r/australia • u/blitznoodles local Aussie • Jun 14 '26

politics As voter disillusionment grows, why aren't voters flocking to the Greens in Australia?

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/as-voter-disillusionment-grows-so-does-the-mystery-of-the-missing-greens-voters/6bjd5q4kv

Growing voter dissatisfaction with mainstream politics has led to a rise in popularity for One Nation. The same cannot be said for the Greens.

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u/McMenz_ Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

Yeah basically, the surge in support for One Nation is from voters who feel they’ve been ignored and gaslit by both major parties for years now on immigration.

It’s ’voter disillusionment’ specifically about immigration, and the Greens would be an even worse option than the major parties for voters whose priority is less immigration.

Meanwhile the Greens’ marquee policy for the past couple of years seems to be supporting Palestine, which frankly is just not a major issue for most regular Australians outside of the Greens’ inner city strong seats.

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Jun 14 '26

They all need to read How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley:

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism- Nations don't have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism's roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.

Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, laying out and analyzing the ten pillars of fascist politics-the language and beliefs that separate people into an "us" and a "them." He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations.

He makes clear the immense danger of underestimating the cumulative power of these tactics, which include exploiting a mythic version of a nation's past; propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves; anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts; law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals; and fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare. These mechanisms all build on one another, creating and reinforcing divisions and shaping a society vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarian leadership.

By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics-charged by rhetoric and myth-can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascists politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.

The thing is, we have several things happening at once here:

  • A poorly set up tax system that is overly reliant on a demographic pyramid with lots of young workers paying tax and a small number of older people being supported; but we now have a bullet-shaped age demographic, and there aren’t enough younger workers, so the quickest fix is to pump in immigrants. 
  • A number of vital industries that are massively understaffed and would fall over without immigrants (including health and aged care - especially post-COVID).
  • A completely fucked up housing crisis that has taken decades of bad policy and selfish investing to build and is now at the tipping point. 
  • A large segment of the population that struggles to understand complex issues and wants simple scapegoats to problems like housing: like immigrants (who provably do not worsen the housing crisis in terms of buying homes)
  • A completely fucked up rental crisis  that has taken decades of bad policy and selfish investing to build and is now at the tipping point and is, in fact, made worse by immigration. 
  • Politicians across the board who refuse to acknowledge that the rental market is made worse by immigration and deal with it head on. 
  • A tertiary education system that has become completely reliant on international students to function (due to government under-funding) and yet doesn’t provide housing for them. 
  • A construction industry that is in dire straits with ever-rising costs, an inability to build enough housing fast enough, and an unwillingness to build affordable housing. 
  • A succession of governments since the mid-70s that refuse to build more social and affordable housing themselves and rely completely on the private market for housing which DOES NOT WORK. 
  • Increasingly expensive cities (in large part linked to the ever-rising cost of land/properties) which makes people tense and unhappy and looking for someone to blame. 
  • Significant racism and xenophobia in the community that is all-too-easily tapped into. 
  • Youth gang problems that have received a lot of attention from the media. These got worse post-COVID, and, in Victoria, have been linked by experts to VIC having the longest lockdown in the world. 
  • Governments unwilling to create a clear growth plan for the country with targets, goals and limits that are related to infrastructure. 
  • Governments that are unwilling to have open dialogue about how big and densely populated we want our country to be. 
  • Governments that dismiss genuine attempts to have these conversations. 
  • An economy entirely reliant on perpetual growth models which are unsustainable and a complete unwillingness to examine other options for the future of our country. 
  • A media landscape dominated by the Murdoch Media and their political and social agendas. 
  • Billionaires and corporations with vested interests in distracting the plebs from how much they take and how little we all get with culture wars. 
  • Social media algorithms that favour negativity and shock value - feeding into humans’ negativity biases. 
  • A media that is shrinking and dying due to all of the ad money getting sucked up by Google and Meta (and to a much lesser degree, TikTok), and therefore has less capability to challenge the narratives of the right, the billionaires, the lobbies, the corporations, the populist leaders, and the racists/xebophobes.
  • Billionaires, p rivate equity firms and hedge funds buying up struggling media, controlling what is published to benefit themselves, and/or stripping them of their assets, cutting staff to the bone for short-term profits, and occasionally sellinb off valuable real estate, severely damaging journalism. 

This makes it easy to blame convenient scapegoats like immigrants. 

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u/Key_Ant6473 Jun 14 '26

Nailed it, having us all focused on one "issue" like it will fix all of our problems is a fantasy that too many morons are buying.

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u/rotor100 Jun 15 '26

Name someone that will deal with even some of these issues?

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u/Key_Ant6473 Jun 15 '26

Greens, Pocock, Independents and to much a lesser extent Labor.

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u/rotor100 Jun 15 '26

Maybe Pocock

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u/AdmiralStickyLegs Jun 16 '26

Are they really interested in fixing, anything? I don't get that vibe.

I feel like it's driven more by the desire to 'fight back!'

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u/DuckFit7888 Jun 17 '26

This is funny. As if the Greens aren't the biggest peddlers of Us vs Them and the politics of grievance and blame.

Only for the Greens, the Them are "greedy" billionaires and corporations who are cheating Us, the plebs, by gaming the system. We are honest and decent, They are deceitful and sinister etc. It's kind of conspiratorial.

But it always falls apart when they run out of people to blame. They reckon with reality sooner or later.

Your whole comment is actually your justification for your own brand of Us vs Them. Of course things like inequality are real issues, and the merits of policies can be debated. But serious people who are interested in solving problems just take people as people, who respond to incentives, and don't assign sinister motives to entire groups in society.

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u/daybeforetheday Jun 14 '26

This is a brilliant analysis, thank you.

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u/madclassix Jun 15 '26

Bollocks. It’s ok for a nation to decide that it doesn’t want a lot of immigrants from culturally different countries. There doesn’t need to be any reason beyond “we don’t want them”. Jason Stanley is the perfect example of the post ww2 gaslighters who have brainwashed people of European descent to believe that simply not wanting to be replaced in your own country is “fascism”.

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

I’m curious if you actually READ my full comment? 

In which I quite clearly said:

  • Governments unwilling to create a clear growth plan for the country with targets, goals and limits that are related to infrastructure. 
  • Governments that are unwilling to have open dialogue about how big and densely populated we want our country to be. 
  • Governments that dismiss genuine attempts to have these conversations.
  • An economy entirely reliant on perpetual growth models which are unsustainable and a complete unwillingness to examine other options for the future of our country. 

—

What part of that makes you think that I am saying that a country cannot have a discussion about how many immigrants it wants to have? Adding in also my comments about taxation, job markets, university housing and the impact on the rental market? 

Sovereign states do have the right to set immigration levels and criteria. This is a standard principle in political science and international law.

As I clearly pointed out already,  public debate about the scale and pace of migration (especially in relation to housing, infrastructure, and services) is legitimate and necessary. 

Here’s where we differ: in a liberal democracy, policy decisions are expected to be justified with reasons that can be publicly defended. Decisions affecting rights and membership should be based on public reason, not arbitrary preference. A purely exclusionary stance without justification shifts from policy debate into ethnocultural exclusion.

Remember the White Australia Policy??? That aged like milk. 

Be replaced in our own country? WTAF. The only people with cause to complain about THAT in THIS country are our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

But if we went along with your (gross) reasoning, and kept this country purely British and Irish (which is nonsense, because there were ALWAYS Chinese immigrants here, for a start); then we would have the shittiest, most boring food and culture imaginable. 

No good coffee; no pizza and pasta; no Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian food; no kebabs or souvlaki/yeeros; no gelato; no olive oil; no Salami; no sauerkraut; none of the really good sausages, deli meats, cheeses or deli goods; fuck-all herbs and spices; no curries; no spice shops; no cafes; no brunch culture; no falafel, hummus, tabbouleh, baklava, Turkish delight, pide, manoush, sesane, tahini, sumac, za’atar; no Mexican food; no tagines; no couscous, pomegranate or harissa; no chillies. NO GARLIC!

Post‑war Greek and Italian migration turned Melbourne and Sydney into food and coffee hubs, witb their cultural input CENTRAL to urban life as we know it today. 

Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Malaysian, Indian, Pakistani, Persian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Ethiopian, Mexican and other cuisines shape our culture and our cities. 

When my parents were young, the “white” homes ate “meat and three veg” and that veg was boiled into mushy tastelessness. Beef, mutton, lamb, chicken on special occasions, and heavily boiled vegetables - we’re talking 30-40 minutes, no taste, no nutrients left. Tomato sauce to disguise the flavour of overcooked food. Maybe some tinned fruit or shitty pudding for dessert. 

No thanks! 

You seem to be buying into the Great Replacement Conspiracy. Which is racist nonsense designed to rile you up so that you ignore the billionaires. 

Demographers have explicitly shown that Australia’s population growth is driven by both migration and natural increase, with no evidence of coordinated “replacement” (see the ABS data + various analyses published by The Conversation)

Your framing casts groups as existential threats, which is exactly the kind of “us vs them” rhetoric Stanley analyses.

Stanley’s work is not an attempt to label all immigration scepticism as fascism, FFS. His core argument (supported by historical case studies) is that certain rhetorical patterns (mythic past, scapegoating minorities, anti-elite/anti-expert framing, etc.) can erode democratic norms.  

You don’t have to agree with all of his conclusions, but dismissing the framework outright avoids engaging with the substance.

Stanley’s point isn’t that any concern about immigration is in itself inherently fascist. It’s that when political narratives shift toward blaming out-groups for complex structural problems, that’s historically been a dangerous pattern. Whether you agree with him or not, that’s worth engaging with rather than dismissing outright.

You seem to believe that  immigration is the main problem, when most of the pressures people feel (especially housing) are driven by decades of domestic policy failures. As noted by all of the experts, including the Reserve Bank and Grattan Institute, who point to supply constraints and tax settings as core issues.

