psychologically test fhotus.
Speaker 4: Now, and we do that for a number of ways.
Speaker 2: The main tool we use is a battery test, where
Speaker 2: we will ask you ten questions and you won't know
Speaker 2: that the answers will give us a very strong indication
Speaker 2: as to what your values framework looks like, whether you're
Speaker 2: an economic populist or whether you're attracted to right wing populism.
Speaker 2: Most of Labour's base is economic populist, so they're unlikely
Speaker 2: to bite down an immigration narratives. They're unlikely to blame
Speaker 2: individuals or minorities for their problems, and they have problems,
Speaker 2: they're more likely to blame their problems on the big
Speaker 2: end of town. And of course Labour's base is not
Speaker 2: fragmenting in the same way because there isn't for a
Speaker 2: lot of these voters a genuine social democratic center left alternative.
Speaker 2: They don't view the Greens as that. At the moment
Speaker 2: one appears we'll be having the same conversation.
Speaker 1: So what's the challenge that the coalition is up against
Speaker 1: here when it comes to fending off one motion in
Speaker 1: the regions without losing the cities where they are really struggling.
Speaker 4: They're in a really wicked vice.
Speaker 2: They're losing these votes on their I flanked to one
Speaker 2: nation on issues that look at the episode, as we've discussed,
Speaker 2: is the economy and a lack of economic purpose and yes,
Speaker 2: immigrations there it's a trigger, it's fuel on the fire,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 4: Flip side.
Speaker 2: If I try to track this crew and we could
Speaker 2: see the Federal Coalition doing this or having discussions about this,
Speaker 2: they could further alienate their position in big urban Australia,
Speaker 2: which we have seen large now as a consequence of
Speaker 2: the two most recent federal elections them losing seats to
Speaker 2: the Tills and seats to the Labor Party. Of the
Speaker 2: last eight federal seats which the Liberal Party leaders have occupied,
Speaker 2: they only hold.
Speaker 4: One, which is the federal seat of Cook.
Speaker 2: Everything else, whether it was Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, John Howard,
Speaker 2: all these seats they used to hold, they're gone to
Speaker 2: other Labor, All the.
Speaker 1: Tals coming up political poison. One way the Coalition seems
Speaker 1: to be trying to win these voters back is to
Speaker 1: tap into things like national identity and migration.
Speaker 3: People are deeply concerned that they see politicians who no
Speaker 3: longer seem proud of this country, who want to talk
Speaker 3: down the incredible history.
Speaker 1: Of this country.
Speaker 3: We deserve to live in a country where everyone who
Speaker 3: comes here respects our democracy, respects our freedoms, respects our values.
Speaker 1: And so will that work? What do we know about
Speaker 1: how that kind of rhetoric plays with voters.
Speaker 2: It's poison amongst younger Australians who are economically populist so
Speaker 2: to speak in terms of their values framework, absolutely toxic
Speaker 2: amongst younger women in particular, and of course dynamite with
Speaker 2: regards to massive diasporus, which is Indian.
Speaker 4: Chinese Australians.
Speaker 2: And we saw the consequences of that poisoned relationship with
Speaker 2: them losing mensies been along read seats that historically they've
Speaker 2: been quite quite competitive in and they are now losing.
Speaker 1: And these diaspords, particularly the Indian community, actually quite conservative
Speaker 1: in their politics, and yet Alberanzi seems to be holding
Speaker 1: onto those diaspors quite well. It's that because the liberal
Speaker 1: national brand is just so toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A really good way to describe this is that
Speaker 2: these are Australians who are aspirational wealth accumulators, socially conservative,
Speaker 2: believing in business. They should be Menzi's type photos right,
Speaker 2: But when we speak to them, we ask them, okay,
Speaker 2: you've just taken us through all these values that you hold.
Speaker 2: You should be voting liberal And they go, yeah, but
Speaker 2: they aren't like us. Yeah, they're voting on sectarian grounds,
Speaker 2: and we know sectarian voting behavior is a lot harder
Speaker 2: to break than people appreciate.
