29/06/2026
A lot of people are angry at politics right now and given the state of things, that anger is completely justified. But as Warren Smith (MUA Deputy National Secretary) makes the case that One Nation is not the answer; they're part of the very system that favours bosses over workers. The numbers say it plainly: Australia's 131 billionaires hold as much wealth as the entire bottom 30% of households combined, while the fortunes of Rinehart, Forrest and Triguboff have doubled since 2020 at around $1.5 million per hour, not from hard work, but from a system the is skewed towards them. Meanwhile wages have gone backwards. And here's the part they don't want you to see: it's Gina and the billionaire class and the media empires that bow to them who benefit from One Nation, who amplify and promotes its message. They are not antiestablishment but are a part of it, same side, always have been.
This piece cuts through the culture wars and the blame game and looks at the actual parliamentary record, votes against Same Job Same Pay, against casual conversion rights, against industrial manslaughter laws, and for cuts to Sunday and public holiday penalty rates. The real fight isn't worker against migrant and the downtrodden, it's a united working-class movement for public ownership of housing, energy, health and transport. Worth a read and a share.
𝘽𝙮 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙎𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙈𝙐𝘼 𝘿𝙚𝙥𝙪𝙩𝙮 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮
Many people are rightly angry about the direction of politics in Australia: angry with Labor and angry with the Liberal–National Coalition. Given Australia’s wealth as a nation, and the squandered opportunities for ordinary working class people to improve their lot, that anger is completely justifiable.
For a nation that claims values of fairness, a “fair go” and sharing, the reality is stark and blows away any notion that these so‑called values are implemented by the major political parties. This includes One Nation, whose policies on this front offer not only more of the same but something worse. They are all part of a system that develops laws and policies favouring owners of capital over working‑class people.
𝙒𝙝𝙤 𝙤𝙬𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩
The richest 10 per cent of households in Australia own around 45 per cent of all wealth.
The next 30 per cent own around 38 per cent of all wealth, and the bottom 60 per cent of households own a mere 17 per cent.
Australia’s 131 billionaires – about 0.001 per cent of the population – hold around 2.9 per cent of all household wealth.
In other words, 131 people have as much wealth as the lowest 30 per cent of all households combined.
Since 2020, the wealth of Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Harry Triguboff, Australia’s wealthiest individuals, has doubled – not from their own hard work but through ownership and investment – at a rate of around $1.5 million per hour.
Workers’ wages have in most cases gone backwards, or where workers are highly organised and have economic leverage, have only just kept pace.
So if you’re critical of the ALP, Liberals and Nationals, and for justifiable reasons, that anger should also be directed at One Nation, who are part of a system that favours the rich.
The political elites compete for power over a system they do not control but are expected to manage in the interests of billionaires and corporations.
The billionaires and corporations can move them on when they don’t toe the line.
The real powers behind capital use massive monopoly media power and sophisticated campaigns based on blaming minorities and causing division through misinformation to maintain control of a system that works for them, not for us.
𝙊𝙣𝙚 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙧𝙨
The evidence that One Nation is part of this gang of thieves is obvious.
If you move past the blame game, racism and fake culture wars, and look closely at One Nation’s actions in parliament, you see the real story.
This is their record:
• Opposed increases to minimum wages and wage‑setting changes that benefit low‑paid workers.
• Attacked wage rises for early childhood educators and publicly opposed minimum wage increases for millions of workers whose pay is tied to the award system.
• Supported cuts to Sunday and public‑holiday penalty rates.
• Voted against “Same Job, Same Pay” for labour hire workers.
• Voted against stronger rights for casual workers, including: Better pathways for conversion from casual to permanent, a stronger definition of “casual” tied to the reality of work rather than just the contract and measures to stop the “permanent casual” rort and ensure access to arbitration when bosses refuse conversion.
