You don’t beat a protest vote by attacking the protest

Focussing on One Nation won’t win voters back – focussing on the voters will win voters back.

Lately, there have been a lot of words thrown around targeting other political parties, much of it language that could also be thrown back at the protagonists. In other words, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

At a recent branch meeting, the guest speaker gave some insight into how the Beattie Government in Queensland went about responding to the election of 11 One Nation members to the Queensland Parliament in 1998. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation won six seats from the ALP and five from the Nationals. Labor did form a government, but only with the support of Independent Peter Wellington, giving Labor 45 seats.

Peter Beattie then set about winning back support for Labor by responding head-on to the feedback from an electorate that had lost faith in the two major parties. Rather than focus on One Nation, Mr Beattie introduced new initiatives such as Community Cabinet, where the entire Cabinet and senior public servants would visit Queensland’s regional centres for a weekend, and anyone could turn up and speak to the Premier and his senior ministers. At the next election in 2001, Peter Beattie won a record 66 seats out of a possible 89.

As the major parties again face a resurgent One Nation, no doubt some of the lessons of the past will be revisited. Though I suspect the support for One Nation today is now much more than just a Queensland experience, driven by cost-of-living pressures and a lack of trust in governments.

With a general election in South Australia, plus two by-elections – the federal seat of Farrer and the traditionally safe state Labor seat of Secret Harbour in Western Australia – behind her, support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is now widespread.

The Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition are right to tackle One Nation head-on, but I think they would be well served to do this without using language that may be seen as hypocritical.

Instead, maybe they should ask the question: why are voters shifting away from the major parties? I recently read an observation that resonated – you don’t defeat a protest vote by attacking the protest – you defeat it by understanding what people are protesting about.

Focus on making the case for your own policies – Australians can work the rest out for themselves.