Albury’s senior Anglican priest has warned that the political energy behind One Nation’s strong showing in the Farrer byelection must be carefully understood and not allowed to deepen political division in regional communities across the country.
Father Peter MacLeod-Miller, the rector at St Matthew’s in Albury, said political leaders and commentators had a responsibility to interpret the result “with care” and condemned efforts by Pauline Hanson’s rivals to dehumanise her. But he warned the sentiment driving the One Nation vote must be “channelled constructively” and not “in a more divisive direction”.
The clergyman’s comments followed Pauline Hanson’s party’s historic victory in the southern NSW border electorate on Saturday, winning it’s first lower house seat with almost 40 per cent of the primary in a longtime Coalition stronghold.
The seat, which includes Albury, Griffith and Deniliquin was held for decades by former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, whom MacLeod-Miller described as a “great friend” and a “real Liberal” in the tradition of party founder Robert Menzies.
MacLeod-Miller, who attended One Nation’s victory party, said he understood community “reservations” about the result and the intensity of national debate around Hanson’s return, but warned against what he described as “vitriol” towards her in parts of the public reaction.
“I think people are too quick to cast Pauline Hanson as a two-dimensional figure,” he said. “People are pleased to cast her into a less-than-human figure.”
He said Hanson’s presence in the region during the campaign and on election night reflected strong emotional engagement among supporters, describing the atmosphere as highly charged.
“I could see in her yesterday, when she was up on the stage, something of her humanity shining through. I think there’s a sense of vindication and relief. It was going to a Billy Graham crusade.”
MacLeod-Miller, who has long challenged the Anglican church’s conservative views towards issues such as sexuality and equality, said the broader question now for the major parties was how to respond to concerns driving the vote in regional areas, including immigration, housing and questions of national identity.
“We are not an economy, we are a society,” he said. “Immigration policy, housing policy, education policy — they all need to be aligned with a sense of values and what kind of society we are trying to be.”
He said Australians tended to understand and respect the values of other countries when travelling abroad, but warned against losing what he described as a distinct national character.
“In our rush to be inclusive, I think we’ve lost some of the distinctive Australian spirit — the fair go, egalitarianism, and the importance of hard work.”
He also warned the result in Farrer should not be reduced to caricature or dismissed as purely negative sentiment.
“I’ve heard it said from critics that One Nation is just protest or negativity,” he said. “But I think what people are expressing is a desire for horizons, not cul-de-sacs.”
Hanson said people were “in denial” about her popularity.
“All they can do is throw the barbs and say I’m a racist,” she told Sky News. “A lot of the people around me are actually migrants and people of all different cultural backgrounds … we look past that because they’re so proud to be Australians.”
Buoyed by last night’s success, Hanson signalled she would be taking policy more seriously.
“Now my work really starts for me because I’m coming after you with your policies,” she said.
“You can’t drill in this country. You can’t mine for gas. You can’t do anything. Well, I’m bringing out my gas policy next week. And I consulted with all the gas companies… Next one I’m going after is the agricultural industry. I want the farmers out there to tell me what they want, what changes need to happen, and I’m going to pull this country together.”
Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson did not rule out the Liberals and Nationals joining in Coalition with Hanson and her One Nation party in the future.
“My objective is to make sure that the Liberal Party is in a position to govern as strongly as possible,” Wilson told the ABC. “It all comes down to what Australians put up.”
One Nation’s newly elected member for Farrer, David Farley, used a Mother’s Day service at MacLeod-Miller’s church to thank voters for taking what he described as a “risk” in electing him to federal parliament.
Speaking in his first public forum since winning the byelection, he read Dorothea Mackellar’s poem My Country to the congregation before thanking Hanson and the electorate.
Asked what he would say to voters in capital cities who were struggling to understand the result, he replied: “Come and visit us. Or when you lift that fork and put it in your mouth, think of us.”
Rob Harris is the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect via email.
