Australia avoided the populist-right breakthroughs seen in the US and Europe for longer because prosperity, stronger institutions and a more equal income distribution absorbed the shocks. Those protections are now weakening. Part one of a two-part analysis.

The rise of One Nation has come later than the populist right’s breakthrough in the United States and much of Europe. For a time, Australia seemed an exception. The explanation lies partly in our economic history since 1990: more people shared in growth, unlike the US and UK, our tax and transfer system ensured no appreciable rise in income inequality, and we created no large concentrations of poverty equivalent to the US rust-belt, Appalachians or the UK’s post-industrial north-east.

Also, in spite of the bleats from the right, we were never as ‘woke’ as the US – there were no racial or other minority quotas for higher education or employment, cancel culture existed as a pale shadow of its US equivalents and we avoided the silly extremes like claims that punctuality is a racially repressive concept.

That history helps explain the lag. It does not imply that everyone prospered. Agricultural production has grown while needing fewer workers. A town can have no unemployment crisis and still lose its bank, school, young adults and confidence in its future. Moving to a larger centre helps an individual find work, but can leave the town of origin older and thinner in services. Mining fortunes also differ sharply from those of farming and former manufacturing communities. There is no single regional economy.

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