Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
You may remember Thomas Mayo, the Australian human rights advocate, from the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament Yes campaign. The referendum ultimately failed, and he didn’t handle it too well. As the ABC reported: “‘Gut-wrenching’: Thomas Mayo reflects on failed Voice campaign six months after referendum.” But despite the loss, he’s nonetheless still very much in the trenches—continuing his push for Aboriginal rights while reminding everyone how much he dislikes conservative politics.
Case in point: his latest essay in The Monthly (one of Australia’s leading current affairs magazines) titled “For the love of Country”. Thanks to the viewer who sent this one through.
To give credit where it’s due, Mayo is a fellow writer, and he obviously believes in his own message. So, I intend to be as balanced as possible in this critique.
With that said, let’s dive into it.
He starts the piece by saying: “As a loss of faith in our politics has led to the rise of populist voices driven by fear, envy and grievance, we need to redefine patriotism to save our democracy”. He’s clearly looking at you, Pauline Hanson and One Nation.
Throughout the piece, he makes his disdain for One Nation and its supporters readily apparent. For example, he mentions last month’s Farrer by-election where One Nation’s David Farley won a decisive victory in what was once thought to be a safe Liberal seat. But as Mayo quickly points out, the main reason for this historic win comes down to a predictable trio of r-words: “The easy response for progressives is to look at Farrer and see only resentment, racism or right-wing populism. And there is resentment in this story. There is racism. There is a dangerous politics at work, and it must be named clearly”.
So, to translate that from essay-speak: One Nation and its supporters aren’t just regular racists; they’re dangerous racists.
Mayo uses plenty of fear-inducing metaphors, writing: “The nation needs to see that our democracy is being poisoned, drip by drip, so that the public feels they can no longer trust what they hear, or even trust themselves. Both Country and people have been left vulnerable in electorates like Farrer. Abandonment is not an abstract feeling. It has the shape and sound of resentment”.
Right. So the residents of Farrer overwhelmingly voted for One Nation, and yet somehow, they’ve already been completely abandoned by the very party they elected—all within the span of a few short weeks. Fascinating timeline.
But the rhetorical peak of Mayo’s One Nation disdain is this line: “Many people in Farrer may not support Treaty. Many may not support a Voice. Some have been convinced by the tide of filth behind Pauline Hanson’s campaigning that First Nations justice means they will personally lose something”.
So let’s trace his logic: they aren’t just racists; they’re dangerous racists who have been brainwashed by a literal “tide of filth”. The democratic voting decisions of an entire electorate are nothing more than drowning in filth.
Mayo keeps running with the filth metaphor, writing: “What we love about our democracy sounds abstract until you consider the pillars it stands on. We take them for granted until the flood of filth that people are being fed through their screens makes a fraud into an idol”.
Not to mention his view of the conservative media landscape: “There is almost nowhere to turn that isn’t dominated by this imported right-wing tide. An outsized share of influence in Australia belongs to Rupert Murdoch, who has imported filth for far too long”.
And of course, he manages to fit immigration right into the exact same analogy: “The same currents of filth continue to poison the conversation in Australia about immigration”.
Yes, so if you marched to show your discontent toward high immigration levels, congratulations: in the words of Thomas Mayo, you’re just a filthy, dangerous racist.
And as we all knew he was eventually going to claim, Aboriginal people are framed as the permanent, ultimate casualty: “While immigrants might be currently in the spotlight, Indigenous Australians are a permanent focal point. We are chained in the middle of the gladiator’s battlefield and everyone gets a shot. The underlying and special racism I am talking about emerges as a suspicion that First Nations people are asking for too much… It appears in the claims that being generously welcomed to Country is somehow offensive”.
I hope I was fair in my assessment of Mayo’s writings. Honestly, I don’t know how I couldn’t have been—I’ve just quoted his own text back to you. But his essay has made his worldview completely clear: One Nation and its supporters are nothing but filthy, dangerous racists, while people of Aboriginal descent like Thomas Mayo are the permanent, ultimate victims.
MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn
You may remember Thomas Mayo, the Australian human rights advocate, from the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament Yes campaign. The referendum ultimately failed, and he didn’t handle it too well. As the ABC reported: “‘Gut-wrenching’: Thomas Mayo reflects on failed Voice campaign six months after referendum.” But despite the loss, he’s nonetheless still very much in the trenches—continuing his push for Aboriginal rights while reminding everyone how much he dislikes conservative politics.
Case in point: his latest essay in The Monthly (one of Australia’s leading current affairs magazines) titled “For the love of Country”. Thanks to the viewer who sent this one through.
To give credit where it’s due, Mayo is a fellow writer, and he obviously believes in his own message. So, I intend to be as balanced as possible in this critique.
With that said, let’s dive into it.
He starts the piece by saying: “As a loss of faith in our politics has led to the rise of populist voices driven by fear, envy and grievance, we need to redefine patriotism to save our democracy”. He’s clearly looking at you, Pauline Hanson and One Nation.
Throughout the piece, he makes his disdain for One Nation and its supporters readily apparent. For example, he mentions last month’s Farrer by-election where One Nation’s David Farley won a decisive victory in what was once thought to be a safe Liberal seat. But as Mayo quickly points out, the main reason for this historic win comes down to a predictable trio of r-words: “The easy response for progressives is to look at Farrer and see only resentment, racism or right-wing populism. And there is resentment in this story. There is racism. There is a dangerous politics at work, and it must be named clearly”.
So, to translate that from essay-speak: One Nation and its supporters aren’t just regular racists; they’re dangerous racists.
Mayo uses plenty of fear-inducing metaphors, writing: “The nation needs to see that our democracy is being poisoned, drip by drip, so that the public feels they can no longer trust what they hear, or even trust themselves. Both Country and people have been left vulnerable in electorates like Farrer. Abandonment is not an abstract feeling. It has the shape and sound of resentment”.
Right. So the residents of Farrer overwhelmingly voted for One Nation, and yet somehow, they’ve already been completely abandoned by the very party they elected—all within the span of a few short weeks. Fascinating timeline.
But the rhetorical peak of Mayo’s One Nation disdain is this line: “Many people in Farrer may not support Treaty. Many may not support a Voice. Some have been convinced by the tide of filth behind Pauline Hanson’s campaigning that First Nations justice means they will personally lose something”.
So let’s trace his logic: they aren’t just racists; they’re dangerous racists who have been brainwashed by a literal “tide of filth”. The democratic voting decisions of an entire electorate are nothing more than drowning in filth.
Mayo keeps running with the filth metaphor, writing: “What we love about our democracy sounds abstract until you consider the pillars it stands on. We take them for granted until the flood of filth that people are being fed through their screens makes a fraud into an idol”.
Not to mention his view of the conservative media landscape: “There is almost nowhere to turn that isn’t dominated by this imported right-wing tide. An outsized share of influence in Australia belongs to Rupert Murdoch, who has imported filth for far too long”.
And of course, he manages to fit immigration right into the exact same analogy: “The same currents of filth continue to poison the conversation in Australia about immigration”.
Yes, so if you marched to show your discontent toward high immigration levels, congratulations: in the words of Thomas Mayo, you’re just a filthy, dangerous racist.
And as we all knew he was eventually going to claim, Aboriginal people are framed as the permanent, ultimate casualty: “While immigrants might be currently in the spotlight, Indigenous Australians are a permanent focal point. We are chained in the middle of the gladiator’s battlefield and everyone gets a shot. The underlying and special racism I am talking about emerges as a suspicion that First Nations people are asking for too much… It appears in the claims that being generously welcomed to Country is somehow offensive”.
I hope I was fair in my assessment of Mayo’s writings. Honestly, I don’t know how I couldn’t have been—I’ve just quoted his own text back to you. But his essay has made his worldview completely clear: One Nation and its supporters are nothing but filthy, dangerous racists, while people of Aboriginal descent like Thomas Mayo are the permanent, ultimate victims.
MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn
