This piece of writing will be, undoubtedly, considered "rich" of me, considering I am at a point of my life where I have had to downsize my activism, and focus inward. I am battling (which is the only way to put what has been the past six months of my life) what should be a normal transition for women, but have been left debilitated and needing to focus entirely on what I can physically and mentally do at this point. So yes, I am not on the streets, I am not at the rallies, I am rarely at the panels, and I am not writing much. My energy is limited, and what I have has had to be saved for keeping a roof over my head and keeping on going.
But I am also pretty annoyed right now. A month ago, I left Facebook (whether for a time, or forever - I have not decided), and partly this was because I got sick of judgement and microaggressions from those who I kept that space open for. Partly though, it was because in amongst all the push-advertising was this constant stream of news regarding the rise of One Nation, and a performative moral panic attached to that.
In my life, I have seen a lot of pointing at the "real racists". Possibly the most disgraceful version of this in the recent times had to do with the referendum. At a time when non-Indigenous people should have been sitting the hell back, listening to the very robust debate coming from Indigenous people (no, I do not include the Indigenous conservative "no" case who showed, incontrovertibly that they were more than happy to reinforce the white status quo for their own benefit), and making informed decisions, I saw a good portion of the Australian left pointing at Indigenous sovereignty activists and accusing them of "siding with the racists" because their point was that no - what was on the table was not good enough.
Indeed, I experienced this very thing personally at a union conference. A white elected official from a different union to me took it upon herself to bail me up, accuse me of siding with the "racists" because the union I work for (NTEU) advocated a conscience vote rather than straight out yes (she actually claimed we had advocated a vote No position, and would not listen otherwise), and then claim that we had not bothered surveying our membership (we had). She would not listen otherwise, and was so incredibly aggressive. That she could not see her behaviour towards me - an actual Aboriginal person with a clue - as deeply problematic was extraordinary.
Then there was the fellow commentator, who I had busted when I stood as a political candidate contributing to the online bullying I received, also having the hide to make that "siding with the racists" claim because in the public sphere, I maintained an Indigenous undecided standpoint. It was extraordinary. This person got to perform their alleged anti-racism through donning a Yes t-shirt and handing out some flyers, but damned if they were going to peacefully allow an Indigenous woman to put her hand up in a democratic race.
What was on the table for the referendum was nowhere near good enough. A small group of Indigenous people had devised the least threatening way forward in the hope that it may gain some mainstream support. It gave Indigenous people no rights, and no real voice. That it was voted down so easily says an awful lot about the ignorance the Australian voting public actually contains. But it also states quite clearly that the misinformation being peddled by massive sections of the Left did not help one iota.
Which, in a way, brings me to this point about One Nation and its rise. What if I told you that the rise of ONP is a symptom, but not a cause? Because truly, that's what I believe it to be. Yes, people can gather on the streets and oppose the "real racists", but exactly how has Australia remotely become a place that is not inherently racist? What has the Left been doing to dismantle the very real racism that allows the space for working class folks to think they have been hard done by, and seek these feckless alternatives?
Many years ago, around the time when a bunch of white politicians started becoming victims of s44 of the Australian constitution because they were dual citizens, I wrote what was one of Eureka Street's most read articles that year on how this was not a "win", but actually an indictment on this country. s44's split loyalties provision was, after all, written in a White Australian Policy attempt to stop Chinese and Indian immigrants from ever holding a federal seat. It actually stuns me that we could have gone through then entire referendum campaign, hearing how anti-racist this Yes vote was, without there being any real talk about the racism contained in the consitution more broadly. Certainly, if we were talking about the constitution becoming inclusive, I categorically believe we should also have been voting for the removal of this provision, s25 (which allows for races of people to be banned from voting) and also the race power itself (or at least the amendment of it, so it is not weilded against us).
