View from The Hill: ‘Howard’s battlers’ and ‘Tony’s tradies’ are now responding to the drum beat of One Nation

He is in his late fifties and lives outside a capital city. He owns his home — most often outright — and he still gets up and goes to work. He did a trade or a TAFE diploma rather than a degree, speaks only English at home, and calls his background Australian. This is not a portrait of the fringe. It is a portrait of the part of Australia that used to be called the mainstream. This was once a depiction of the “Howard battlers”, later “Tony’s tradies”. Now it’s Pauline Hanson who has a grip on…