Jacinta Allan vows to take up fight against ‘anti-worker’ One Nation

A One Nation-led government in Victoria would damage the state economy, reduce already stretched workforces in hospitals and childcare, and hurt the same working people being drawn to Pauline Hanson’s populist movement, Premier Jacinta Allan has warned.

Describing the state political contest leading up to the November election as fundamentally altered from what it was just six months ago, Allan said the National Party risked being wiped out in Victoria, the Liberal Party could not win enough seats to govern on its own, and One Nation was now “slicing” into Labor’s traditional voter base.

In an exclusive interview prompted by surging support for One Nation and conducted against the backdrop of speculation about her leadership, Allan told The Age that Hanson’s party loomed as a serious threat to Victoria’s social, health and economic prosperity.

“It is clear that the Liberal Party can’t govern without One Nation,” Allan said. “It has become increasingly apparent that it would be a One Nation-led government. What concerns me is what that would mean for our society, our community and our economy.

“When you look at their record, they don’t support worker protections in the industrial relations system. They have opposed wage rises for young people. Now they want to wind back access to abortion. That is a combination of policies and positions that only hurts working people.

“I think One Nation are a risk to working people and families everywhere.”

Allan’s comments signal the start of a concerted Labor campaign at a state and federal level to reframe Hanson’s party as an anti-worker, job-destroying force that, like Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States, will aggravate the economic and social circumstances of working people who feel abandoned by the established political system.

It is a shift beyond attacking One Nation as a party of grievance to what it says it would do in government. This is based on its published policies – such as its pro-life opposition to current abortion laws – and its public statements and Senate voting record which includes support for watering down unfair dismissal laws and opposition to above-inflation increases to the minimum wage, more flexible work arrangements and the right to disconnect.

It is also tacit recognition by Allan that One Nation has replaced the Liberal Party as the greatest electoral threat to Labor, particularly in outer-suburban and regional seats, despite having not announced a Victorian leader or candidates.

A One Nation spokesman rejected the Victorian premier’s characterisation of the party as anti-worker. “The only friend Australian workers have is One Nation,” he said. “Victoria was once a proud manufacturing state, but under Labor and its corrupt union puppet masters, life has become extremely difficult.”

Allan’s claim that the Coalition cannot form the next government without One Nation is disputed by Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who needs to win 16 seats in addition to those the Coalition currently holds to secure a lower house majority at the November 28 election. A Liberal spokesman dismissed it as coming from “an end-of-days Labor government and a Labor premier under siege from her own caucus”.

National Party leader Danny O’Brien said the premier should be worried about holding her seat of Bendigo East, which is being targeted by the Nationals and One Nation. “We don’t take a single vote for granted and will be fighting hard to not only hold our seats, but add new ones like Bendigo East,” he said.

A collapse in primary support for Labor, detected in the party’s polling and those published by media groups including The Age’s Resolve Political Monitor, has heightened anxiety within the Victorian caucus about Allan’s leadership and their chances of retaining power.

With state parliament entering its final sitting week before the winter break, caucus will meet on Tuesday. Allan’s message to her colleagues, made repeatedly this week, is to shift their focus away from the party room to the people they represent.

“What we are seeing here with the fracturing of mainstream political parties is happening in Victoria, around the country and other parts of the world,” she said. “What I do in response to that and the jobs of members of parliament is to get out there and listen to people. Get out and talk to them. Understand why people are angry and frustrated.

“What comes with the privilege of being a member of parliament, and, in my instance, the premier, is you can then do something about it.”

As an example of this, Allan cited her decision to not limit the number of firearms that registered owners can keep, against the recommendation of a government-commissioned review of the state’s gun laws prompted by the Bondi massacre. Her electorate is home to a large number of recreational shooters.

“The reason why I believe caps weren’t necessarily the answer is because I went out and talked to gun owners,” Allan said. “It is pretty straightforward. You go out and talk to people and understand their experience. The focus needed to be on crooks and criminals who want to do the wrong thing, not people who use them responsibly and take that very, very seriously. They are not the problem.”

Allan says that if One Nation’s vote holds, the party’s policies will demand greater attention closer to the election. For now, she runs through what she sees as some of its most economically destructive and socially jarring positions.

She said One Nation’s opposition to renewable energy, which in Victoria is fuelling a campaign by rural landowners against high-voltage transmission lines required to connect solar and wind farms to the power grid, would “kill” investment and jobs and increase power prices.

“If you don’t have energy security, you risk jobs, you risk the manufacturing sector, and it beggars belief that you’ve got conservative politicians who put all that at risk so they can engage in a bloody culture war,” she said. “I find that behaviour not just disgraceful, it’s doing a disservice to those communities who deserve better.”

At last month’s Labor state conference, the premier promised that the relaunched State Electricity Commission, a government-owned renewable energy company, would hire 2000 electrical trade apprentices over the next four years.

‘I think One Nation are a risk to working people and families everywhere.’

Premier Jacinta Allan

While One Nation’s best-known policy focus, immigration, is not determined by the states, Victoria’s two largest exports – education and tourism – require a steady influx of temporary visitors, and the state’s hospitals, aged care facilities and childcare centres are staffed with first-generation migrants.

Allan said: “We can have a debate about what is the right number, but if you go too hard, who is going to look after you if you get sick? Who is going to care for your kids?”

Allan said it was important to understand why people were turning to populist parties in Victoria and elsewhere.

“The fact that a bloke in Washington does something and our petrol prices go up in Werribee feels out of control for a lot of people,” she said. “They have got time pressures, cost pressures, wages aren’t keeping up and job insecurity is really high. We have absolutely got to understand that, respect it and have a response to it.

“Global insecurity is driving huge anxiety, overlaid with inflationary pressures and wages not keeping up with costs and job insecurity. A lot of people who would be defined as traditional Labor voters are hurting. They are hurting because of those global circumstances and domestic ones as well, like rising interest rates and inflation.

“At the same time, One Nation is not the answer.”

Allan, after 27 years in parliament, is one of Australia’s longest-serving MPs. When she was a teenager, she was so passionate about social inequality that her father, Peter, a former SEC worker, dubbed her “Jacinta the Red”. Allan laughs about the descriptor now but agrees that the threat of One Nation has rekindled her sense of mission.

“I’ve never lost my mission and purpose in being a representative of Labor and working people,” she said. “I’ve never lost sight of who I am, where I’ve come from, and who I’m there to represent.

“If you add the rise of One Nation and the risk that they present to working people, I am more motivated than ever before. Now is not the time to cut, now is not the time to step back, now is not the time to hurt working people. That’s the threat a One Nation-Liberal government poses to working people and families. I’ll work damn hard to stop that.”

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