Health leaders and organisations have an important role in highlighting the wide-ranging harms to communities and their health from far-right populism, a roundtable convened by Croakey Health Media was told this week.
Marie McInerney writes:
How is the rise in far-right populism harming the health and wellbeing of people, communities, policy, public debate and planetary health?
What’s the role and responsibility of the health sector to counter this movement, which is undermining the credibility of evidence, trust and social cohesion?
And how do Australia’s health professionals, organisations and media highlight the concerns for those scapegoated by the far right — including First Nations people, migrants, refugees, LGBTIQ+ communities and others — without subjecting them to further harassment or hatred?
These were some of the questions addressed at a Zoom roundtable hosted by Croakey this week on tackling far-right populism, acknowledging its particular implications for health.
As Adjunct Associate Professor Lesley Russell wrote this week, the Trump Administration’s efforts to “dismantle and undermine America’s federal public health system has not only led to preventable outbreaks of disease (measles, foodborne illnesses) but has deprived the international public health community of advice, guidance and data”.
This means, the roundtable heard, that those seeking to address the far right rise have to prepare for tough futures and be realistic: to understand that it’s not simply about getting the ‘messaging’ right, but fundamentally about tackling power — corporate, political and media.
Yet, health leaders and groups are often reluctant to weigh in or step up on the political, commercial and social determinants of health — on climate, racism, disinformation and misinformation, erosion of democracy and transparency, the power of vested interests like the fossil fuels industries, and the overwhelming power of Big Tech corporations and platforms.
Powerful counterweight
Dr Tim Senior, a GP and member of Croakey Health Media, told the roundtable it’s important to understand that far-right assertions are not made in good faith, and shouldn’t be dealt with in that way.
Many of their leaders, candidates and supporters are often not interested in policy discussions, he said. They’re not reading manifestos, nor checking the fine print of superannuation policies.
“Taking it on as if it’s a rational debate or a policy discussion is missing the point entirely,” Senior said.
However, he believes many people who are fed up with the major parties are looking for a reason not to support the far right.
He and other roundtable participants believe Australia’s diverse healthcare workforce offers a positive counterweight to parties whipping up immigration fears.
Promoting discussions on the important contributions of migrants to Australia’s health, aged and social care systems can shift conversations from abstract principles or culture wars to concrete discussions about people’s lives and what they need and value, he said.
Talking about the workforce can prompt different questions, Senior said, like ‘who will look after your elderly mum?’, ‘where will your town find a doctor?’, ‘who is going to staff the Emergency Department?’ and ‘how will that all be better under One Nation?’
“Without migration, the whole health system falls over,” he said.
It’s an approach also urged by Farah Farouque, CEO of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV), who has written this week for Croakey, ahead of Victoria’s 28 November election, about how migration and multiculturalism “are woven into the fabric of our health and care systems”.
“The choice is between exploiting anxiety and encouraging suspicion of our neighbours or dealing with the Victoria that actually exists: diverse, interconnected and dependent on people of many backgrounds to keep our hospitals, care services, businesses and communities running,” she said.
Senior counselled that, while the wide-ranging costs of inequality have been long highlighted by public health leaders like Sir Professor Michael Marmot, few voters tempted by One Nation are likely enticed by jargon such as ‘social determinants of health’.
But people understand intuitively about bullying, about decency, fairness and process and that important issues play out in local communities, among neighbours, he said.
We saw that a few years ago when the regional Queensland community of Biloela rallied to defend a beloved, local Tamil asylum seeker family – Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan (Nades) and their two Australian-born children – from a brutal deportment process.
It’s an approach also taken by the Together for Treaty movement in Victoria, where the Liberals have pledged to scrap the state’s historic First Nations treaty if they win office, which looks likely. Advocates and allies are being encouraged to talk to other voters about values rather than specific policy points or hot topics.
The roundtable also heard about important research by Common Cause Australia, to be released late this month, on how to respond most effectively to the far right’s scapegoating of migrants. It highlights the value of talking about the real drivers and solutions to the economic squeeze.
