This is a topic that cuts to the heart of where Australia finds itself in early 2026. Based on the current political landscape, here is an opinion piece on the two dominant forces shaping our discourse.
The Australian political landscape is currently being squeezed by a powerful vice. On one side, we are witnessing the alarming and undeniable rise of the far-right, supercharged by a mastery of social media that has the major parties looking like digital dinosaurs. On the other, a growing tide of progressive disappointment with the Albanese government is curdling into outright anger, fueled by perceptions of secrecy, a moral failure on Gaza, and a lack of spine in standing up to the belligerence of the Trump administration. These two forces, seemingly opposed, are feeding off each other, and the result is a political discourse that is becoming increasingly toxic and fragmented.
The most immediate shock to the system is the surging popularity of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Recent polling is nothing short of a political earthquake, with One Nation tying with the Liberal-National Coalition on 23 per cent of the primary vote. This isn’t just a protest vote; it’s a realignment. Analysts point to a “perfect storm” of factors: a Coalition riddled with infighting, the “cost-of-living crisis biting hard,” and a sophisticated, decades-long mastery of direct communication.
Senator Hanson and her team have effectively bypassed traditional media gatekeepers. They dominate Facebook and use YouTube for “comedic and sometimes quite bizarre content” that feeds directly into the algorithms that capture younger viewers. This isn’t just politics; it’s a highly effective content engine that peddles consistency and certainty in an uncertain world. The recent call by Labor frontbencher Julian Hill for the Liberal Party to stop “playing footie” with these “populist forces” feels less like a strategy and more like a desperate plea. The horse has already bolted, and it’s wearing a “Please Explain” t-shirt.
The danger here is profound. As an ABC investigation has shown, the lines between populist protest movements and organised neo-Nazi groups are becoming dangerously blurred. While One Nation distances itself from the most extreme fringes, its rhetoric creates the fertile ground in which they grow. When Minister Hill warns that our society is being “ripped apart” and that Muslim women in his community are “scared to go to the shops,” he is describing the real-world consequences of a political debate that has lost its moorings.
If the rise of the hard right represents one side of the vice, the government’s perceived timidity represents the other. For many who voted for change in the 2025 election, the Albanese government has become a cipher. The disappointment is multifaceted, but three failures stand out.
First, there is the perception of secrecy and a lack of courage in foreign policy. The government’s response to Donald Trump’s invitation to join his so-called “Board of Peace” was emblematic. While the world braced for the return of Trump’s brand of disruptive diplomacy, reports emerged that the government’s internal strategy was simply to hope the “hot potato” would “just fizzle out.” This is not leadership. It is a fearful hope that a problem will disappear, a posture that does nothing to assure allies or inform the public.
This timidity pales, however, in comparison to the government’s stance on Gaza. The moral weight of the conflict has landed heavily on Australian shores. There is a deep and growing sense of betrayal among pro-Palestinian advocates, and indeed many human rights-focused Australians, who see a government that has bent over backwards to avoid upsetting Israel. This sentiment is amplified by the international treatment of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
While the news is careful to distinguish between the UN official Francesca Albanese and our Prime Minister, the public discourse often conflates the two, creating a cloud of confusion and frustration. For many, the spectacle of the Trump administration sanctioning Albanese – and her family suing over it – while European nations call for her resignation, is a clear litmus test. Regardless of one’s view of her rhetoric, she is seen as a voice holding Israel to account. Against this backdrop, the Australian government’s quiet diplomacy and failure to issue more forceful condemnations is perceived not as prudence, but as pandering. It looks like a lack of courage to stand up for Palestinian civilians and a capitulation to the same US-led pressure campaign that targets her.
So, here we are. We have a government that appears paralysed, hoping difficult issues will “go away” while simultaneously losing the narrative to a far-right machine that offers simplistic, and often hateful, answers to complex problems. The government’s silence on the issues that matter to its progressive base – whether it’s housing policy or a principled foreign policy – creates a vacuum. And into that vacuum rushes the certainty of the hard right.
The great danger for Australia is that this dynamic becomes self-perpetuating. The more the government fails to articulate a bold, humane, and courageous vision, the more disillusioned voters will look elsewhere. Some will go to the Greens, but a significant and growing number are being seduced by the siren song of the far-right. We are left with a discourse dominated by either the inflammatory culture war talking points of the fringe or the cautious, fearful whispers of a government that has forgotten how to lead. Until the Labor party finds its voice and its courage, this perfect storm will only continue to gather strength.
