The Australia First Alliance

Is nationalism on the ballot in 2025?

Written by editor of The National Observer and host of the Backbench Drivers podcast, John Lawson.

Electoral nationalism has languished in Australia since the post-war liberal consensus arrived on our shores. On the one hand, genuine and intelligent advocates for the Australia first cause such as Graeme Campbell (founder of the Australia First party) & Denis McCormack (Founder of the Australians Against Further Immigration party) among many others were suffocated by obscurity, meanwhile, the most boorish representatives of our worldview were elevated through intense media coverage — Pauline Hanson being the prime example.

Senator Gerard Rennick seemed tragically fated to slot neatly into the first category. Since the founding of his People First party, he has received next to no mainstream media attention which struck me as strange considering just how radical his ideological positions are:
Slashing Australia’s immigration rate, ending our poisonous relationship with India, calling out Israeli false flags, naming the central bankers. On top of that he’s a covid-sceptic, protectionist, and pro-Trump — this guy is running for the Senate this year!

Everything we know about the ordinarily squealing, finger-wagging, Australian mainstream media is being upended by the utter gulf of coverage on Rennick’s campaign. There can be only one explanation for the deathly silence; Gerard Rennick, much like the Hon. Graeme Campbell & Denis McCormack before him is an example of what I will describe as ‘Elite Human Capital Nationalism’.
Rennick is an accountant, and approaches problem-solving as one. He is measured, systematic and professional. Rennick imbibes the spirit of a previous generation of Anglo-Celt Australian men who could design bridges by hand and to whom a handshake is sacred. The problem is that spirit, like most elements of authentic Australian culture, is no longer valued in 21st century electoral politics.

This is why each election reliably returns one of two dominant major parties and only a minuscule number of alternative minor party candidates will ever sit in parliament. The brand recognition of the major parties, though waning, still overpowers almost every other factor weighing on voters minds. This all should not be taken to mean that no alternative to the major parties can succeed however, as evidenced by the Greens who rose in only 30 years from an unknown entity to an established fixture of the Australian political landscape.

Despite both the minor party left and minor party right capturing a collective ~15% of the vote each in the 2022 election, the Greens were able to elect 12 senators, while the minor party right only got 3 (Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts and Ralph Babet) who were later joined by Gerrard Rennick after his defection from the LNP for a grand total of 4. Pitiful.

The difference comes down to the left’s consolidated vote and although it would be nice if voters to the right of the Liberals were presented with a single well-managed and professional party to represent their interests, immovable personalities and egos appear to have doomed as to a near-term future of competing minor-right fiefdoms and so an alternative solution must be sought if there is to be any hope of taking meaningful ground for the right.

The Australia First Alliance could be just that alternative solution.

Simply put, the aim of the AFA is to more effectively capture the minor-right vote with preference flows and mitigate conflict between parties where possible. Practically speaking this means that in Queensland and Victoria a preference swap between Libertarians and People First has been brokered… pretty unremarkable stuff but lays the groundwork for more productive collaboration in future.

In NSW a more interesting arrangement has been struck between the Libertarians, People First and HEART where on the ballot the three parties comprising the alliance will appear as one consolidated box for voters to number (Unfortunately this box likely won’t be listed as the ‘Australia First Alliance’, an objectively great name, but as a sequence of the party’s names for maximum brand recognition: Libertarians/People First/Heart).

Ideological Credentials

“But…” I hear you object, “I thought this was a nationalist publication! Why is the National Observer promoting libertarianism and conspiritard anti-vaxxers?”

To this I can only respond: all your concerns are likely correct. The Australia First Alliance will unfortunately not be advocating for the end of multiculturalism, mass remigration, or the ousting of our country’s hostile elite anytime soon. The policy platform leaves a lot to be desired, but this doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the project and neither should it yours.

In Germany, the ‘Alternative for Duetslachand’ (AfD) Party was founded in 2013 by a group of former members of Germany’s centre-right party (CDU) primarily on the platform of promoting free-market ideals. Today it is run by Alice Weidel, a lesbian married to a Sri-Lankan. Certainly a strange profile for one of Europe’s most infamous ‘far-right’ parties.

Despite its imperfect origins and leadership, the AfD has become a symbol of the hard-right’s modern ascendance in Europe and has built a youth movement of genuine nationalists while capturing the votes of Germany’s youngest generations.

In Poland, the ‘Konfederacja’ Party came about in 2018 as a result of a merger between Poland’s nationalist & libertarian party to go on to achieve success at elections. Several additional parties have joined the confederation at one time or other and subsequently exited while the Party itself continues on from strength to strength.

In New Zealand, the ‘New Zealand First’ Party (NZF) is currently in government thanks to a coalition struck with the major centre-right ‘National’ Party and the libertarian ‘ACT’ Party. NZF has pushed for immigration restriction and making English the official language of NZ.

The three examples listed above are each advancing nationalist politics in their respective countries, but none has been able to do so without some degree of compromise in the methods they have used to attain power and cultural sway. Simply put, this is politics: the art of the possible. Those who turn their nose up at operators within the above-mentioned nationalist parties for engaging in the messy process of realpolitik should probably find another field of work.

By the same standard, those who critique the Australia First Alliance for including the insufficiently right-wing Libertarian Party or Rennick’s People First Party for insufficiently articulating the ethnic basis of nationalism are missing the big-picture opportunity being presented here.

The two main reasons Australian Nationalists MUST support Rennick’s People First Party & the Australia First Alliance are these: these projects create a credible further-right alternative to the Liberal Party that could in theory grow to eclipse it (a statement that could never be made of One Nation or UAP) and secondly this further-right alternative will be more open to genuinely nationalist membership and leadership than any of the previously political options.

On the first point my case is simple, nationalist politics will never win government in a democratic system without winning the hearts and minds of the middle and elite classes, both of whom are fiercely allergic to the BoganNat conspiritardism which defined both the UAP and ON brands. Rennick is a serious person and so far his People First branding has been professional, far more akin to the Liberals than One Nation in presentation despite possessing orders of magnitude fewer resources. The same is true of the Libertarians, especially under the Hon. John Ruddick’s leadership in NSW.

To the second point, every sign points towards the Australia First Alliance placing far fewer ideological constraints on its members and leaders when compared to both One Nation and the Liberals. Both Ruddick and Rennick have been harsh critics of the Liberal Party’s top-down candidate preselection process. Further, Ruddick has suggested a fascinating method of adjudicating candidate preferences for future senate tickets which he is labelling the ‘Grand Primary’. All members of all minor parties comprising the AFA will be invited to vote in person at town halls around the nation for the candidates they believe will be best. This will in effect be the ‘marketplace of ideas’ in real life and mean that the minor party with the largest and most active membership will have the greatest say. Because I believe that Australian nationalism is the most compelling idea swirling around within the right-wing, I believe that Rennick’s PF Party membership will grow in time to dominate said ‘Grand Primaries’. Should One Nation join in, its membership would likely vote far further to the right than the party’s current leadership would reflect. Altogether, this would mean that even if the People First Party was only one member in the alliance with a constellation of other right-wing parties with diverging interests, Rennick would effectively steer the ship.

Conclusion

Throughout this article I have been mostly optimistic about the emergence of Rennick’s People First Party & the Australia First Alliance, but let’s not be fooled. At present, these projects are currently nothing but unfulfilled opportunities. Rennick’s margin to win back his Senate seat is razor thin and though he has committed to building the People First Party regardless of the 2025 election result, the job of winning power again will be immensely more difficult should he lose the prestige of being a parliamentarian.

This is why I am calling on all nationalists not currently a member of another political party to sign up for Gerard Rennick’s People First Party and immediately enquire about how you can help with campaigning. This is most crucial for Queenslanders who will be able to directly contribute to Rennick’s re-election, but is beneficial regardless of state.

Though imperfect, Senator Gerard Rennick and his People First Party are 90% of the way towards the political platform we as ideological nationalists would like to see implemented, if you are able to contribute to his victory you have a duty to pitch in. Australia First is not inevitable unless nationalists work to make it so.