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Please Explain by Anna Broinowksi & Rogue Nation by Royce Kurmelovs

by
December 2017, no. 397

Please Explain: The rise, fall and rise again of Pauline Hanson by Anna Broinowksi

Viking, $34.99 pb, 312 pp, 9780143784678

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Rogue Nation: Dispatches from Australia’s populist uprisings and outsider politics by Royce Kurmelovs

Hachette, $32.99 pb, 272 pp, 9780733639241

Please Explain by Anna Broinowksi & Rogue Nation by Royce Kurmelovs

by
December 2017, no. 397

More than any other political party in Australia, One Nation represents a puzzle for commentators. When trying to explain its support – which has hovered around ten per cent since its revival in 2016 – the temptation is to look for subtext, something deeper, beneath the surface. Could the party’s cultural pitch really be a code for economic concerns, with immigration a metaphor for the genuine fear of international competition? Perhaps we are witnessing a new political coalition of those ‘left behind’ by social change, bound together by a suspicion of everything cosmopolitan. Or is One Nation simply a vehicle for those pissed off at a stagnant political order, hoping to unseat and humiliate its representatives? What really motivates the mythical One Nation voter?

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