Patriotism is not a dirty word. Most Australians love their country — its landscapes, its larrikin culture, its relative prosperity and stability, the hard-won institutions that make it one of the most liveable societies in the world. A healthy love of country, combined with honest reckoning with its failures and injustices, is not just acceptable. It’s admirable.
But something has changed in the way nationalist rhetoric is deployed in Australian political discourse — particularly online and on the fringes of the political right. And the change deserves clear-eyed examination.
From Patriotism to Grievance
Traditional Australian patriotism was broadly inclusive. It celebrated the bush, the ANZAC tradition, the egalitarian ethos, the “fair go.” It was compatible with multiculturalism — Australia had, after all, been successfully absorbing waves of migration from across the world for generations, and most Australians were proud of this.
The new nationalism is different. It is organised primarily around grievance — the sense that “real Australians” (implicitly Anglo-Celtic, Christian, and rural or suburban) are being displaced, marginalised, and silenced by a combination of immigration, progressive ideology, and global elites. It treats multiculturalism not as a national success story but as an existential threat. It frames democratic institutions as either captured by the enemy or as obstacles to necessary action.
This shift has been imported from the United States and Europe, where versions of the same movement achieved significant political power. In Australia, it has found expression in minor parties, online communities, and — increasingly — in the rhetoric of figures within the mainstream conservative movement who have calculated that grievance nationalism is a useful electoral tool.
The Legitimate Concerns Behind the Rhetoric
It would be a mistake — and politically disastrous — to dismiss everyone attracted to nationalist rhetoric as a bigot or an extremist. Many of the concerns that nationalist movements exploit are genuine.
The pace of cultural change has been rapid, and rapid change is genuinely unsettling for many people. The economic dislocation of globalisation and deindustrialisation has been real, and the communities that bore its costs have not always been well-served by mainstream political parties. The sense that elites hold ordinary Australians in contempt is not entirely paranoid — there are Australian commentators and politicians who do hold their fellow citizens in contempt, and who have been careless about hiding it.
A politics that dismisses these concerns as mere racism or ignorance will drive people further toward the nationalist movements that claim to take them seriously. A politics that addresses them substantively — with genuine policy, genuine respect, and genuine honesty — removes the fuel that the new nationalism depends on.
Where the Line Is
The line between legitimate patriotism and dangerous nationalism is not always perfectly clear, but it is real. It runs through the question of who counts as Australian. A politics that says “we need to make sure immigration levels work for the economy and for social cohesion” is within the bounds of reasonable democratic debate. A politics that says some Australians are less Australian by virtue of their ethnicity, religion, or ancestry has crossed into territory that Australian democratic tradition — at its best — has always rejected.
The new nationalism depends on blurring that line. Defending it clearly is one of the most important tasks of centrist politics in contemporary Australia.