• Backed in Morrison government changes that locked in an employer‑friendly casual definition, stripped long‑term coal casuals of court‑recognised rights to leave entitlements, and blocked access to arbitration on casual‑to‑permanent conversion.
• Voted against reforms to increase workers’ bargaining power, including: Laws to stop employers terminating enterprise agreements during bargaining to force wage cuts, laws to ban pay secrecy so workers can organise around fair pay, stronger rights for workplace delegates and better right‑of‑entry provisions to tackle wage theft.
• Sided with the Coalition on key Fair Work changes, including allowing workers to be forced to vote on permanent cuts to pay and conditions with only 24 hours’ notice.
• Voted against making industrial manslaughter a criminal offence.
• Voted against expanding the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency’s role to include silica.
• Voted against better rights for gig workers and against measures to keep transport workers safe.
• Opposed provisions intended to ensure workers don’t go backwards during enterprise bargaining, effectively siding with employers’ ability to strip conditions.
• Made deals with the Coalition that cost mineworkers tens of millions in entitlements, including: supporting changes that stripped around 900 WorkPac coal workers of about $16 million in leave entitlements, backing on‑paper “casual” definitions that allow employers to keep workers permanently insecure while avoiding proper leave and redundancy obligations.
• Called for stronger boss powers to sack workers “on the spot” over alleged misconduct.
• Used rhetoric about unions and workplace laws that frames workers as “lazy” and “not wanting to work,” and calls for an “overhaul” of industrial relations to make dismissal easier and roll back entitlements – a position unions and the ACTU describe as openly anti‑worker.
You get the picture: this mob are not the solution.
𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙨
First, we need to understand what culture is.
Culture is not just “art and ideas.” It is the way a society’s dominant economic class organises and shapes meanings, values and everyday life to maintain its rule.
The ruling class uses culture – media, education, religion, art, law and popular entertainment – to normalise its power, make exploitation seem “natural” or invisible, and win consent from the oppressed.
Economic relations shape cultural life: what’s possible, what’s rewarded, what’s censored.
Culture is a key ideological apparatus. It spreads ruling‑class ideology, including individualism, racism, nationalism and sexism, so workers blame themselves or each other, not the system. At the same time, social culture is full of contradictions.
Workers create their own cultures of solidarity, struggle and resistance through songs, stories, humour, rituals, union traditions and subcultures.
At work and across organised labour, culture tends to emphasise collectivism, mutual dependence, trust, discipline, safety and loyalty to the collective.
In the maritime industry and many others, culture is a form of working‑class self‑organisation, reflected in picket lines, delegate structures, stop‑work meetings and international solidarity – all ways workers turn shared conditions into class power to improve our lives.
Bosses try to break that culture through labour hire, automation, anti‑union laws, racism, sexism and competition between sections of workers.
A militant maritime union culture has to consciously fight for unity across job type, race and gender, otherwise the ruling class can break solidarity and turn workers against each other instead of against exploitation and their real enemy, the bosses.
One Nation is trying to smash that culture in favour of employers.
𝙈𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙢 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙮𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚
Australia’s national identity has for a long time recognised, although not without right‑wing contention, that it is a multicultural country and society.
The genesis of official multicultural policy dates from the Whitlam government and was a part of a broad rejection of the historic White Australia policy and recognition of First Nations rights.
Beyond adopting elements of different national cultures in a cohesive social way, the usual Australian understanding of multiculturalism, culture also includes working‑class culture and the co‑existence, albeit with contradictions, of ruling‑class culture and working‑class culture.
Multiple cultures exist in society whether we like it or not.
Multiculturalism as the adopted cultural norm and government policy of Australia is a developing process through which a new culture emerges from the interaction and coalescing of the various cultures present in the community.
Something new develops out of the positive cultural contributions of migrants to broader Australian society, and the old British colonial culture is reshaped.
First Nations culture, the true original Australian culture, was systematically smashed by colonialism but still makes a contribution to multiculturalism. It should make a greater and more dominant contribution.
This new multiculturalism encompasses language, food, art, religion and celebrations, and is shared with all Australians. It seeks to stop the negative processes of assimilation and the imposition of an Anglo‑Saxon cultural stereotype.
One Nation repeatedly portrays multiculturalism as a “failed concept” that erodes a supposed core Australian culture, linking it to immigration, housing pressures and “radical Islam.”
In reality, One Nation’s monoculture project is built around “whiteness” and white supremacy. It is a dangerous fascist concept that creates division amongst workers. Monoculturalism seeks to undermine acceptance of different religions and languages in the community.
The bottom line is that religious, language and cultural differences pale into insignificance when we consider the exploitation of working people of all ethnicities, cultures, dialects and backgrounds by employers.
Monoculturalism backs in the criminal distribution of wealth in this country.
It divides and is an effective tool for employers to push back the organisation and struggle of working people against greedy corporations and billionaires.
One Nation, as the champion of these ideas, is leading the fight on behalf of the bosses.
𝙄𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣
Australia moved from an overtly racist immigration monoculture policy to official multiculturalism in the 1970s. Today’s monoculture rhetoric is essentially trying to wind that back.
This is a political push to restore elements of the old White Australia policy that treats diversity as a threat rather than a fact of life. Australia’s population is now clearly multi‑ethnic and multi‑faith, built on post‑White Australia migration. We are better off for it.
Across all the arguments against immigration and for a monoculture, or more accurately the restoration of the White Australia policy, there are three underlying themes. They are genuine social problems, insecure work and underfunded services. The cause of these problems are the policies of government catering to the wealthy elite.
When housing is a problem you build more houses, public houses. Generations of Australians grew up in public housing but it is rarely talked about now being replaced by terms such as affordable housing.
Insecure work is a result of anti-union neoliberal laws that have destroyed union density and curtailed the ability of workers to take industrial action.
Services being underfunded is not caused by immigration but by governments adopting neoliberal and market-based solutions to social issues. Examples of this are poverty level pensions, underfunded hospitals and schools and cuts to the NDIS while at the same time having the finances to spend $380 Billion on nuclear submarines that tie us into the US war machine and make us all less safe. A portion of this war spending could fix every one of these issues with plenty left over.
To deal with these specific problems through directing anger at migrants and refugees plays directly into the playbook of the far right. The parties of government are now being threatened by the monster they have created by delivering years of austerity and neoliberalism. The anger should be directed at the housing speculators, landlords, bosses and corporations who were the drivers of such policies.
These same forces have then developed this mythical “Australian identity” which is defined in white, Anglo‑Christian terms, then used as the yardstick to judge and exclude everyone else. The contradiction is the majority of Australians still come from white European backgrounds and many of them have fallen for blaming other victims based on racist assumptions and not the real culprits of this social theft.
𝘼 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙
When Pauline Hanson argues for a monoculture and against immigration these are racist arguments that deeply hurt our fellow workers and union members.
They undermine our ability to campaign for better wages and services because we are too busy blaming each other. Our focus needs to be on the real problems.
The alternative to billionaire politics and racist culture wars is a united working‑class movement that fights for public ownership and democratic control of the key sectors that dominate our lives such as housing, energy, transport, health and education. Social need, not private profit should set the priorities.
Instead of tax cuts and subsidies for corporations and war machines, a serious program would redirect wealth into massive public housing construction, fully funded public hospitals and schools, liveable income support, and a publicly owned renewables plan that delivers secure, union jobs while protecting the planet.
Building that kind of program means strengthening unions and workplace organisation, winning real rights to strike, expanding collective bargaining, restoring sector‑wide agreements.
To break the billionaire media grip and the weaponisation of racism, there needs to be a broad united front of unions, community organisations, First Nations, migrant and anti‑racist groups committed to defending multiculturalism, opposing fascist and far‑right forces, and insisting that an injury to one is an injury to all.
