One Nation is a political Babadook – everywhere, nowhere and completely in charge

We have now entered into a political sphere where One Nation, with a whole one MP in the lower house and a rag tag conspiracy of senators, is influencing the nation’s policies.

One Nation seems to have more influence over Labor policy than the Labor caucus.

As Rachel Withers, writing in Crikey, pointed out, the major parties are worried about being called nannies or wowsers by One Nation. So they are doing all they can to make sure people know they are beer-drinking, punt-taking larrikins just having a laugh, as they argue about melons (because they are agreed on the policy), and who loves America more.

One Nation was a focus of Penny Wong’s Lowy Institute Gyngell lecture, despite her deliberately not naming the party.

Because One Nation is the Australian political Babadook. It is everywhere and nowhere and despite Labor and Coalition MPs and power players consistently reassuring people it’s going to peter out, or it’s a soft vote, or they have a handle on it, both parties are jumping at One Nation’s shadow and incorporating it into their own policies and rhetoric.

In the 2014 Australian horror film, the Babadook is not conquered until the main character faces her grief and fear of the future, finally standing up to the dark force in her family’s life after being confronted with the source of her half-life. It ends up leaving her, and is locked in the basement.

But Australia’s leaders still seem incapable of naming the issues from where One Nation reaps its support. It can’t see that Australians feel unmoored and under pressure, and increasingly do not find themselves reflected in their politics.

Australia’s political and media classes are STILL talking about melons, which sure, as well prosecuted, was an entirely unedifying moment from start to finish. But it happened a month ago, was covered at the time (including by the Lamestream podcast and other fifth estate members) and is only being spoken about now because News Corp needed another culture war.

We are talking about melons in the same parliament sitting we are about to see the biggest cuts to an Australian social spending program – the NDIS – despite the deafening cries of the disability community that it is going to destroy their lives.

We are talking about melons while Pauline Hanson claims any scrutiny of her or her party’s position is a “gotcha” – including recently when Sky/News24 host Chris Kenny asked her who was Japan’s prime minister and she couldn’t answer it – and that she “won’t be doing that” and Australia’s leaders can’t even name her, even as they let her shape their responses.

We are talking about melons while Australia slides ever closer to the US, while the Americans prepare to use Australian territory as bases for their nuclear submarines and we are set to allow unregulated tech companies grow like lantana in our bid to be part of the “AI revolution”.

We are talking about melons while the right claims a 10 per cent drop in house prices – which will take house prices back to 2023 levels – is going to cause a recession, and the government can’t even be bothered defending one of its only positive policies, both in terms of legacy and equity.

Australia’s Babadook has infiltrated the political consciousness so successfully that both Labor and the Coalition are preparing how they message and present policy through a framework of how Hanson and her conspiracy of MPs might spin it.

At what point are we all allowed to say enough? At what point are we actually allowed to have expectations that our leaders govern for what is there, and not the shadows they are jumping at?

Albanese won a majority that is an inch deep and a mile wide on the back of a repudiation of Trump and where America was taking the world. The Coalition has been comprehensively rejected by the Australian people, twice.

Australians, unable to get their leaders to listen to them, are now turning to a disruptor, and that disruptor has the added bonus of having advisers to the world’s Babadook mapping out their path to owning the political space.

Right now, One Nation doesn’t even need to win more seats. It’s doing just fine influencing Australia’s policy and legislation and messaging from the shadows.

In fact, if there is anything the Babadook could teach us, it’s that the closer you are to being seen, the less power you have. Facing fears, instead of kowtowing to them, might make us all a little braver.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This piece was first published in The New Daily. Read original here.