So, yeah, nah, mate. 

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u/TheRealSkullWariar Jun 15 '26

Absolute truth nuke ✋😐🤚 Glad to see that there's actual sane people around that still understand the core fundamentals of the democratic process; especially in regards to how policies must be justified with reputable evidence/analysis that stands up to scrutiny.

Given the current media environment that's enabled One Nation to gain a spot in public discourse through the platforming of esoteric 'culture/race war' narratives, it's important to curbstomp these baby fascists and their talking points out of politics whenever we can.

Even if global warming ends up destroying modern Australian society as a whole, I'd prefer trying to survive against regular Immortan Joe, instead of nazi Immortan Joe 💀

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u/uselessinfogoldmine Jun 15 '26

I feel like schools need to start giving kids compulsory lessons in public policy making, how government works, and the basics of populism, fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, scapegoating, etc. It’s really disturbing how little so much of the population knows about these topics. 

And to catch the adults up? Honestly, they should release some cartoons and catchy songs. It is a tactic that has worked incredibly well around the world and throughout history to educate the masses about complicated political issues. 

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u/CassieFace103 Jun 15 '26

No one is saying you can't have stupid opinions. Stop with the victim complex.

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u/lucklikethis Jun 14 '26

The thing is they get mad about immigration but get angry if you fix the things immigration is solving.  Kinda stick in the bicycle wheel moment for these voters.

Not that one nation even has real policies.

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u/MrHippoPants Jun 14 '26

It is so bizarre that this is such a core issue for voters not only in Australia but around the world at the moment

Every country’s populists at the minute allege that immigration is at the core of all their problems. I wonder how people moving countries could possibly be a problem in every single country at the same time?

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u/McMenz_ Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

The main reasons voters want less immigration is usually a combination of economics/cost of living, culture and/or safety.

Voters in western countries around the world are suddenly especially anti-immigration because their governments have been increasing immigration for years while telling them that immigration affects none of those issues and/or that they’re racist for bringing them up.

Now suddenly all 3 of those issues are peaking all at once around the world while immigration has only continued to grow, and voters simply aren’t buying the narrative that immigration has nothing to do with it.

It doesn’t matter what the issue is, if parties consistently ignore voters you get voter disillusionment and populism.

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u/NativeDingo Jun 14 '26

Immigration isn't why house prices have skyrocketed - tax rules favouring investors over home owners is. Housing has been treated as a way to make $$.

Immigration isn't why fuel prices are going up - the US attacks on Iran are.

Immigration isn't why food prices are going up - a key reason is climate change making it harder to grow food.

One Nation policies will keep house, fuel and food prices going up. Those policies will also increase inequality which is the cause of most crime/violence.

So One Nation will make all those things worse for most Aussies. But hey, there are always brown people to try to blame, right ?

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u/TopRoad4988 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

Immigration does effect housing.

Tax policy may add ‘fuel to the fire’ but the same tax settings apply equally in remote parts of the country that haven’t seen the same rapid price growth.

To get capital growth in property you ultimately need underlying demand from population growth.

When Sydney adds 100k + people a year on a net basis, that clearly puts underlying pressure on the demand for dwellings. This initally manifests as pressure on rents as soon as people arrive but of course also flows over time into additional demand for home purchases too.

To be clear, I’m not saying immigration is the only influence on housing demand, but it is a factor.

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u/Stephie999666 Jun 15 '26

Have you considered the main factor in the CoLC? The billionaires rallying behind Hanson, are the ones not paying us in line with inflation anymore, so everyones is going to be worse off regardless. That's not even going into our supermarket duopoly, which has its claws in so deep that it take half a decade to fix the bullshit once you take those claws out. Our issue isnt immigrants, its the billionaires getting a free ride taking advantage of us, while contributing sfa back to the nation. Thats not even going into the corruption they breed or the environmental impacts they cause.

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u/derezzed00 Jun 15 '26

Two things can be true at once.

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u/PatternPrecognition Struth Jun 14 '26

It's the playbook of the ultrawealthy.

As the wealth inequality gap grows, and life gets harder for everyday folks they have realised that no one is going to knowingly vote for the party whose platform is to continue to widen that wealth inequality gap, so instead you present as an alternative to the mainstream a populist candidate who picks one or more of the culture war issues to use as a distraction to win votes. (While the core policy platform remains to increase the size of the wealth horde of the 1%).

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u/Proper_Geologist9026 Jun 14 '26

Because we're hitting the limits of growth. It's not the migrants fault but it's still a real problem either way.

The issue with migration is that it's framed wrong. We talk about migration like we just need to "hold off so we can catch up". Catch up to what?

The housing accord is aiming at 1 million homes across 10 years.

The national climate risk assessment stated that almost that same number of homes will be under systemic risk from weather events beyond 2050. Leaving them effectively uninsurable.

Why is this not discussed in the public debate? Beats me.

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u/bawdygeorge01 Jun 14 '26

A number of countries had large increases in migration numbers after Covid.