17 October 2016
Per Capita Research Fellow David Hetherington joins Nassim Khadem, Michael Jensen and Karen Middleton, with host John Barron to discuss Bob Day’s resignation, Newspoll results for Pauline Hanson, sexual harassment figures and diversity at the ABC.
Re the rise in the polls for Pauline Hanson, David argued that it’s different from her time in parliament in 96-98 – the rise in populist anti-establishment parties is being seen around the world, and is being driven by concerns over economic wellbeing of large swathes of the population.
People are fearful, work is precarious, wages haven’t grown substantially for large segments of the population. A populist political leader can use migration and race as an entry to tap into these concerns.
it’s about inequality – people who earn their living from work can’t see how their future is going to get markedly better in the next few years and that’s been the great promise of liberal democratic capitalism. We need to take those concerns seriously.
See the full video at the link below.
