As One Nation surges in the polls, why are the Greens being left behind?

Experts believe ‘Greens voters and One Nation voters have similar concerns’ and the party must capitalise on the emerging anti-establishment mood Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The UK Greens leader, Zack Polanski, had a simple message for his Australian counterparts: connect with people’s anger. “Sometimes we rush to hope, we rush to solutions, so we don’t quite connect in the same way,” Polanski told the Victorian Greens campaign conference in May. Anger – or frustration – with the political establishment has been steadily growing within Australia, as it has in the UK, generating an appetite for alternatives. In the UK, Polanski’s messages have tripled the party’s membership, nearly doubled its vote, and wrested electoral victories off Nigel Farage’s Reform in just 10 months. But Polanski’s warning that progressives elsewhere are failing to connect with voters and capitalise on their frustration appears to be borne out. In the 12 months since the last federal election, Pauline Hanson and her brand of rightwing populism have tapped into that discontent, surging in the polls at the expense of the Coa