Do not call her a racist: anti-Pauline Hanson strategists tell campaigners character attacks won’t work in Victoria

Exclusive: strategic rethink urges progressive activists to respectfully steer one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters towards economic concerns

The message from strategists was blunt: do not, however tempting, personally attack Pauline Hanson or call her a racist.

The request has been made to progressive campaigners and unionists who have been asked to start one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters before the Victorian election in November.

It is also indicative of a strategic rethink in response to One Nation’s sustained surge in public support and the party’s recent wins in state and federal byelections and in South Australia .

Separate training sessions run by the peak body for unions in Victoria, the Trades Hall Council, and the progressive campaign group GetUp, have warned members they may be inadvertently pushing people to One Nation by not respectfully engaging with their legitimate economic concerns.

“As best as you can, I know it’s hard, don’t make it personal,” a GetUp strategist told hundreds of members on a Thursday night Zoom call.

“Going after Pauline Hanson personally and calling her a racist, or going after her character, although very tempting, just confirms what people already believe: that she is an outsider and the establishment is attacking her.”

This is a change of approach for the progressive group, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads personally attacking Hanson and her deputy leader, Barnaby Joyce, during the Farrer byelection. The ads, which linked the pair to Donald Trump, had little impact. One Nation comfortably won the seat .

The reset, based on research conducted by the polling company Redbridge after the Farrer byelection, brought GetUp in line with advice from Trades Hall, which has been hosting training sessions for major unions in recent weeks.

Oscar Kaspi-Crutchett, a senior researcher at Trades Hall, says people thinking about voting for One Nation shut down when they perceive personal attacks on the party’s leadership that do not acknowledge their legitimate concerns.

“For many people, simply ignoring her racism is not going to be possible or desirable,” Kaspi-Crutchett said. “It’s what drives them to get involved in the fight against One Nation.

“In these cases, we need to make it very clear that Hanson’s racism isn’t merely a character flaw but a sophisticated political device. It manufactures differences between groups which have none.”

GetUp has also told campaigners to not personally attack Hanson’s billionaire benefactor.

“Pauline Hanson is closely tied to Gina Rinehart, and it’s a problem, but it’s not what the research says should be in focus,” GetUp told campaigners.