Global trends
Croakey’s discussion on populism took place as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came close to winning a majority of votes in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, sending shockwaves around the world.
Constitutionally and politically, Germany has for decades declared “Nie wieder” (“never again”). But now its politics is dominated by a far-right party that wants its schools to stop teaching so much “guilt” about Nazi history, to scrap diversity efforts, to put the children of asylum seekers and those with disabilities into separate classes, to detain and deport refugees and to seek rapprochment with Russia.
As the Lowy Institute reports, Germany is not the first western polity to face a “proudly radical (and radicalising) far right…. as a concrete, active, popular, disruptive, and destructive political force with its fingers brushing the levers of power”. But it might have been a bit slower to it.
At the same time, One Nation is again high in the polls following its recent Secret Harbour byelection win in Western Australia, and has 39 candidates running for upper and lower house seats in the Victorian election.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism this week turned its attention to Australia, describing our “thriving far-right scene, with everything from neo-Nazi networks, to anti-government sovereign citizens, to political parties with bigoted platforms, to anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant organisations.”
Its latest report, The Far-Right Hate and Extremist Groups: Australia, documents growing far-right influence, transnational connections, neo-Nazi networks, anti-immigrant movements, targeting of transgender people and the broader LGBTIQ+ community, and dangerous intersections with mainstream media and politics.
The roundtable heard that Australia has already had its own ‘Brexit’ moment.
James Blackwell, a proud Wiradyuri man and a research and policy fellow at the University of New South Wales, said many First Nations people feel they were the “canary in the coal mine” at the 2023 Voice referendum.
So much of the disinformation, misinformation and hatred that is now swirling around mainstream politics “got tested in that 2023 campaign”, he said.
As Croakey has reported, the Voice referendum campaign and defeat unleashed new levels of racism and disinformation against First Nations people. Conservative parties, and governments in Queensland and the Northern Territory saw a green light for stripping First Nations rights, funding and programs.
With migrant Australians and First Nations peoples again the targets of vitriol from far-right groups like One Nation, Blackwell wonders what “solidarity story” might emerge, a question that he said is likely to be teased out more at next week’s Allies for Uluru National Allyship Summit.
Rights and evidence under fire
Attacks on human rights and public health principles are broadening, participants told the roundtable.
Croakey director and health policy expert Alison Verhoeven said disinformation, particularly around family violence and vaccination, meant these were now contentious issues, fuelling anger and scapegoating of vulnerable groups.
More broadly, we are seeing a growing pushback against evidence, which threatens to wind back public health gains made over decades.
The Federal Opposition recently reneged on long-standing support for tobacco control, announcing plans to cut tobacco excise by 80 percent, shadowing One Nation’s position.
“For the sake of the health of all Australians, health leaders and organisations must stand up to parties and politicians that don’t respect and value evidence and science,” Verhoeven said.
“They must call out poor and harmful policies, and they should demand that these policies receive fulsome interrogation by media,and in particular, the public broadcaster. They should platform evidence and highlight the consequences of poor policy decisions.”
But therein lie some of the challenges, the roundtable heard. At a time of meta-crises – from climate breakdown to increasing militarisation and a tsunami of misinformation and disinformation – the forces driving support for the far-right are likely only to escalate.
US journalist Jason Dove Mark has written in a new book, The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet, that we are experiencing collective amnesia about deteriorating social and environmental conditions.
As Covering Climate Now wrote:
“Just as it’s become hard ‘to remember what summers were like before the nonstop sizzling heat’ of recent years, Mark writes, it is now difficult ‘to remember social life before social media….
“[And] the once-outrageous — the bilious, hateful rhetoric and the creeping authoritarianism — have become almost ordinary.’”.
Speak up
Roundtable participants discussed the importance of health leaders and organisations like the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal Australian College of GPs, and the Australian Nurses and Midwives Federation using their powerful combination of influence, respect and resources.
Verhoeven said health leaders should platform evidence and highlight the consequences of poor policy decisions beyond healthcare discussions.
For example, she said One Nation’s bans on journalists from the ABC and Guardian Australia are “deeply worrying” for efforts to scrutinise parties and candidates and hold them to account.
“Noisy, attention-seeking, ill-informed posturing might secure some short-term political wins, but the real-life costs of poor policy can have long-lasting effects,” she warned.
“While some Australians may want to see political change, few want to lose the benefits of living in a country where people have amongst the best health outcomes in the world.”
Adjunct Professor Ginny Barbour, Editor in Chief of The Medical Journal of Australia, told the roundtable she worries particularly about a “normalisation of misinformation” in the public sphere, and the far right’s “deliberate strategy” to undermine expertise.
“They use fear as a tool to undermine science and undermine medicine, a tool to consolidate power,” she said, acknowledging also that health is a key target.
Barbour stressed the importance of being vocal across all channels, and meeting people where they are, for example on YouTube and Instagram.
She recommended watching this presentation by Wiradjuri woman and science communicator Dr Kirsten Banks talking about how digital platforms are transforming science communication, and how to target blatant mistruths without amplifying them.
A particular message from that is to amplify positive news, she said, acknowledging the need for publications like the MJA to lead that.
Stand up
The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV) has just launched its Victorian state election platform, following a year of community consultation across the state.
For the first time, rising hate and racism were the issue at the top of ECCV’s annual survey of members and stakeholders, prompting a call in the platform for the next Victorian Government to invest more in anti-racism strategies.
Farouque told the roundtable that, while the One Nation threat to ethnic communities “is very real” and of concern to ECCV, the platform, A Victoria For All of Us, deliberately doesn’t mention Hanson’s party. It talks instead about a range of concerns as well as the positive contributions that people from migrant backgrounds make to every part of the state.
She called for leadership and action, saying rising populism is “not the stuff of one election” — it’s a global issue that is now affecting Australia’s broader polity.
“All parts of civil society need to stand up at this moment,” she said. “Almost like a soccer or football field, everyone needs to take up their positions.”
For Croakey Health Media member Jennifer Doggett, it’s important to examine what draws people to far-right, anti-authority, anti-expertise rhetoric, to recognise why they feel left out, that they have no control over their lives or don’t understand societal changes.
Bad actors then harness those grievances and target minorities, “tapping into our seemingly endless capacity to blame other people for problems, rather than find solutions”, she said.
Doggett says it may be very hard to combat misinformation, disinformation and scapegoating, if we don’t also speak to the reasons about why people want simplistic responses.
We see that occurring in rural and regional areas, where people can be weaponised to act against their own interests, to rage against migration when they rely on it in agriculture and healthcare, and to deny climate change when it impacts their daily lives and livelihoods with growing force.
PhD candidate Penelope Smith told the roundtable that she meets with rural and regional young people who “are desperate to fight back” against racist, anti-migration, anti-multicultural and other populist attitudes among their family and friends.
“But they’re scared to do so because they don’t have the tools to support them to do so.”
Dr Sally Fitzpatrick, a member of Croakey Health Media and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Design and Society at UTS, stressed the importance of not giving bot bullies oxygen. She also suggests it might be time to look back to successful campaigns in the past, before social media was our go-to.
Some of the most effective campaigns she’s ever seen were by ANTAR following the 1992 Mabo ruling that overturned the myth that at the time of colonisation Australia was ‘terra nullius’ or land belonging to no one.
“ANTAR’s network distilled complicated native title information onto one page and became a trusted source against the tide of misinformation unleashed by vested interests,” she said.
“Through snail mail, bulletin boards, local events and shoe leather, this information was distributed through every network, creating long chains that became a mass movement; pushing back the lies peddled by vested interests.
“It was about good information, widely distributed, easy to produce, easy to share, and relevant locally. Our health peaks, industry reps, and associations could be doing similar today, empowering not only their constituents but the wider public – at the local level – especially in the regions,” she said.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on populism
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