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I am increasingly frustrated by the Labor Party – that I have supported for 50 years – for their “lack of balls” and willingness to do what the Australian public wants and needs.
They are no longer a “left of centre” party.
Is it any wonder that the RWNJ groups are gaining in influence?
As for a viable alternative, I don’t believe there is one. Perhaps there will be one day.
People have said to me that the Greens and the Independents are good alternatives, but imo our democracy relies on a functioning government AND a functioning opposition. The Greens and Independents are not in that space at the moment, but I always give them my preference votes. Having said that, both are very good local representatives.
As for PHON, thank goodness her influence seems to be concentrated in the Senate and is at best divisive in the community.
“…many human rights-focused Australians, who see a government that has bent over backwards to avoid upsetting Israel…”
Why not come right out and say it? The elephant in the room is the Zionist lobby interference in every aspect of Australian governance – municipal, state and federal. Zionists have penetrated our foreign policy, political, judicial, educational, defence and military, health, finance and media agencies to the extent that Australia is very close to losing its sovereignty to the interests of a small fraction of our citizenry, many of whom hold dual citizenship with Israel. That Labor fails to address the Zionist faction is the prime reason that Labor is losing popularity.
The traditional parties are dead slow lately, disappointing everyone, and Mr. Empty-Bowelmouth, in LLLeeyyy’s old seat, is worthless as a candidate for the redskulled Harpy’s gutless gang of goats, so, will this nation continue to fail us? (yes)
@uncletimrob
What do you mean exactly by saying “The Greens and Independents are not in that space”? and on what basis do you say that?
I recall the Alan Behm piece in the Gusrdian a week ago, suggesting that Australia is so hooked into the American defence network that any attempt by the country to operate as a soverign nation has become problematic.
@UncleTimRob, I suggest that the Community Independents and the Greens are the future as we see the duopoly continuing to shed support. Why wouldn’t you rather place your Community Independent or Greens candidate before the Labor candidate? Since their arrival in Parliament the debate in parliament has dramatically improved from the petty politicking of the duopoly. I believe they will be well able to form a competent Opposition and even government in the near future. Let’s see what happens in 2028, despite the dreadful political donations legislation the duopoly passed to try to contain this threat to their comfort.
If one zooms out we can observe similar dynamic in the UK that is missed up close, we’re an old nation, with a heaving mass of, middle aged & older skips, low info and regional voters targeted by a now consolidated and integrated RW MSM and online ecosystem to induce ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’ for urgency sees Brexit, Trump 1.0, The Voice, Trump 2.0 and now alleged Russian assets Farage/Reform
The same is used versus the centre and the ALP with headline opinion polls (no electoral correlation) to relentlessly pincer and pummel the centre, through (unrelated) proxy issues eg. Netanyahu and Trump attack Iran with neither warning nor strategy, therefore the fault of Albanese and Starmer, must resign? But the local right wing and allies of Netanyahu and Trump nada?
Further, many Australians are quite nativist and conservative, as is NSW ALP, and any PM is supposed to represent all Australians who are primed up on fossil fuel anti-net zero Koch and anti-immigrant Tanton Networks’ agitprop, without asking questions.
Fact is we have still near a million silent gens, 5.5 million boomer ‘bomb’ and top end of GenX adds up to a big demographic ‘bubble’, with increasing longevity a driver of population growth, ignored by RW MSM, but next 20-25 years is rhe big die off for the mother lode of demographic change ‘the great replacement’, then demographic rebalance.
The powers thatbbe know and understand this dynamic, hence, incessant dog whistling of immigration etc. and trying to have retirees lose their lolly over everything…..by a RW MSM influenced by NewsCorp, in turn inferring editorial from Fox News as reported by Media Matter 2022 ‘If you are in business with Fox News you are on the hook for its white nationalism’.
@uncletimrob
Just what space would that be?
The only reason Albanese is not the worst Prime Minister in Australian history is that Morrison was as loathsome a person as was humanly possible. Penny Wong is the worst Foreign Minister in Australian history (although Israel would disagree); then we have Richard Marles, how hard is it to have photo shop ops with people you are giving $10 billion to for nothing in return then say ‘full steam ahead’; Marles either was lying or he didn’t even know where that there were 3 Australian sailors onboard the nuclear sub that was just part of a war crime.
IMO, Andrew Wilkie or Helen Haines would make a much better PM than Albanese, and a pair of witches hats would be every bit as good as Wong and Marles.
Just what kind of special space do you have to be in to raise the Centrelink payments, increase royalties on the gas that is being given away for free, say no to new gas and coal fields, get rid of the CGT discount, institute the recommendations on the many reports that Labor has been sitting on, such as gambling reform, aged-care, domestic violence and ‘jobs for mates’?
