Parties that don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it

The juxtaposition of David French’s column (“Worst ideas of the 20th century are back to haunt us”, June 3) and Jenna Price’s (“One Nation, masters of zero policy”) is instructive. French warns of the dangers that arise when societies forget the lessons of history. Price demonstrates how this plays out in contemporary politics, where slogans and resentment increasingly substitute for coherent policy. The growing attraction of populist movements reflects a broader failure of leadership across much of Australian politics. Parties that rely on resentment and simplistic answers, rather than evidence, policy and administrative competence, risk leading voters towards dangerous outcomes. Health, taxation and social cohesion are too important to be reduced to catchphrases designed merely to exploit dissatisfaction. Democracies are weakened when political movements seek power without demonstrating either historical understanding or the capacity to govern responsibly. As philosopher George Santayana warned in 1905, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Chris Rivers, Port Macquarie

Thank you, Jenna Price, for taking the time to do what we all should do and research a political party’s policies. One Nation is often accused of being without policies or depth, and that’s exactly what Price found. On issues that affect us all, such as health, Price found no mention of hospital funding, Medicare, mental health or women’s health. Do supporters of One Nation really support this “health policy”? On education, Price found what could only be a culture war ideology stating “there should be no room for Western, white, gender guilt shaming in any classroom”. Are One Nation fans really satisfied with this type of education policy? Similarly, those who criticise unemployment benefits might be surprised to visit the website and find that they only account for about 5 per cent of the budget, while age pensions (which thankfully no one criticises) consume three to four times as much. At a time when social media and fake news are rampant, doing the required research to verify the facts has never been more important. Warren Marks, Long Beach

Jenna Price rightly points out the vacuous policy agenda of One Nation. It should be noted that our established political parties have been around for a long time, Labor since 1891 and the Liberals since 1944. Even the Greens have been around since the early ’70s. As such, these parties have developed systems and processes to deal with the day-to-day minutiae of running a political machine and developing what each group