Patriotism can be inclusive and respectful, it need not exclude and demean. Trust can vanquish extremism
Pauline Hanson set the tone this week when she boasted she had left “landmines” with the election of a One Nation member to South Australia’s parliament. We will see if they actually explode, and if so, to what effect.
As someone who watched the election of 11 One Nation candidates in Queensland in 1998, and their obliteration (as the US president would say) a few years later, I am not so sure. The only real victims, apart from the disappointed voters who were misguided by One Nation’s promises, were the conservative parties – which languished on the opposition benches for 14 years.