Pauline Hanson is nibbling at the Left as much as she is chomping on the Right.

And some of the ideas being revisited in the Opposition are, according to folk inside the Labor Party, partly driven by a belief that the best way to deal with the rise of One Nation is to articulate a progressive economic agenda.

In the words of one member of Labor's parliamentary Left, this would help combat disillusionment in the population so "they are not going to be blaming minorities for their economic woes".

Take the new push in some quarters of the ALP for consideration of the so-called "Buffett rule", whereby people earning more than $300,000 would pay a mandated 35 per cent tax rate.

It is a policy idea that came up during the 2015 ALP national conference and one that made shadow treasurer Chris Bowen mightily nervous at the time.

Those in favour of making the Buffett rule part of the ALP official platform had the numbers at the conference, but Mr Bowen managed to scramble a compromise, to the effect that it would be considered.

But when it came up this week in the Caucus meeting, Mr Bowen wanted to close discussion down. He told colleagues that with the Coalition in the middle of disunity, it was not helpful to be having a barney about the Buffett rule.

In any case, he said, Labor's existing polices on curbing concessions on capital gains tax, negative gearing and superannuation were already there to target inequality in the tax system.

Mr Bowen's intervention annoyed senior members of the Left; Andrew Giles, Pat Conroy and Terri Butler.

Though they were not the ones who disinterred the debate about the Buffett rule this time around (it appears to have sprung from some pre-positioning by Australian Manufacturing Workers Union NSW secretary Tim Ayres in his tussle with CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood to replace veteran Labor senator Doug Cameron), they warned Mr Bowen against acting in breach of the ALP resolution.

Wealthy few need to prove they can represent the people

Though Mr Bowen is from the NSW Right, former treasurer Wayne Swan's contribution this week shows the sparring over the Buffett rule is not a factional play.

Mr Swan, also of the Right, told the AWU national conference mid-week that Australia needed a thorough examination of the Buffett rule "to give people confidence that wealthy individuals are paying their fair share".

Economic inequality, he said, led to resentment at the obsessions of the elites and the powerful. Look at the American lesson, he said.

Former treasurer Wayne Swan spoke to the AWA national conference this week. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

"If you're looking for reasons for Trump's victory, look no further than the wealth and income concentration driven by powerful vested interests dictating policy and ineffective political strategies from some progressive elites shoving their orthodoxies down working people's throats," Mr Swan said.

He said many workers voted for Donald Trump "not out of any hard-right ideology or an entrenched racial intolerance, but because they no longer saw the Democrats as the party who spoke or acted for them".

In light of the rise of One Nation and the debate about penalty rates that is poisoning Malcolm Turnbull's prospects of electoral recovery, Mr Swan's speech could have been directed at the hollowing political centre, once a shared project between Labor and the Coalition.

Consider, he said, a truck driver in Logan or a steel worker in Wollongong being told to work harder for less.

"All the while you see progressive social issues dominate the news. Eventually you reach a breaking point and your job is sent off-shore or made casual," he said.

"Suddenly you're tossed on the economic scrap heap and, like a drum of kerosene dumped directly on the smouldering fire, your frustration with progressive issues erupts in an inferno of white-hot rage.

"And quite a lot of that rage might express itself with immigration, gender equity or other favoured progressive issues, not because rage by definition doesn't contain itself very well, but very much because the Right will always supply scapegoats of various types."

Getting angry easier than finding solutions

Does this explain Hansonism? Maybe it does in part.

On the Coalition's side, there are similar concerns but from a different angle, naturally.

One senior Nationals MP said: "Even though Pauline does not have a solution, she knows how they are feeling.

"But I must say, I haven't had one person raise the burka with me or 18C [Racial Discrimination Act] and it's a very long time since anyone raised gay marriage."

A bit like Mr Swan, this MP frets that topics of regular political argument being stooges for broiling economic resentment, about work, wages or financial security.

Freewheeling Queensland LNP MP George Christensen's fresh attack on Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act as "political correctness enshrined into law" is a case in point.

George Christensen (right) has criticised political correctness gone mad in Australia. ( ABC News: Adam Kennedy )

"As far as I'm concerned this is a fundamental issue not only for democracy, but for the base of the Liberal and National parties," Mr Christensen declared, saying failure to repeal or amend 18C would "represent a fundamental breach of faith with our base".

Identifying something to be mad as hell about is so much easier than finding ways of addressing more fundamental anxieties.

Which is kind of what Treasurer Scott Morrison said in response to Mr Christensen's latest outburst when he said tackling 18C did not create one job, open one business, allow one extra hour's work, make housing more affordable or energy cheaper.

Mr Swan could not have said it any better.

It really is the economy, stupid.