A stray dog could run down Australian manufacturing, our hospitals, our universities, our schools, aged-care and the NDIS, we don’t need specially spaced Labor government Ministers to keep doing that.
Maybe this has something to do with ‘fragmentation’ on the political front, with complicit knowledge from both sides and the temerity of Governments writ large to ‘soften up’ the populace with fear….
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/gunshots-machetes-and-kfc-how-police-are-preparing-for-australia-s-terror-threats-20260225-p5o57a.html
The terror is from governments and their agencies and those who think they are entitled to behave in any manner as they see fit.
Sadly Michael you have hit the nail on the head too many times with these comments.
At the risk of offending the ZIONAZI readers (and NO-GO-ALBO toadie ”media supervisors” monitoring the level of disgust with the present under-achieving and increasingly underwhelming) LABOR misgovernment that is all you describe ….. none of it is pretty.
The entry of Auntie Gina into the funding of Only Nutters party stinks of the historic precedent from Germany between the wars when Little Ad*lf was picked up by Reich-marshall Shacht, the leading Weimar financial person, and introduced to the German heavy industrialists who were ”thrilled” with the national socialist proposals for protecting the wealth from loss at the hands of the Communists. We all know how that ended so badly.
Now add the ZIONZAZI bloc of about 30,000 supporters entangling their 19th century Viennese White Supremacist colonist settler imperialism to overcome centuries of Judaism persecution across Europe, plus a compliant Mainstream Media Manipulation Monopoly owned by US interests.
Too many of the ZIONAZIS have fealty divided loyalties between the best interests of Australia, where they live as part of a democracy in relative peace & prosperity, and the theological ”dream” of an apartheid theological state similar to Vorster’s South Africa, or the Iranian theocracy that Butcher Bibi & his puppet TACO Trumpery are busy bombing into oblivion after ANOTHER FAILED CIA INSPIRED POLITICAL REGIME CHANGE COUP.
Perhaps the most accurate description of the ALBANESE LABOR GOVERNMENT is a spineless jellyfish in desperate need of a stiffening moral spine and some political testicles.
I was sad that labor pollies rejected Albo in 2013 and chose little billy and torpid tania giving us losses to the copperman and the minister for everything.
But how disappointing is Albo now to not use his massive majority?
The worst example, for me, is the bank sacking 3000 for AI.
The commonwealth bank now get those 3000 worker’s wages of $150m per year, for AI machines, which will get access to an Albo subsidy.
Plus, Albo loses the $50m income tax from those workers who now are on the dole.
The bank should still be liable for the income tax for every AI machine that replaces the workers.
What apart from nothing, does Albo do? He increase workers against the AI trend of losing workers. Why? When AI release 100s if not 1000s of hours for politicians in research, speech writing and constituent contact!
When he considers the fact that many politicians have millions of electors eg California has 2 senators for a population of 40m compared to Tasmania having 12 for 0.5m people.
He should be reducing the senate numbers by 50%, at least or, better still abolish it all together.
@ wam: Agree with your opinion of the hugely disappointing NO-GO-ALBO Liarbral$ Lite misgovernment.
Agree that AI reduces corporate costs but increases government dole payments. We saw this when the RAbbott COALition misgovernment shut down the automotive assembly industry with the loss of an estimated 30,000 jobs across the industry & Australian manufacturing suppliers.
Somehow the COALition pre-selects candidates who fail to acknowledge that the capitalism theology favours the established corporations against any later competitors, rather than promote productivity improvements.
Then as you note, giving corporations subsidies to replace workers at the cost of tax revenue is (another) major policy failure.
Agreed; reduce the number of politicians ….. it may be the only way we get any government funding for public infrastructure development & maintenance in regional Australia.
However, keep the Senate because Joh (NLP Qld) showed how easily the mono-cameral system established by an earlier Labor Qld government could be rorted & gerrymandered.
Thanks, NEC,
NT has only had a MONO mob and we only got a TV in 74 ABC from Qld. So we knew Jo and his crooks.
Before that I had lived with playmander in bi-cameral SA and Vic had Bolte.
The pommie based constitution is a worry and we need a new one. Sadly the libs cannot understand bipartisan means together so a fair constitution is impossible.
As there is no longer any semblance of legion to the purpose of the Senate. So even at the risk of Jo or Askin or Dictator Dan or trump, it should be abolished.
ps
trump has god blessed Albo over the soccer girls.