Wayne Swan likens Hanson to Trump, warns Labor must resist ‘dark, dystopic future’

Australian Labor Party (ALP) president Wayne Swan on Friday warned that the party must not allow increasingly authoritarian trends in Australian politics to become “normalised”. Addressing the ALP national executive, Swan compared Pauline Hanson’s attacks on multiculturalism and journalists to Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of American civic life. “A toxic seed blooms into a garden of noxious weeds when we stop gardening,” the former treasurer said.

Swan called on Labor to resist One Nation at the next election as it did former opposition leader Peter Dutton at the 2025 poll, preventing “a dark, dystopic picture of the future” from becoming reality. “People shrug. It gets normalised. Then it gets implemented. Then it just exists,” he said. He cited examples of the National Guard being deployed against citizens in US cities like Minneapolis and Chicago.

Swan criticised Hanson’s plans to shut down SBS, move the ABC to a subscription model, and push for Australia to be a “monoculture”. He said Hanson revealed her true colours when she argued that wage rises had gone too far, that it was too hard for employers to sack workers, and that the gender pay gap wasn’t real. “This is the thread that connects Rinehart, Hanson and Trump. Inequality lowers living standards. It poisons society. And then the power of big money threatens democracy itself,” Swan said.

Labor’s membership dropped from almost 57,000 in 2022 to about 51,500 in 2024. Swan described the target of 65,000 members by 2029 as essential. He is due to be succeeded as ALP president by former Gillard government minister Kate Ellis in July.

Polling shows One Nation ahead of Labor and the Coalition on primary votes, with Hanson even leading as preferred prime minister. Hanson has struggled to define her plans to replace multiculturalism and attacked journalists. NSW Labor premier Chris Minns called Hanson’s prescriptions “bullshit”, saying she implies that supporting multiculturalism means supporting sharia law. Minns called for Labor to get in the ring and fight for a modern, multicultural Australia.