The Overton Window: how white nationalist ideas made their way into our political debate

This time last year, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton made it his personal mission to bring to public attention the plight of a forgotten people, a people persecuted in their own land, a people who might benefit from the compassion and humanitarian assistance of Australia.

It’s been a while since Dutton has mentioned the white South African farmers he said Australia could take in under its immigration program because they faced “in-country persecution”.

He said he would direct the Immigration Department to examine the issue. Various newspapers ran with his story.

The white South African farmers thought bubble was an idea imported straight from the internet netherworld which alleges white people are persecuted and subjected to racism, overwhelmed in their “own” lands by non-white Others.

We know a little more now about what that netherworld can produce, and how effortlessly it can radicalise.

In Australia, the white South African farmers idea disappeared pretty quickly. But the story, which ran in the media for a week or so, was a good example of how politicians and media can expand what is called the Overton Window.

A makeshift memorial in Christchurch after a terror attack left at least 50 people dead.Credit: Jason South

Named after American political scientist Joseph Overton, the term describes the window of discourse, the range of ideas, tolerated in public debate.

It follows that the Overton Window forms the pool of ideas from which politicians can select policies to sell the electorate. Both left and right try to yank the window their way, to bring into public discourse ideas that were previously unacceptable.

On the left that might mean the legalisation of same-sex marriage - something unthinkable to past generations.

On the right, it might mean the open discussion of a “Muslim ban” on immigration. This remains One Nation policy, although the party words it in careful code: “The Australian Constitution prevents discrimination on the grounds of race or religion, but we believe we should ban travel (including migration) from known extremist countries.”

Illustration: Dionne GainCredit:

In the days since the Christchurch massacre, there has been a reckoning about how much the Overton Window has shifted, in this country, to allow white nationalist ideology become part of the mainstream.

Undoubtedly, in giving the “white people are persecuted” idea the imprimatur of the federal government, Dutton helped usher in those ideas. After all, if the Commonwealth Department of Immigration is looking into anti-white racist persecution, it must be a serious thing, right?

Last year we saw this rhetoric culminate with a vote in the Senate on the motion “It’s okay to be white”. That motion was only narrowly defeated, 31 votes to 28, because government senators supported it.

They said their support was accidental, a procedural error.

Illustration: Andrew DysonCredit:

Whether or not voters believe that, the effect was the same - a white nationalist slogan had made its way into Australia’s upper house as an idea worthy of consideration. And taken literally, how could anyone possibly disagree with the statement?

Fast forward to this Monday morning. Dutton has done a whirl of media appearances on the Christchurch massacre and the role our security agencies have to play in the intelligence operation following it.

Over the weekend Dutton was castigated by Greens leader Richard Di Natale and Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi for what, they said, was his role in stoking the Islamophobic atmosphere which culminated in the deadly Christchurch violence.

In response, Dutton told the ABC that those Greens senators were from “the extreme left” and equated their statements with the rhetoric of Senator Fraser Anning, who has likened immigrants to vermin and parasites.

"I'm hardly going to take morals lectures from the extreme left who frankly are just as bad in this circumstance as people like Fraser Anning, they should equally be condemned," Dutton said. "We have people on the far-left or the far-right trying to extract political advantage. I think it’s a disgrace."

See what he did there? Sure, he is calling out Anning. But in making an equivalence between anti-Islamophobic rhetoric and the sort of peri-Holocaust rhetoric used by Anning, Dutton is able to shield himself deftly from criticism.

If the Overton Window is about to close on politicians like Anning, then he wants it to close on the Greens too.

The effect is to make the denunciation of prejudice the same as the prejudice itself.

This idea of white persecution is not worth debating on its merits. It should be seen for what it is - a holler to white nationalists, an invocation of hatred and fear of non-white people everywhere, and a threat to the civility and safety of our public debate.

Politicians and the media have been trained carefully in how to talk about and report on sensitive issues which involve safety - specifically suicide, and domestic violence.

Suicide is an informative example: in the media we are extremely cautious in the way we report on it, because, to put it bluntly, the way the subject is treated in public discourse has a direct effect on how many more lives it claims.

It is about time we imposed the same sort of standards on the stoking of racial and Islamophobic hatred in political debate.

Treat it for what it is - a public security issue.