As One Nation broadens its economic appeal, the Liberals return to culture wars

Angus Taylor is fighting One Nation where it is strongest rather than where it is vulnerable. (ABC News: Marcus Stimson)

For years the Coalition's answer to the rise of conservative populism has been to treat it primarily as a cultural phenomenon.

Yet while the Coalition reaches for battles on things like gender identity, One Nation is turning to a very different playbook — embracing forms of economic populism once more commonly associated with the Greens.

Pauline Hanson and Larissa Waters are two very different Queenslanders, but both can see voters feel the 'system' has become tilted against ordinary Australians.

For the Liberals this raises the question that if voters are drifting toward populist parties because of economic grievances, can culture war politics really win them back?

Such has been the furore around Labor's plan to overhaul the capital gains tax system, that its reining in of negative gearing is almost a mere footnote in the budget wash-up.

Yet while the Coalition reaches for battles on things like gender identity, One Nation is embracing forms of economic populism once more commonly associated with the Greens. (ABC News: Che Chorley)

Most Australians now appear to accept some change to negative gearing was not only inevitable, but necessary.

It's that sentiment that Hanson acknowledged this week when she proposed an alternate policy to limit negative gearing to no more than two properties.

The policy had the hallmarks of a pitch taken to the last federal election by the Greens, who wanted negative gearing restricted to just one property per investor.

The situation perfectly illustrates the horseshoe theory of politics, where ideological opponents can sometimes arrive at similar conclusions.

It also means the Coalition is the only significant party in Australian federal politics left defending the status quo.

Taylor has even vowed to repeal Labor's negative gearing changes if elected to government.

The same dynamic is visible in energy policy, where One Nation and the Greens both want Australians to receive a larger share of resource wealth, despite their fundamentally different views of the fossil fuel industry.

Though some in the Coalition are picking up on the growing anti-globalisation instincts, housing market scepticism and resources nationalism of their populist peers, the party under Taylor remains firmly rooted in economic liberalism.

That tradition of lower taxes, smaller government and faith in markets once sat comfortably alongside conservative voters.

Now many appear far more interested in whether the system