> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://defy-this.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Lessons from the Kennett Era - URL: https://defy-this.ghost.io/what-its-like/ - Published: 2026-06-24T03:58:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-14T03:30:02.000Z - Description: If One Nation is coming to Victoria as an institutionalised political force, there might be some lessons to draw from the Kennett era. Here are some of them. - Author: Anthony Kelly I wrote this in June 2026 when the spectre of an actual One Nation-led government in Victoria was a feasible possibility according to some Kos Samaras modeling that had been provided to the Victorian Trades Hall Council and later referenced in this [Age article. ](https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/an-orange-wave-is-breaking-over-victoria-can-labor-hold-back-the-populist-tide-20260612-p60694.html?ref=defy-this.ghost.io) --- Most of the ‘younger’ activists I know won’t remember what it is like under a rabidly conservative state government. If One Nation is coming to Victoria as an institutionalised political force, there might be some lessons we can draw from the Kennett years. For us in Victoria, the Kennett years (1992-99) were a little taste of what Thatcher’s Britain was like in the 80’s. Jeff Kennett was a rabid neo-liberal who, as soon as he became Premier of Victoria, set about privatising 30 billion dollars of public assets, wholesale sacking of the public sector workforce, attacking and destroying union power, forcibly amalgamating local councils, closing or merging beloved state schools, defunding and decimating civil society services and programs and reshaping Victoria into a cruel, corporate dominated economy as rapidly as possible. Like Hanson, Kennett was right-wing populist, but of the economic-rationalist variety. He dominated the narrative, and he had massive popular support. He was vehemently anti-union and attacked the progressive left relentlessly and ideologically. The largest protest in Victoria since Vietnam on 10 November 1992 saw more than 100,000 people come out against his policies - which he blithely ignored. There was also a series of strikes that saw about 800,000 walk-out across dozens of sectors across the state. But that initial peak of outrage and mass-mobilisation was not sustained. From then on, the entire left in Victoria was scattered across dozens of frontlines and torn between simultaneous public sector strikes campaigns to save tram conductors, local pools, councils and primary schools, and campaigns to prevent the sell-offs of gas, water and the State Electricity Company. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/19/53/195322db-89d4-4468-b3dd-376bdfda2c86/content/images/2026/08/9db73b56c5180b873c1e38bd4e00db75.jpg) ### What can we learn from the Kennett years The lessons here are hard to draw but they do exist. A hostile One Nation-led state government will look and feel very different to Kennett’s. Kennett was smart, One Nation are dumb and unpredictable and, in many ways, so much worse in their incompetency. They will also have different targets. The Treaty and Gellung Warl’s new powers will be the first to go. Decades of renewable energy infrastructure, planning and resourcing will go next. They’ll likely scrap renewable targets, shut down or prevent wind farms and work to rescind the statewide fracking ban. One Nation’s knee jerk, vengeful and reactive policy approach will see rapid roll-back of Trans rights and LGBTIQ+ legal protections and services. Free birth certificates changes and the ban on ‘conversion’ practices will likely be repealed after the conservative churches realise what they can get away with. Our Equal Opportunity Act will be attacked or ‘amended’ in the same way Trump attacked DEI. Abortion rights will be another fight (again). They’ll take pleasure in closing our one and only safe injecting facility. There will be wholesale, and relentless defunding of services, programs, legal and advocacy across everything we might value. Even if we assume Labor retains power in the upper house, all of this will come under sustained attack. Adding to the mayhem will be an ascendent, confident and highly mobilised far-right, wanting to take back the streets from the left like in they did briefly during the COVID Freedom movement days. With political cover, racist attacks will increase. Any spark weaponised. It is not beyond imagining that we could see the sorts of [pogroms that swept through Belfast](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/how-northern-ireland-race-riots-unfolded-belfast?ref=defy-this.ghost.io) (June 2026), happening in parts of metro Melbourne or against regional migrant services. Like in the Kennett years it will seem and be, absolutely chaotic. The chaos is deliberate, like in Trumps first 100 days, and is designed to throw the left off-kilter and prevent any coordinated or effective opposition. Many were taken by surprise by the Kennett victory and the scale and intensity of his attacks so soon after the election. He basically launched a blitzkrieg against the working class, counting on submission and acquiescence. He told *The Age*: *“We were ready to govern. We seized that opportunity. We used that mandate.”* He later [told the Herald Sun](https://solidarity.net.au/unions/kennett-vs-the-unions%E2%80%94a-fight-we-should-have-won/?ref=defy-this.ghost.io) that his government won by attacking on several fronts at once. *“The beauty of that strategy was that after the initial flurry of protests from those who were most affected, everyone started protecting their own area of interest. So we split the opponents.”* As a young activist I was paying scant attention, off in old-growth forest campaigns or heading back from Nurrungar. It seemed like there was very little preparations and no worst-case scenario planning leading up to the elections. Thinking of One Nation’s ascendency and the risks ahead this year, I despair at the state of the radical left in Melbourne at present. Exhausted and burnt out from fighting genocide - sniping at each other on Instagram - attacking unions, (in fact undermining any movement leadership that brings people together or attempts to organise), with so many working in tiny, paranoid anonymised cells rather than building networks or coalitions. I’ve seen activists burn relationships and brush off potential allies and alliances as if they didn’t need allies and alliances. I wasn’t an organiser as such during the Kennett years, just a young activist flitting from campaign to campaign - but it was during those years that I got to know and work with socialist and anarchist comrades from across the local spectrum, as well as union leaders and organisers, priests, radical lawyers and community campaigners- almost all of whom I would still call friends and comrades 30 years later. > Political unity was critical. You supported other people working on other campaigns, rather than sniped at them for doing it wrong. If One Nation is coming to Victoria as an institutionalised political force, there might be some lessons to draw from all this. It took years for the left and Labor to regain any ground during the Kennett years, and Victoria was left with expensive, deregulated and privatised services, casinos, tram inspectors, (more deeply) entrenched wealth disparity, and a far less powerful union movement. But there were some victories, and in many ways the left across Victoria was more united and mobilised than ever. Political unity was critical. You supported other people working on other campaigns, rather than sniped at them for doing it wrong. You showed up when there were big call-outs because you knew every single community campaign needed numbers. In those years I saw solidarity work both ways- showing up for and supporting union and movement leadership- rather than undermining it- because movement leadership in chaotic times was critical and desperately needed. > Every retrenched worker, local councilor, and community member who was vaguely pro-democratic and anti-Kennett was an ally. Solidarity across our stupid, irrelevant differences was the norm. So many movement leaders at that time were working with and diligently supporting small community campaigns, adding their voices or power when it was needed. Coalitions were critical when everyone was under attack and the neo-liberal forces so powerful. Coalitions bringing together churches, councils, migrant networks, unions and all sorts of activist and community groups were common. Every retrenched worker, local councilor, and community member who was vaguely pro-democratic and anti-Kennett was an ally. Solidarity across our stupid, irrelevant differences was the norm. You had to pick your battles and battling a comrade wasn’t high priority. No one tactic or approach was decisive in the end. Big rallies and marches were valuable, as were the high-cost but high-impact strikes, community pickets, blockades and the countless community forums and meetings that glued it all together. There were calls for a statewide general strike in year one and there should have been. But in lieu of that, showing up and supporting mattered far more than tactical purity. So many ordinary folk who initially voted for Kennett found their way into a campaign against what he was doing and that steady erosion of his base of support was what mattered in the end. Anthony Kelly June 2026