Speaker 1: We also saw a coalition proposal leaked that was pretty
Speaker 1: hardline and would see a ban on migrants from thirteen
Speaker 1: countries so called terror hotspots, including Gaza and Somalia. Now
Speaker 1: coalition members are distincting themselves from that plan. What can
Speaker 1: we read.
Speaker 2: Into that, because again, these two diaspers we've been talking about.
Speaker 2: If you're a Chinese Australian and you have expressed to
Speaker 2: researchers over many years concerns of a heightened level of
Speaker 2: political aggression coming out of the Coalition with regards to
Speaker 2: Chinese Australians and China in general, most challenges, Australians will think, well,
Speaker 2: when next, We'll be on that list eventually, So it's
Speaker 2: not about who they've identifying right now. Everyone else is going, well,
Speaker 2: am I going.
Speaker 4: To be next?
Speaker 2: So it's absolute political poison for them in the big cities,
Speaker 2: particularly Melbourne Sydney.
Speaker 1: So we're seeing this shifting political landscape where the coalition
Speaker 1: is struggling to the point of almost demise and one
Speaker 1: Nation is soaring. What consequences will that have for our
Speaker 1: democracy and our stability in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're aren't chartered territory. We don't know what this
Speaker 2: is going to look like at the ballot box. Our
Speaker 2: first preview will be at the end of March South
Speaker 2: Australian election. Again, some poles have been published over the
Speaker 2: last few days. It gives us pretty strong indication what
Speaker 2: that looks like in South Australia, where the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: will probly end up with zero seats. This pole has
Speaker 2: them at fourteen percent and One Nation running second. So
Speaker 2: if that trend continues, we could see at a federal
Speaker 2: level one Nation winning a bunch of seats in regional Australia,
Speaker 2: mainly National Party seats but also some Liberal Party seats.
Speaker 2: The ferr Bi election will give us an indication there,
Speaker 2: and then of course a further i would say decline
Speaker 2: of the Liberal Party's position in big urban Australia. So
Speaker 2: federal seat of Mitchell, which Alex Hawk holes, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be surprised if the Labour camp go after that the
Speaker 2: next federal election.
Speaker 1: And finally, because a lot of people assumed that the
Speaker 1: popularity of what we're formerly fringe elements of the political
Speaker 1: landscape would windole once Boomers started dying out. But it
Speaker 1: seems because of Generation X in particular, we've seen hands
Speaker 1: and support rise to unprecedentedly. What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 1: Given that Generation X we're born into multicultural Australia is
Speaker 1: the Australia that we've always known. Does their support for
Speaker 1: Hanson mean that Hansonism is here to stay?
Speaker 4: I would say so.
Speaker 2: I mean it's very important for us to defind these
Speaker 2: Gen x's who are reporting to us that they're going
Speaker 2: to intent to vote for Pauling Hanson as not conservative
Speaker 2: but anti establishment right and that's the difference here. They're
Speaker 2: not interested in established conservative politics. That's not what drives them.
Speaker 2: And of course there's thirty five percent of them in
Speaker 2: our research that of Gen X that want to do this.
Speaker 2: Of course there's thirty one percent who are planning to
Speaker 2: vote Labor. So it is quite a polarized generation. But
Speaker 2: in the middle and sandwich. Completely out of the picture
Speaker 2: is the Liberal Party.
Speaker 1: So I get to say because that there's a fair
Speaker 1: degree of disestablishmentarianism going around.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely place down burn, the place down is the mindset,
Speaker 2: out the month case.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Seven Am is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's
Speaker 1: made by Atticus Bastow, Ariel Richards, Chris Dangate, Crystal Color,
Speaker 1: Nicole Johnston, Travis Evans, Zoltanveecho and me Daniel James. Our
Speaker 1: theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of
Speaker 1: envelop Waria. Thanks for listening to seven Am. Have a
Speaker 1: great weekend.