By Sean Healy
Almost every "respectable" politician would have you believe that putting One Nation last on your ballot paper on October 3 is enough to ensure the end of this racist party's influence in Australian politics.
Kim Beazley and his Labor Party, after their ritual condemnations of One Nation's "divisiveness", call on all and sundry to "put Hanson last" (and them first, of course).
The Australian Democrats are arguing that voting for them, and not for Hanson's lot, will ensure a "balanced" Senate.
Even John Howard himself recommends putting Hanson last (although it's a seat-by-seat decision, of course, and if some Coalition MPs want to preference One Nation, that's their business).
There's no question that the "put One Nation last" sentiment has a positive origin, and it is something we all should do on our ballot paper.
The broad sentiment for dealing One Nation an electoral blow is a sign of how widespread anti-racist attitudes have become — the result of the many protests, and the outrage Hanson has provoked, especially since the Queensland election.
But "putting One Nation last" is not enough, not even near enough. Beating Hanson and Hansonism, and beating racism, will require a lot more than simply marking certain boxes in a certain order boxes on October 3.
An electoral repudiation of One Nation would be a blow which would explode its pretension to represent the "common people". If it was denied seats in the Senate, and certainly if Hanson lost her seat of Blair, One Nation's momentum would be stopped. It would be a big spanner in the works — at least for the moment.
But it would not yet be a fatal blow. That requires uprooting One Nation's base of support, and dealing with the reasons for its rise.
Given how entrenched racism is in Australia, and given that One Nation will still hold 11 seats in Queensland, regardless of the result on October 3, the party isn't going to just go away after one voting exercise.
Neither will putting One Nation last on the ballot lead to the disappearance of racism, or a halt to racist policies. Regardless of which party forms government after October 3 and regardless of how big the electoral blow to One Nation itself, the basic racist policies will continue; "soft Hansonism" will continue.
The cost of that persistent racism is revealed not just in statistics, or undesirable policies, or 30-second media grabs. Racism kills — this one from despair, that one in prison, that one from ill health. Soft Hansonism's poison kills just as surely as the full strength brand.
That's crystal clear from the Coalition. They have spent the election campaign trying to distance themselves from One Nation, and not mentioning the "r" word. They have obviously decided that carrying out their early threat to make this an explicitly race-based election would only result in them getting a hiding.
The Coalition's Aboriginal affairs minister, John Herron, even cancelled a media conference on September 23, scheduled to announce the Coalition's new plans for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). Apparently, the government decided that announcing a further (speculated) two-thirds cut in ATSIC's funding would sound too much like Hanson's policy to win them many votes. They'll simply carry it out on the sly if they're elected.
Despite the Coalition's "softly, softly" approach on the issue, their racism is obvious. Just in the last month, they've launched two enquiries: one into possible further cuts to the already meagre Abstudy student assistance scheme for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and another into the definition of "Aboriginal" — to justify cuts to services and tightening eligibility for them.
And that's to say nothing of their two and a half years in government: the "bucket-loads of extinguishment" of native title; the go-ahead to the Jabiluka uranium mine over the express opposition of the traditional landowners; the various rounds of cuts to ATSIC; the cut in the immigration quota from 110,000 to 80,000 per year; and the reduction in the family reunion scheme for immigration, which unfairly targets Asian migrants.
Their introduction of a two-year waiting period for newly arrived migrants to claim welfare payments is turning up more and more cases of extreme hardship, and the list keeps on keeping on.
Contrary to what Labor would have us believe, it too has a strong record of racism.
Labor voted in favour of 90% of Howard's Native Title (Amendment) Act, which virtually extinguished native title.
Further, whilst its policy for this election is woven to make it appear soft and fuzzy on race, it actually skips all responsibility for undoing the Coalition's damage. There is no commitment to restore ATSIC's funding, to reinstate welfare for newly arrived migrants, or to reverse the cuts to the immigration quota.
In fact, Labor's immigration policy shares with the Coalition its support for "more targeted" immigration, focused on skilled migrants and English speakers — that is, on white (or at least rich) migrants.
Both the major parties bear responsibility for allowing the rise of far-right formations like One Nation. Their policies in government of subordinating everything to corporate profit levels and "productivity" has meant mass unemployment, cuts to welfare and services (especially in rural and regional areas) and a government increasingly removed from the people.
This has proved fertile ground for One Nation — to both reflect anti-politician dissatisfaction and turn it towards scapegoating Aborigines, migrants, sole mothers and welfare recipients for the problems of society.
The major parties themselves have always engaged in such scapegoating — the Coalition's last two years in government have been full of it.
If all we do is put One Nation last, this "soft Hansonism" will not end; it will scarcely even be dented. What is needed to put racism on the skids are first, an active, militant and mobilised movement, and secondly, a political alternative to Hansonism, both the "hard" and "soft" varieties.
These needs are interlinked and can be met by the organisation of all those tens of thousands of people who oppose racism to confront the root causes of the racist menace and work to put something better in its place.
In the last few months there has been a start on the first task. There have been many protests, particularly by young people, against Hanson and racism. The most visible were the two national walkouts by students on July 24 and August 28, which attracted 14,000 and 8000 participants respectively. These attracted major national media coverage and captured the imagination of many anti-racists.
But there have also been hundreds of other demonstrations, public meetings and protest pickets happening across the country, including during the election campaign. All these protests show clearly the scale of the anti-racist sentiment that is out there.
This has to continue after October 3. The potentially massive anti-racist movement must continue to organise, protest and roll on, against Hanson's One Nation but also against the inevitable racist policies of the federal government — whichever party takes office.
To see our task of building such a movement as ending with the election would be to leave the job half done. It would let One Nation and whoever is in government off the hook.
But there is also an urgent need for an all-round political alternative to One Nation and to the parties which have helped its rise.
A mass party is needed which counters racism, which opposes every single racist policy regardless of its origin, and which is committed to building a genuine people's movement against racism.
Such a mass party would replace scapegoating with real solutions to unemployment, and economic and social dislocation. It would be tough on racism and on the causes of racism.
This is the sort of political party that Resistance and the Democratic Socialists are committed to building.