Instead though, many of these same unions I have seen performing their anti-racism during the referendum campaign have now brought back into promoting their historical support of the White Australia Policy. Certainly, this is the case when it comes to the handful of them I notice now sharing "Happy Australia Day" posts on their social media rather than promoting solidarity with the Invasion Day rallies. And definitely, it is the case when I see the AWU proudly posting about certain founding figures (eg: William Guthrie Spence and Chris Watson) and their legacies, yet deleting any comment I will make about both these blokes being rabid supporters of the White Aust Policy, with Watson being particularly opposed to racial intermixing despite he himself being of German-Chilean background. Don't believe me? Google either of these blokes' names and see them celebrated on neo-Nazi websites.
It's 34 years since the Mabo ruling, yet we're still in a society where people can be performatively outraged when a Welcome to Country is booed. How exactly has that society changed since "terra nullius" was determined to be a legal fiction in the highest court of this land? Do Aboriginal people have land rights? The ability to practice culture and language freely and supported without justification? Does mainstream Australia actually embrace this long proud pre-settlement history, or is it still very much stuck in a terra nullius mindset? Small gains may have been made, but not an awful lot has actually changed, in my opinion, and this shows itself in the devastating statistics. In 2026, a Koori man should not have to walk all the way from Melbourne to Canberra to attempt to highlight the need for truth-telling in this country. This should have been a given decades ago.
And, related to this, how has the White Australia Policy mindset shifted? After all, it's now been roughly five decades since that was finally politically dismantled, and yet white people are still feeling very threatened by people of colour. So much so, that several Labor governments have passed legislation trying to limit protest as they really don't want the marginalised to freely gather and mark their dissent. Nobody in the Left should be OK with this, and yet the challenge to the right to protest has been mainly limp. I admit, I do not know what goes on in those Labor Party conferences and party rooms, but exactly how much are these attacks being challenged internally? How heavily are the various ALP-affiliated union leaderships going "nah, this is bullshit" considering we are a movement which, without protest, is effectively nothing? Never mind that such limits on protest have been greatly impacted by a want to stop pro-Palestine protesters gathering to oppose another nationalist movement with a strong lobby behind them.
Brown and black people are still spoken of as if they are a new thing to this country. As the descendant of a brown migrant who came to Melbourne in the 1860s, I find this puzzling. Muslims are still spoken as if they are a new presence, despite the fact that the first mosque was built in 1861 by cameleers. Howard's reinforcement of Australian Pride has really stuck, a generation on, and at what cost? Certainly, not many seem to have much of an idea of why they're fronting an ANZAC Day dawn service on the 25/4. If they did, would they then be OK with still booing the Welcome?
To be honest, I strongly believe that fascism rises, and the ONP rises, purely because a massive proportion of this country is content to give them space to rise. If a vast majority of so-called Australians felt secure in their jobs, their housing, and their futures, would there be enough people left over to blame the immigrants or mob and vote for these feckless turds? And the Labor Party, instead of increasing this feeling of security and cohesion, chases after the top end of town, or appeals to Australian racists, in a bid to hold these votes at the ballot box. Certainly, they are not dismantling the racist structures, and building a safer and more secure future for all.
Yes, I think that when it comes to establishment politics, some smaller parties on the left need to do more to differentiate themselves, because truly, the ALP is providing them the space to do so with their incompetence. But I have to say, as a now 48 year old, that if I am honest about it, I don't feel much has changed in my lifetime. Some things went forward, some things went backward, some goalposts were shifted, but overall, the racist status quo has remained the same.
For me then, opposing One Nation has very little worth when I spend so much time still having to fight within the broad left. We need to be building the collective, taking the lead from communities who actually know, and counteracting some deeply-embedded structural issues instead. If we are actually successful in doing this, there will be no room for ONP to exist and gain traction. We will have built the society we truly want and need. Absolutely, fascists need to be punched, but perhaps if the bones of this country wasn't so fascist to begin with, they wouldn't have much to go on it the first place when it comes to their sooks?
