EDITORIAL: Major party failings have brought on One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s rise

A week in politics like few before may have people scratching their heads.

And asking questions like why? How? What does it mean? What happens now?

The focus of the questions will be a certain Pauline Hanson.

Many of those asking the questions will be politicians from Australia’s major parties.

For it is clear that they are clueless about what has hit them.

If they think deeply enough they should not be surprised. It feels like the major parties from both sides of the political spectrum have become arrogant, lazy and bloated.

For too many — especially in the Labor orbit, it must be said — politics follows a set pattern.

It can often go something along these lines.

Go to university, get a white collar job — often in law — work for a union, or become a political staffer before getting preselected, hopefully for a winnable seat, and joining the ranks of Federal Parliamentarians.

There in the Canberra bubble they are removed from the rest of us. And it shows.

Enter Pauline Hanson.

Both sides of the House, which Senator Hanson calls “the uniparty”, are struggling to come to grips with her rise.

But they should know it is tied closely to their failures.

The most obvious case in point is how the Albanese Government bungled it’s Budget, denied till they were blue in the face there was any problem until they could hold out no longer in the face of the polls which validated Senator Hanson’s surge.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers then announced they were making changes and tried to con us that there was nothing unusual about their process.

As they unveiled a series of changes to the original plan — which let’s not forget, was weighed down by a horrendous broken promise on capital gains tax and negative gearing — they claimed this was the plan all along.

Oh please! The truth is they have become masters of speaking out of both sides of the mouth.

Do they really think we fall for it? If so there is another sign of their arrogance.

And so, back to Senator Hanson.

It cannot be disputed that she has remained a straight shooter.

It is this authenticity that has become part of her “outsider” appeal.

The major parties need to reconsider how to respond.

They need to look beyond attacking Senator Hanson as a political candidate and focus on what she is actually saying, for she is a mirror to a significant part of the population — a funnel for aspects of middle Australia.

People are fed up. You can almost hear them voice their concerns.

We are working hard, we are paying more tax than ever, you are spending our money like it is yours, on things that don’t matter to us.

We feel overwhelmed by change. Please listen to us. Please lead the country in the way it should be led.

Australians instinctively know what’s right. We don’t make mistakes come election time.

But plenty of politicians have made mistakes after elections because they think they know better than us. They look down their noses at us.

Australians may not agree with everything Senator Hanson says.

But the rest are copping it because they feed us bullshit.

Pauline Hanson is no bullshit.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore