Populism in Australia and New Zealand

This chapter provides an overview of populism in Australia and New Zealand, and argues that “antipodean populism” should be understood as a distinct regional subtype of populism. Contending that populism in Australia and New Zealand is best conceptualized as a cultural-relational style, it traces the historical precedents of populism in each country and summarizes their key contemporary cases, including those of Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Clive Palmer, Jacqui Lambie, and Winston Peters. It then explains the institutional and political factors that have both helped and hindered populism in the region. Finally, it shows that antipodean populism mixes the general ethno-exclusivism and nativism of Western European populism with the more producerist and protectionist aspects of North American populism, although demonstrating that it is additionally informed by the important context of both Australia and New Zealand’s status as isolated settler colonial states and the fact that populism is relatively “mainstream” in the region.