Jim Chalmers Warns Progressives Not To 'Mock' One Nation Voters

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned those on the progressive side of politics not to“scold” or“mock” potential One Nation voters but instead to take seriously the task of persuading them away from the insurgent party.

By directly acknowledging the seriousness of One Nation's support and advancing a strategy for tackling it, Chalmers is underscoring that the party is a threat to Labor, not just to the Coalition.

Delivering the Bernie Fraser Oration, sponsored by the Australia Institute, a progressive think tank, on Tuesday night, Chalmers also had a sobering message for straitened households. Reserve Bank and Treasury forecasts did not expect economic conditions to get much better in the next three months, he said, although they did expect things to get“a bit better” over the next year.

Chalmers said the combination of near term pressure and transformational change had made people feel more disconnected from opportunity, and“mourning a loss of control as change accelerates around them”. This was fuelled, politicised and catastrophised by“algorithmic rage bait”.

“In our system One Nation has been the most obvious beneficiary of all this but the political ramifications are playing out across the world,” he said.

He pointed to political churn in Japan, South Korea, Germany and France. In Australia, One Nation's support had doubled in a year. Three in ten people now said they'd vote for them and they were getting a foothold in the House of Representatives and state parliaments. Nobody expected the polls to change soon.

The role of progressives“is not to scold those who see appeal in that message. It's not to mock them or 'cancel' them or talk down to them”.

Rather,“serious progressives” should adopt a two-pronged strategy, Chalmers said.

One half was to persuade people that returning to the past, appealing as it might seem, was not possible.

Chalmers admitted“a desire for the past is rooted in dissatisfaction with the status quo”.

It was important to point out One Nation and the Coalition would make people worse off, not better off.

But it was not enough to point to the risks posed by the threat from the right. Delivery of government policies was essential, said Chalmers, listing what the government had been doing in various areas. Also essential was reform, that the government was undertaking on a number of fronts.

Looking to the economic prospects over the next year Chalmers said of official forecasts:

But Chalmers added a qualification.“So much of the next year will be hostage to decisions taken in Washington, on Wall Street, in Tehran”.

Chalmers said these difficult times tested Australians and their governments.

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