Antidote is a new report from Victorian Trades Hall Council outlining the vital role for workers and their unions in taking on the far-right.  

Australia stands at a precipice. For years, we have avoided the rise of far-right politics so widespread among peer democracies. In 2026, that threat has finally arrived in full force, and democracy, multiculturalism and the fair go are all at risk.

For decades, life has been getting harder for workers: privatisation, unaffordable housing, inequality, slow wage growth and casualisation have drained their hope for the future and their faith in the status quo.

Every step of the way, the far-right has been there, in Parliament, punching down on workers and voting to make things worse: voting against protecting penalty rates, against same job same pay laws, against fee-free TAFE, and against subsidised childcare.

The far-right divides workers against each other. It uses division to distract from it's true agenda: they may speak for workers, but they always act against them. 

The far-right’s path to power leads through workers and their communities. Only unions can defeat them on that terrain. Across the world’s democracies, the left and the far-right are competing for the votes of workers. In many countries, the far-right has triumphed, and progressive forces have retreated to a minority position.

Australia still has a chance to avoid this fate – but our window is closing.

Across international case studies, the far-right becomes entrenched when it hits 15% of the national vote share. At the last election, they received ~12.5% of the Senate vote.

Antidote is a diagnostic framework and a manual for action: a resource by Victorian Unions developed for citizens, community leaders and policymakers who recognise the threat of far-right politics and are determined to prevent Australia from succumbing to it.

Antidote describes the structural, persuasive, and circumstantial drivers of far-right movements in our community. It also identifies their fatal weakness: trade unionism.

Only unions can channel social pain in a way that does not feed extremism. Organised workers have to become the strategic centre of anti-far-right politics in Australia.

Unionism gives workers a decent living standard, a civic identity and a political voice. For this reason, the fate of democracy and the fate of unionism are deeply entwined. There can be no effective resistance to far-right politics without the union movement taking a leading role.

Read Antidote now by clicking the link below:

ANTIDOTE - TRADE UNIONISM AS A VACCINE AGAINST FAR-RIGHT POLITICS