The parties could have, for once, done something innovative in Australian politics and pledged to make no deals with One Nation
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It’s become the new normal in Australian politics.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation carnival comes to town for an election and all eyes in Australia’s political and media establishment follow.
Nothing wrong with that. A keen interest in the hard-right party’s fortunes in this month’s Victorian election is only natural. A decent showing from One Nation when the state votes on 28 November will have consequences well beyond Victoria’s borders.
This is a major test of whether Hansons’s disruptors can convert their remarkable surge – from 6% of the national primary vote at last year’s election to as high as 28% support in some recent polls – into a serious parliamentary presence.
The most recent polling points to a decisive win in Victoria by a newly disciplined and focused Coalition under relative newcomer Jess Wilson, over a desperately tired 12-year-old Labor government, led by last-minute fresh face Ben Carroll.
Those same polls suggest One Nation’s popularity may have peaked and softened into the low-to-mid 20s in the public polls and to just 14% according to the Greens’ research.
