2026-09-04
The political landscape is rapidly changing, with the rise of One Nation over the past year mainly at the expense of the traditional major parties – Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition. However, the Greens have plateaued in recent years, at around 10-12% of the national vote, having gradually emerged as an established political party from the beginning of this century. That emergence has been recently documented for Greens WA with a historical perspective in Passionate Politics, an introduction to which is included in this issue. However, we mourn the recent passing of two passionate Greens who have very much contributed to that history.
The growing disenchantment with the traditional major parties has not eventuated in increased support for the Greens but for the populist One Nation Party. We include an explanation of this rising populism in Australia, which is also a phenomenon in many putative democratic countries. With the prospect of One Nation coming into government, in its own right or in coalition with the Coalition, which was unthinkable a year ago, we need to envisage what such a government would look like. It is suggested that it would take us back to what life was like in the 1950s.
There are many valid reasons for the current disgruntled nature of the electorate and one of them is the ever increasing societal wealth gap. It is rather ironic that One Nation claims to be supporting the “battlers” but is in turn supported by billionaires forever wanting to increase their wealth relative to such battlers.
Ongoing public concerns with economic woes has unfortunately distracted attention from ever increasing environmental threats. One of these is in our own jurisdiction – the Browse gas project – promising both short- and long-term environmental disasters.
Another emerging threat, particularly to young folk, is the rise of addictive social media. Banning under-16s from social media is not the answer; regulating the tech giant providers is.
And, a further rising threat close to home, increasing incidents of road accidents across WA and nationally reminds us to increasingly “watch out”.
Last, but be no means least, we present reports of what our elected representatives have been doing over the last two months in trying to return some rationality to the political landscape. We have updates from Senator Jordon Steele-John and state MLCs Brad Pettitt, Sophie McNeill, Tim Clifford and Jess Beckerling.
Header photo credit: Catboy69 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication