With the Victorian state election rapidly approaching, I thought I’d spend some time listening to Warren Pickering, One Nation’s Victorian leader.
I’ve listened to Pickering’s interview with Neil Mitchell, watched his Melbourne Press Club appearance on YouTube & read various media assessments, including that of the Australian Financial Review.
I’ll acknowledge upfront that I have reservations about One Nation. But having reservations about a political party doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to listen to what its representatives have to say or consider their proposals on their merits.
And I came away with considerably more questions than answers.
Frankly, I found the Press Club appearance particularly disappointing.
There were plenty of motherhood statements, grand ambitions, backward-looking criticism & promises of what One Nation would do if elected. A lot of words, but considerably less substance when it came to explaining HOW those ambitions would translate into practical, achievable outcomes.
The Q&A did little to change that impression.
As I remarked to a friend afterwards, he talks the words, but where’s the substance?
Interestingly, the Australian Financial Review made a similar observation, noting that Pickering became less convincing when journalists pressed him for specifics.
The AFR also acknowledged that he engaged with questions rather than simply retreating into rehearsed talking points. That’s worth recognising. But being willing to answer a question & giving a substantive answer are two vastly different things.
And that matters.
Victoria is facing enormous financial & economic challenges. Addressing them requires more than naming what’s wrong, promising to expose past failures & declaring that things will be different.
It requires credible policies, sound economic management, REALISTIC priorities &, crucially, an understanding of how government & our democratic institutions actually work.
And any lack of preparation cannot simply be explained away by saying, “This is only our second election in Victoria.”
If you’re presenting yourself as a serious contender for government, or looking to become an effective opposition, then understanding those responsibilities isn’t optional. It’s a prerequisite.
LET’S START WITH THE FINANCES.
Pickering talks about opening the books, examining past expenditure & conducting a comprehensive Treasury audit.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with reviewing government spending. Accountability matters, & finding waste or ongoing financial liabilities can help inform future decisions.
But Victoria’s problems aren’t going to be solved simply by revisiting the decisions that created them.
The priority MUST be establishing a sustainable financial position, controlling expenditure, restoring business confidence, encouraging investment & developing a credible pathway to economic recovery.
An audit is a tool. It is NOT an economic recovery strategy.
And there’s another fundamental question.
How much financial planning should voters reasonably expect a political party to complete BEFORE asking for a mandate to govern?
An incoming government may uncover financial problems that weren’t previously clear. But that uncertainty doesn’t remove the responsibility to prepare credible policy costings beforehand.
According to the AFR, One Nation has promised billions in tax cuts & additional spending without showing meaningful offsetting savings.
When challenged about the potential impact on Victoria’s finances, Pickering returned to his proposal for a Treasury audit & reallocating resources according to need.
In other words, nothing more than words.
But that’s not an explanation of how those commitments would be funded.
Nor does it establish a credible pathway to reducing debt.
TRANSPARENCY — BUT AT WHAT COST?
Then there’s his proposal for publishing government expenditure online, including individual payments & projects.
Transparency is important. But so are the practicalities.
What would such a system cost to set up & maintain? How would it integrate with existing government systems? What safeguards would protect commercially sensitive information, privacy & security?
And, importantly, what measurable benefit would taxpayers receive?
How many people would actually access the information? How many would understand what they were looking at? And without the proper context, how easily could individual transactions be misinterpreted or misrepresented?
Publishing information is one thing. Making it meaningful, accessible & useful for public accountability is quite another.
Making every transaction publicly available might sound appealing, but transparency without proper design can become an expensive administrative exercise rather than an effective accountability mechanism.
And then there’s an interesting contradiction.
Pickering proposes releasing cabinet documents within 30 days, arguing that Victorians deserve greater transparency about government decisions.
Yet when questioned at the Press Club about transparency within One Nation itself, he argued that disclosing internal party information could compromise its strategic interests.
Apparently, confidentiality is important when protecting One Nation’s internal deliberations.
But what about the legitimate confidentiality requirements of government?
Cabinet discussions can involve commercially sensitive negotiations, legal advice, security matters & information affecting individuals & businesses.
There are sound reasons why some information must remain confidential, even in an open democracy.
So where does Pickering draw the line?
And why should the principle of protecting confidential deliberations apply to his political party but apparently not to the same extent to government?
Transparency should improve accountability, not become an indiscriminate exercise in disclosure.
THEN THERE’S THE QUESTION OF EFFECTIVE OPPOSITION.
During the Mitchell interview, Pickering declared that One Nation would FRUSTRATE (his words) whichever government was elected if it wasn’t One Nation.
When challenged about how that would help Victoria address its problems, he qualified his remarks by acknowledging the need to work with whoever formed government.
But the initial statement concerned me.
The role of an effective opposition is NOT simply to frustrate government.
It’s to scrutinise legislation, challenge poor decisions, hold ministers accountable, offer credible alternatives &, importantly, support legislation when it serves the public interest.
Opposition for opposition’s sake achieves extraordinarily little.
And if One Nation were to hold the balance of power in the Victorian upper house, that responsibility would become even more significant.
Holding the balance of power is not simply an opportunity to obstruct. It carries a responsibility to consider legislation on its merits & understand the consequences of supporting or rejecting it.
THEN WE COME TO POLICY COSTINGS.
When Mitchell challenged Pickering over the Parliamentary Budget Office’s assessment of One Nation’s family policy package, Pickering disputed the figures.
Yet when asked about the timeframe underlying his own party’s estimate, he acknowledged that he hadn’t done the costing & would need to obtain the details.
Political leaders aren’t expected to personally prepare every financial calculation.
But surely, they should understand the financial assumptions underpinning the policies they’re asking voters to support.
