Australia’s traditional left-right political split has turned into a divide between populists and the practical that needs a new way of thinking, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man in WA believes.
Patrick Gorman says the driving forces of populism, aspiration and responsibility, or the lack of it, are “moving the mountains of public debate as we know it.”
He argues that Labor remains “the only practical party of the centre . . . in Australian politics” with a genuine desire to get things done.
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By contrast, he says, their populist opponents — the Greens, One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals — “seek to admire and amplify problems” but have no interest in solving them.
The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister will lay out his argument in a speech to the progressive think tank the McKell Institute in Brisbane on Tuesday.
It comes against the backdrop of the third major poll in as many weeks showing One Nation leading both Labor and the Coalition on primary vote.
Minor party leader Pauline Hanson also topped the preferred prime minister measure in the Resolve poll published in the Nine newspapers on Monday.
“The traditional left-to-right political spectrum and the progressive-to-conservative overlay are being tested as we hit quarter time of the 21st century,” Mr Gorman will say, according to a draft of his speech.
“Today, I argue that the political divide in Australia is now practical versus populist.
MP Patrick Gorman. Credit: Andrew Ritchie/The West Australian
“The other thing populism does is create a wall of noise behind which unpopular policies are hidden. These parties are loud on populism and then quiet on their true agenda.”
He says the rise of populism is coinciding with a reduction in responsibility right across the democratic political system — not just politicians but companies such as Rio Tinto, the social media giants, and professional services firms PwC and KPMG.
“Australians admire those who show up and take responsibility: a designated driver on a night out, a volunteer firefighter saving a family farm. It is time we apply the expectation of responsibility to those who make our democracy work,” he will say.
“Wearing sunscreen, recycling cans, and drinking zero-alcohol beer are now cool. We can make responsibility cool again, too.”
Although he is speaking to a progressive audience, Mr Gorman counsels those on the conservative side to read Robert Menzies’ 1948 essay, Politics as an Art, which urges politicians to seek to stir up “only noble and humane emotions” and temper political conflict.
“Only noble and humane emotions. I do not believe that is the standard we are seeing today. You only need to look at the misogynistic truck driving through Melbourne a few weeks ago to know I am right,” Mr Gorman says.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made delivery a key focus of his pitch to voters, believing that making concrete improvements to people’s lives is the best way to counter the rise of populism seen elsewhere and now in Australia.
“I talk about what I’m doing to deliver for Australians, and don’t engage in the sort of personalised politics that we are seeing,” he said on Monday when asked how he defended against Senator Hanson’s accusation that he was a liar.
He cited building homes, cheaper medicines, the urgent care clinics, boosting bulk-billing GPs, and supporting increases to the minimum wage, “all of which has been opposed by the three right-wing parties in our Parliament.”
The Prime Minister also compared the current polls to the situation in the months before the 2025 election, when surveys showed Peter Dutton’s Coalition in the lead but ultimately, when people had to make a choice at the ballot box, they overwhelmingly backed Labor.
Senator Hanson said that “conservative politics has been buried” and that she planned to unveil policies with enough time for people “to actually absorb and understand what we’re doing.”
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor avoided directly answering questions about the polls at two press conferences, in Sydney and near Alice Springs, dismissing them as “inside-the-beltway stuff.”
“I’ll tell you what worries me. What worries me is how this Government is trashing this country, taking us in the wrong direction,” he said.
