Comment by Dave Riley
The recent secondary student walkouts have promoted a wave of discussion on the topic of racism — what it is and how to fight it. But the new rise in the confidence of the anti-racist forces, spawned by the student actions, has confronted a dissenting voice which laments the movement's hard edge.
While not a loud voice, it certainly sits in judgment on the movement, condemning it for "stereotyping" racists, and One Nation voters in particular. Given the penchant of racism to categorise and generalise, this allegation is particularly goading.
So perhaps it is time to consider: Are One Nation supporters racists?
When One Nation pulled in almost a quarter of the primary vote in the Queensland election in June, my first thought was that if One Nation had attracted the vote of all conscious racists in Queensland, it was surprising how few there were. Queensland is a racist state, and the overwhelming focus of that racism is the state's Aboriginal population.
Queensland is also the Mecca for retirees who flock north in search of the sun. Many are veterans of service in World War II and, while they may still blame the Japanese people for the conflict, the social changes promoted by the '60s radicalisation have never sat kindly with many of them.
Many are sentimentally attached to the past, to the good old days under Menzies, and in places like the Gold Coast — where anti-Japanese sentiment is particularly strong — they were the first social layer to organise support for Pauline Hanson.
Folk in their 70s or older are more in touch with the grossly racist traditions in this country than those people born after World War II. The organisation closely associated with this layer — the Returned Services League — is the major promoter of Australian national chauvinism.
Racism has recruited its keenest advocates in Queensland. While today we can point to the League of Rights and the Confederate Action Party, which are active in the south-east of the state, the labour movement in Queensland was established on a racist agenda.
One of the first acts of the Queensland parliament after federation was to assist in the expulsion of 30,000 Kanaks. Similarly, the "socialism" advocated by popular agitators like William Lane at the turn of the century was for the white race alone.
In 40 years of almost unbroken government in Queensland, the ALP ensured that those racist principles were never challenged. So, by the time the Nationals replaced the ALP in 1957, racism was already a state institution.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who led the Nationals for most of the period since then, is the respected mentor to One Nation.
What is sometimes forgotten is that the Queensland branch of the Nationals is a mass party — the largest by far in the state — which could, for a time under Petersen, govern on its own because its urban vote was climbing. While it may have been fashionable to dismiss Petersen's government as resting on a gerrymander, the Nationals had majority following.
Today, this tradition is being actively continued by the Peter Beattie Labor government, which has been keen to join John Howard in extinguishing native title.
So there are thousands of racists in Queensland who support One Nation. Hanson did not drop from the sky; she grew up in Ipswich.
But what about those "little Aussie battlers" who have turned to One Nation in the belief that it offers an alternative to the major parties: are these people racists?
Those of you who have not seen One Nation propaganda probably have no idea how good it is. The main leaflet distributed for the Queensland election was a brilliant exercise in populism and misinformation. Its confident nationalism sought to obscure its real lack of alternative policies.
Despite this, however, whatever people thought they were voting for, it was pretty clear to anyone who could read that the One Nation package featured some items aimed at migrants and Aborigines.
Any voter who was not consciously attracted to One Nation on this basis would have to deny or ignore that key aspect of its charter. That doesn't make them racist, but it sure doesn't excuse them either.
So, attempts to caricature the anti-racist movement as a bunch of sectarians who maliciously stereotype Hanson's electoral supporters as crudely as any bona fide racist will generalise "Asians", need to be argued against. They are attempts to confuse people into further hesitancy about doing anything about racism, other than regretting it.