Jess Wilson and Ben Carroll have missed a historic chance to show they understand the scale of the hard-right threat, according to Melbourne journalist Noel Towell.
The Victorian opposition leader and premier could have, for once, done something innovative in Australian politics and pledged to make no deals with One Nation.
One Nation's surge and the Victorian election
Pauline Hanson's One Nation party is contesting the Victorian election on 28 November, drawing attention from across the country. A decent showing from One Nation will have consequences well beyond Victoria's borders.
Recent polling suggests a decisive win in Victoria by a Coalition led by Jess Wilson over a tired 12-year-old Labor government led by Ben Carroll. One Nation's support may have peaked, softening to the low-to-mid twenties in public polls and to just 14% according to the Greens' research.
Upper house balance of power
A substantial One Nation presence in the state parliament's upper house looks a near certainty, with even internal Greens polling suggesting the capture of five or more of the 40 seats in the Legislative Council quite do-able. This would mean a hung chamber, with the balance of power split between Greens and One Nation MPs.
A Wilson government, unlikely to get any joy out of the Greens, would have to do business with Hanson's people to get its legislation passed.
Concerns over One Nation's influence
One Nation's upper house hopefuls include Mark Nicholson, who is behind a cartoon mocking Jackie Lambie's struggle with vaginal prolapse and who wants former Labor premiers Dan Andrews and Jacinta Allan jailed. Warren Pickering, One Nation's leader in Victoria, sees nothing extreme about white replacement conspiracy theories.
One Nation's pro-lifers and anti-vaxxers would have a wealth of proposals for an incoming Victorian health minister, and the party's climate deniers would be licking their lips at the prospect of wrecking years of progress on emissions reduction and renewable energy. Initiatives like Safe Schools, harassment-free zones around abortion clinics, Melbourne's medically supervised injecting room, voluntary assisted dying and more would all likely be in One Nation's sights.
Missed opportunity for cross-party agreement
Wilson's approach to the threat on her right has shifted from trying to pretend that One Nation didn't exist to directing preferences to One Nation's candidate above Labor on how-to-vote material. Carroll, meanwhile, is trying to tie the Coalition in voters' minds closely to Hanson's party, but his polling continues to slide.
The two leaders have missed a historic chance to show they understand the scale of the hard-right threat. The parties could have pledged, along with Greens leader Ellen Sandell, to make no deals with One Nation. Such agreements have endured, however imperfectly, in other democracies, most famously Germany.
At the very least, a cross-party agreement to keep One Nation out of government decision-making would show that the traditional parties don't have to be rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming far-right road train.
