View from The Hill: ‘Howard’s battlers’ and ‘Tony’s tradies’ are now responding to the drum beat of One Nation

By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

He is in his late fifties and lives outside a capital city. He owns his home — most often outright — and he still gets up and goes to work. He did a trade or a TAFE diploma rather than a degree, speaks only English at home, and calls his background Australian.

This is not a portrait of the fringe. It is a portrait of the part of Australia that used to be called the mainstream.

This was once a depiction of the “Howard battlers”, later “Tony’s tradies”. Now it’s Pauline Hanson who has a grip on many of these people, with who they are and what…

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