Hold the PHON! One Nation is on the rise!

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In an historically sgnificant move, One Nation is removing the founder's name from its branding.

The announced change in name from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) to simply ‘One Nation’ is significant. Political parties that include the founder’s name come and go, but no active political party that includes the founder’s name has existed as long as the party formed by Pauline Hanson in 1997.

Writing in the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes had this to say:

Michael de Percy is excited at the prospect of a new dawn for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, soon to be just One Nation. He sees the party’s opinion poll surge, and the prospect of Barnaby Joyce being part of a Hanson succession plan, as part of ON’s evolution from a minor to major party of the right. The sorry state of the Liberals certainly encourages such thinking, but those who want to see ON rise further should keep several things in mind. First, neither Hanson nor Joyce are an antipodean Nigel Farage. Second, opinion polls may have doubled ON’s primary vote since the May election, but they merely reflect disaffected Liberal and National voters parking their vote, more likely than not only temporarily. The polls are snapshots of what may be, not what will be. Third, if ON has realistic ambitions for greater things, much hard and detailed policy work needs to be done by ONs people to convince voters beyond its base that ON deserves the big time, let alone is ready for it. Hanson and her loyal team must prove themselves both capable and worthy of their poll surge to keep those parked voters until the one poll that counts. It’s easy to doubt they will, based on past performances: it’s up ON’s people to prove that supposition wrong.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Hold the PHON! One Nation is on the rise!

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