What does grass-roots popularity offer parliamentarians? Very little. In Australia’s constitutional framework, the iron laws of oligarchy are well entrenched. The question of national policy and law is not often dictated by the common desires of the people, but is dictated by which sections of the nation are the most well organised, resourced and sharp.
Gaetano Mosca writes in his 1939 book ‘The Ruling Class’:
In reality, the dominion of an organized minority, obeying a single impulse, over the unorganized majority is inevitable. The power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority, who stands alone before the totality of the organized minority. At the same time, the minority is organized for the very reason that it is a minority.
A hundred men acting uniformly in concert, with a common understanding, will triumph over a thousand men who are not in accord and can therefore be dealt with one by one. Meanwhile it will be easier for the former to act in concert and have a mutual understanding simply because they are a hundred and not a thousand.
It follows that the larger the political community, the smaller will the proportion of the governing minority to the governed majority be, and the more difficult will it be for the majority to organize for reaction against the minority.
The timeless rule of Australian political experience has been that the popular interests of the nation have been commonly defeated by the pervasive influence of lobby groups; either for financial interests (such as the chambers of commerce who have advocated mass immigration without ceasing since the mid 19th century) or for ethnic sectarian interests such as the political bodies representing foreign ethnic groups.
Clearly, the Australian Natives’ Association in its historical form, alongside the Returned Services Leagues, Australin Labor Party and the Australian Workers Unions were exceptions to the general rule; these were institutions that represented in the main, the whole interest of the Nation and not minority interests. Sadly today; the ANA is rebuilding from scratch, and the remnant institutions are run, if not entirely, substantially by ideologues hostile to the welfare and future of the Australian people.
Who steers the ship?
The One Nation party may have ambitions to become a representative body for Australian interests; but for better or worse, it appears to be a chaotic institution with no strict internal discipline, members rights, cohesive ideals or, more importantly a professional cadre capable of properly harnessing the popular outrage with the major parties in Australia today and keeping the mission on track.
Even worse, the “grassroots” that supports One Nation has very little to offer the party, either in skill, money or influence. One Nation therefore, in order to amass the actual resources, it needs to wage a battle against the current ruling elite; will need to attract existing members of the non-governing elite by cutting deals that benefit them, such as, Gina Rinehart or others; who may in some instances have good policy views, but might also simultaneously require a compromise on the Immigration issue, as this is paramount to their own financial interests.
The perennial weakness of party politics from the Australian perspective is that there is no freestanding Australian institution, freed of concerns over polling and electoral seats, that is powerful and able to demand the parties submit to pro-Australian policies. If done properly, this institution would have the natural advantage over all others – as we still have the whole nation theoretically within the scope of our supporters, unlike others who rely on the comparably small numbers of the ruling class.
Who is going to punish One Nation for going soft on Immigration? Despite the best efforts of the social media influencers, the majority of the polling results for One Nation are from mainstream support like 2GB’s Ben Fordham, Karl Stefanovic and the others in the non-ruling elite media class that are biting at the ankles of the current government. Their support is basically unconditional and will not falter over the current immigration debacle.
What if One Nation was to succeed?
Even if the party itself was competent, true to an Australian position and wouldn’t compromise to sharp lobby efforts from vested interests (which it isnt), and was to gain total power in the next election, how would it go about changing the nation? Can it not be fairly stated that from top to bottom the entire bureaucracy of the state is staffed in the main by cosmopolitan fools who consciously or unconsciously despise Australia and its founding ideals?
Parliament might change laws, but with a hostile public service and judiciary – it will have an exceptionally hard time delivering on those changes (just look at the shambles in the United States) unless there stood ready to go, a significantly numerous stock of professionally competent patriots who are ready to assume the reigns of power and properly govern by taking up vacated positions in all the departments and tribunals of the state. Where are all those thousands of patriotic engineers, project managers, lawyers, accountants, law enforcement officers and others who could be entrusted to operate the organs of the state both competently and for the benefit of the Nationalist cause?
“granting that the discontent of the masses might succeed in deposing a ruling class, inevitably, as we shall later show, there would have to be another organized minority within the masses themselves to discharge the functions of a ruling class. Otherwise all organization, and the whole social structure, would be destroyed.” – Mosca
We must come to the sober reckoning that there is no such significant stock of men yet who are competent to handle the reigns of state. Having at best a few hundred ideologues, even less of them with any real life skills, places any immediate ambitions for Nationalist statecraft in a shallow grave. Maybe now, but not forever.
Two Issues – The Same Solution
Unfortunately, there’s no quick and easy solution to the issue of “who steers the ship”, or better “who keeps the ship sailing in the right direction” – To build that freestanding Australian institution which is necessary takes time, effort and perseverance. That institution must not only have large numbers of people, but it must have significant financial, legal and influence resources. The institution must be anti-fragile, stable and a sharp object that is not so easily trod upon by the enemy.
Achieving the above qualities requires a significant number of competent members who have wide and varied skills combined with influence in every sector of Australian society and industry. To obtain these people we must do two things. Firstly, we must, through the provision of members benefits schemes, change the risk calculation for those sympathetic non-governing elites or professionals who would like to participate in building our institution, to the extent they exist.
Secondly, we must encourage the young of the movement to abandon the defeatist welfarism attitude. Young Nationalists must relentlessly pursue the development of skills and careers in areas that have strategic value to the Nation at large. Furthermore, their lives must be buttressed by meaning, purpose and satisfaction that comes from family, friendship, religion and community; this being the necessary food upon which soldiers march upon; the lack thereof exhausting them and knocking them out of the war before even reaching the battleground. Men cannot march on politics alone!
“But there’s no time!” has been the catchcry of many decades of failed quasi-nationalist activist movements. It is this panic over time, and the commonly paraded out “if this election goes bad we all die” which has led to endless casualties with very little gain. If this sentimentality had been averted decades ago. we might have been the inheritors of a significant, inter-generational Nationalist institution – but instead, generation after generation we see young men throw themselves upon the spears of the enemy and become lost to the cause, leaving the next generation to start again from scratch, often to do the same thing!
We suggest locking in, no excuses: build and lock down the capacity to effect change – for even if the wider mission for the whole Commonwealth government failed, it’s this same institution that will secure a future for the people in the brazillified era that might come. Delusions of populist change should be cautiously considered in the light of those iron laws of oligarchy – it takes a new elite, to displace the old.
M. K. Grant
National Governor
August 2026