Progressive groups reset campaign against One Nation before Victoria election

A tactical shift on the Australian right

Progressive campaign group GetUp and the Victorian Trades Hall Council are changing how activists engage potential One Nation voters before Victoria’s November election. Training sessions are instructing campaigners to avoid leading with personal attacks on party leader Pauline Hanson and instead explore the economic concerns beneath arguments about immigration, crime and cultural conflict.

The shift follows One Nation’s sustained rise in support and victories in recent state and federal byelections. GetUp’s earlier advertising concentrated heavily on Hanson’s character, her relationship with billionaire Gina Rinehart and comparisons with Donald Trump. Post-election research commissioned from Redbridge indicated that such attacks reinforced supporters’ perception that Hanson was an outsider targeted by an establishment.

Doorstep conversations replace attack advertising

The new approach asks unionists and volunteers to acknowledge voter frustration and redirect discussions toward areas where the labour movement believes it retains credibility: employment conditions, entitlements, parental leave, housing and the cost of living. Organisers argue that nurses and other locally trusted workers may persuade voters more effectively than ministers or professional political operatives.

This is not an instruction to disregard discriminatory politics. Trainers described Hanson’s use of racial division as a political technique but argued that immediately labelling individual supporters or the leader could end a conversation before material policy differences are discussed. The distinction is strategically important as One Nation seeks to turn distrust of institutions into votes across working-class and regional communities.

Australia’s formal human-rights setting gives the debate additional weight. In its March review, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights welcomed anti-discrimination legislation and human-rights acts in Victoria and other jurisdictions. It nevertheless found national protections uneven and recommended comprehensive federal legislation, providing institutional context for arguments over how political campaigns address discrimination without deepening polarisation.

The November result will test whether conversation-based campaigning can interrupt One Nation’s momentum where attack advertising failed. Other questions include whether Labor presents a distinct economic programme and whether activists can discuss immigration and race without abandoning rights-based scrutiny. The Guardian’s canonical report includes a current editorial photograph of Hanson, making the story suitable for a photographic cover.