A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure analysis of the rise of One Nation

If you find yourself bored this weekend, comb through the South Australian election results seat by seat and see how many of them boiled down to contests that were Labor v One Nation. Then see how varied the other head-to-head contests are: Liberal v One Nation; One Nation v Independent; Labor v Independent. Then note the alarming scarcity of Labor v Liberal contests.

Amid such upheaval, no comprehensive two-party analysis works. We’re entering a political hall of mirrors, votes pinging wildly around our preferential voting system and emerging at all kinds of erratic angles. Hence, Peter Malinauskas can set a record for parliamentary dominance but still give a sober victory speech about lessons learnt, even though he can’t confidently identify his opposition. One Nation has suddenly arrived and nothing about politics is linear any more.

Perhaps such a non-linear moment deserves a non-linear analysis. And so, inspired by a review of an utterly bonkers football match I read years ago, I’m inviting you to choose how you want to process these similarly bonkers political events. Choose your own analysis. Follow whichever path you like. Follow several. Once you’re done, perhaps you’ll know which you find most persuasive.

Did the South Australian result make you feel the electorate had moved sharply to the political right? If so, proceed to paragraph 1. If not, go to paragraph 3.

1. One Nation emphatically converted polls into votes. But look closely: its vote rose by about 3 per cent more than the Liberal vote fell. Much of that probably came from former Labor voters in Adelaide’s suburbs. When you consider One Nation’s entire primary vote is 22 per cent, that’s a significant chunk. It suggests very roughly that One Nation took nearly one in every seven of its primary votes from the left.

2. We’re therefore seeing two things at once: centre-right attitudes morphing into hard right ones; and disillusionment with the mainstream parties beginning to spread across the political spectrum. That’s a shift in the electorate’s centre of gravity.

If you think this is One Nation’s limit, go to paragraph 5. If you think it’s only the beginning, go to paragraph 7.

3. Last time One Nation only ran in 19 seats. This time it ran in 47, which immediately inflates its primary vote count. Meanwhile, people have largely ignored that the Greens also picked up a modest swing, of 1.1 per cent. True, Labor’s vote fell by more than that, but that’s perfectly typical for first-term governments throughout Australian political history. Ultimately, taken together, Labor and the Greens thrashed the combined One Nation/Liberal vote: 47.9 per cent to 41.2.

4. Even the independents don’t rescue that situation: of the four who finished in the top two candidates in their seats, only one is clearly conservative. The others either lean Labor, or are community “Voices” style independents. If the overall swing was very slightly to the right, it was what you’d expect against an incumbent. And that’s at a time when life for incumbents is very difficult all over the world.

5. Conditions are extremely favourable for insurgent politics right now. Cost of living anxiety has returned with a vengeance. The Coalition brand, from the federal level down, is in utter turmoil. But for all that, One Nation’s polling has settled in the 20s for months now. The surge was real, but it has slowed, maybe even plateaued, and is confined to rural and outer suburban areas.

6. That’s insufficient to win an election in a hugely urbanised country like Australia. Perhaps the proportion of Australians prepared to vote for a hard-right party peaks at around a quarter of the electorate.

If you think this result has national implications, go to paragraph 9. If you think this is very much about South Australia, go to paragraph 10.

7. There are few limits on how far economic turmoil can radicalise politics. The horrors of the 1930s followed the Great Depression, and led to communisms and fascisms across Europe and Latin America. White nationalist groups have always prospered most in economically moribund areas of the US.

8. The war in Iran – which Australia has no means of stopping – means we’re on the cusp of an economic crisis the like of which we haven’t seen in generations. Our political landscape has already fractured under relatively modest pressure. Consider what happens when petrol is $4 per litre, and we have shortages in things like fertiliser. There comes a point where a protest becomes a populist revolution.

Go to paragraph 12

9. One Nation’s polling is now relatively consistent in national polls and across the country. Moreover, there’s disillusionment with the federal Coalition in every state, so if that’s a major driver of One Nation’s vote, it’s a live factor everywhere. Indeed, South Australia might understate One Nation’s progress, given its relatively popular government and premier.

Go to paragraph 12

10. Everyone knew Malinauskas would win handily. He is a uniquely popular politician, and his opposition plumbed new depths of dysfunction, having churned through the three opposition leaders, one of whom was convicted of drug supply charges.

11. South Australian conservatives therefore had good reason to register their protest, and could do it risk-free. To abandon the Liberal Party was never going to cost it government, and voting One Nation was never going to hand it power. In a less certain contest, you’d have to be more careful voting One Nation, which might yield a truer reading of its support.

12. All eyes, then, are on November’s Victorian election, then NSW’s next March. A strong Victorian One Nation showing would constitute success in Australia’s most progressive urbanised state. Something similar in NSW would be success against a less-battered Coalition. Of course, there are local factors: both Victorian major parties are in terrible shape, while in NSW state elections, voters don’t have to allocate preferences, which could simply split the conservative vote leaving One Nation with nothing.

13. But if One Nation powers through all of this, it will have taken root in all kinds of soil. At that point, it’s only a question of whether it can endure. It will have announced a new political reality. Whether as protest or approval, a huge block of voters will have chosen that adventure.

Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author, academic and regular columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

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