And dismissing an independent costing by pointing to cost overruns on unrelated government infrastructure projects doesn’t explain the discrepancy.
The Parliamentary Budget Office isn’t responsible for preparing or managing government infrastructure project budgets.
Its role is to provide independent, non-partisan policy costings, budget analysis & financial advice to parliamentarians.
Comparing its policy costings with infrastructure project overruns is comparing two fundamentally different processes.
And that raises another question about Pickering’s understanding of the very parliamentary institutions he is looking to influence.
The AFR raised corresponding questions about the absence of detailed policy costings & the financial consequences of One Nation’s commitments.
You cannot demand fiscal accountability from government while being unable to explain the financial basis of your own policy commitments.
AND THEN THERE’S HIS PROPOSAL FOR CITIZENS’ OVERSIGHT OF THE JUDICIARY.
This is where my concerns extend beyond economic management & into the protection of our democratic institutions.
Pickering proposes filming sentencing proceedings & making them publicly available to generate public pressure on magistrates.
He also proposes a citizens’ panel to identify sentencing patterns & report its findings to Parliament.
He says the panel would not review individual sentences, & Parliament certainly has the authority to review & amend sentencing legislation.
But there’s an enormous difference between reviewing sentencing policy & encouraging public pressure on judicial decision-making.
And what about privacy?
Court proceedings can involve victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, vulnerable witnesses, children & families whose most personal & traumatic circumstances may be discussed.
What happens when footage is circulated on social media, stripped of context, weaponised or used to intimidate individuals?
And who protects magistrates from harassment or organised campaigns when their decisions prove unpopular?
Judicial decisions must be based on the law, evidence & circumstances of each case, NOT on public popularity.
Furthermore, Victoria already has an independent Sentencing Advisory Council that researches sentencing trends, consults the community & advises on sentencing policy.
So why another committee?
What would it achieve that existing institutions cannot? Who appoints its members? What qualifications would they need? What would it cost?
And, most importantly, what safeguards would protect judicial independence?
DEMOCRACY IS NOT GOVERNMENT BY PUBLIC OUTRAGE.
This is where I have a broader concern about some of One Nation’s proposals.
We hear a great deal about smaller government, individual freedom, less interference & restoring power to ordinary Australians.
Yet some of these proposals involve more monitoring, added oversight bodies & mechanisms designed to subject independent institutions to public pressure.
There is a clear contradiction here.
Transparency is different from surveillance. Accountability is different from intimidation. And giving citizens a voice is different from allowing public opinion to dictate how independent institutions exercise their responsibilities.
Indeed, some of these proposals raise questions about authoritarian-style oversight, despite being presented in the language of freedom & democracy.
I’m not suggesting One Nation advocates communism or that its proposals are equivalent to the practices of authoritarian states.
But I do see an uncomfortable resemblance in the emphasis on monitoring, public pressure & additional oversight mechanisms.
And when those measures are presented as strengthening democracy, I think we have every reason to question whether they might, without adequate safeguards, undermine some of the very freedoms & institutional protections democracy is supposed to preserve.
Democracy isn’t simply majority rule. It also depends on the protection of individual rights, due process, institutional independence & the rule of law.
Those protections are particularly important when public opinion is angry, divided or demanding immediate action.
And social media should remind us why.
Strong opinions are plentiful. An understanding of constitutional responsibilities, judicial processes & the practical consequences of policy decisions is not always as clear. In fact, it’s often glaringly absent.
Public frustration may be entirely legitimate. But frustration is not a substitute for informed judgement.
Nor should every public grievance automatically translate into another committee, another layer of oversight or another mechanism for applying pressure.
Democracy gives citizens the right to question government and the judiciary. It doesn’t mean every public grievance should translate into another layer of oversight, nor that public anger should decide how independent institutions exercise their responsibilities.
AND THAT BRINGS ME BACK TO THE QUESTION OF LEADERSHIP.
The AFR’s assessment of Pickering’s Press Club appearance made an important distinction.
He had shown the public’s frustrations, recognised dissatisfaction with the political system & showed a willingness to engage with journalists.
That’s a plus.
But when pressed on the details of his proposed solutions, significant questions remained unanswered.
That’s the distinction I kept coming back to as I watched.
There is a considerable difference between understanding why people are angry, articulating their grievances & showing how those grievances can be addressed through responsible government.
Government isn’t a protest movement.
It isn’t simply about making declarations, revisiting past failures, exposing perceived wrongdoing or opposing everything you disagree with.
It’s about making tough decisions, establishing priorities, managing competing demands, respecting institutional boundaries, negotiating where necessary & accepting responsibility for the consequences.
I don’t question that Victoria needs serious reform. Nor do I dismiss every issue Pickering raises.
But after listening to the Neil Mitchell interview & watching his Press Club appearance, I remain unconvinced that the rhetoric is supported by sufficient practical planning, financial detail or consideration of the consequences.
What I heard was a politician who could articulate the grievances, identify the aspirations & promise the outcomes. What I heard considerably less of was the detailed thinking needed to bridge the gap between those promises & their delivery.
And that’s not a standard reserved for One Nation. It’s one every political party & aspiring leader should be expected to meet.
Political anger can identify a problem. It cannot, by itself, design a solution.
The real test of political leadership isn’t whether you can articulate the public’s anger.
It’s whether you can turn legitimate grievances into responsible, workable policy without compromising the very institutions you’re supposed to protect.
Political conviction is important. But conviction without a credible plan is no substitute for effective government.
One editorial observation: the article is strongest where you move beyond your impression of Pickering and identify specific inconsistencies in his proposals. The sections on costings, cabinet confidentiality and judicial independence do that particularly well.
I would keep the personal opening and the substantive conclusion exactly as they now stand. They make it clear that this is a considered political opinion piece rather than a general attack on One Nation.
