Stolen Policies in Mainstream Politics

Published in the Australian Newspaper 8/9/06

To some extent Australia is now governed by the policies of The ONE NATION Party for many of the policies were stolen from this party and also from Graeme Campbell’s AUSTRALIA FIRST Party. We are all so blasé about their views because John Howard has now made them mainstream policies. It is a pity that more of their views have not been incorporated into mainstream Australian politics. Instead Pauline was demonised and eventually put in jail for saying what a very large percentage of the Australian population were thinking.

It was Graeme Campbell who in the first instance when challenging his own Labor Party on the issue of immigration was expelled from the party. He was well under way gathering a large following when Pauline came on the scene and followed in his footsteps. What a pity she did not join with Graeme for I am fairly certain that by now we would have thrown out the established parties which have become rotten to the core.

Both Australia First and One Nation are still operating despite the Media blackout which is the current method of attack by the political autocrats who now dominate the scene. There are other parties and decent independents who are also kept at bay by the corrupt establishment and their media lackeys.

When the next Federal election arrives vote wisely and save Australia so that once again politicians become the servants of the people.
 

The Australian – Letters
Your Say | Pauline Hanson's legacy
Friday, September 08, 2006
September 10 marks the tenth anniversary of Pauline Hanson's maiden speech to federal parliament. Although One Nation is a spent political force, do you believe her policies live on?
And the beat goes on
Mike Steketee
Mike Steketee is The Australian's national affairs editor.

Friday, September 08, 2006
September 10 marks the tenth anniversary of Pauline Hanson's maiden speech to federal parliament. Although One Nation is a spent political force, do you believe her policies live on?
And the beat goes on
Mike Steketee
ROSA Lee Long is Australia's last remaining MP representing One Nation but the party label hardly matters to her. While other members of the Queensland Parliament elected under Pauline Hanson's banner have long since become independents, former grazier Lee Long says: "I really could see no reason to change. If I changed to become an independent, I would not be doing anything different."
Hanson has not been up to her far north Queensland electorate of Tablelands to lend support. "I'm not using Pauline at all," says Lee Long. "No reason in particular, but she is not involved in the party any more. I am just campaigning on local issues."
Three other One Nation candidates are running in tomorrow's state election but Lee Long is the only one with a serious chance of winning. If she does, it will be mainly because of the reputation she has carved out as a local member, rather than the party she represents. It is a world away from the 1998 election, when 11 of the party's 79 candidates won seats, marking the sudden arrival of Hanson as a politician with clout.
Lee Long argues bravely that One Nation has a future "because the issues are still there. We need people like myself to keep the bastards honest." That may be effective campaign rhetoric, even if borrowed from the recently departed Democrats leader Don Chipp. But it does not quite match reality.
Sunday marks 10 years since Hanson's maiden speech in federal parliament. It was an event that changed the course of politics and redefined the nation. Leaving aside the splits and scandals that plagued the party and eroded its credibility, the main reason One Nation has lost influence is that John Howard listened very closely to what it was saying and acted on much of what he heard.
As for Hanson, she looks back at the past 10 years as having given her "some of the highest points in my lifetime and certainly the lowest". On the latter score, she includes being jailed for electoral fraud before the conviction was overturned and "copping a lot of flak for standing up for what I believe in".
Six months after her election, Hanson rose to her feet in an almost empty House of Representatives. The next day, her speech attracted modest coverage, mainly in the tabloid newspapers. What she called her "commonsense" views certainly were different from the average backbencher's contribution. It was not until radio talkback switchboards lit up the next day that it became obvious this person who said she was "only a fish and chip shop lady" had struck a chord.
Hanson said yesterday: "The maiden speech certainly stopped everyone in their tracks. Australians kept coming up to me and saying, 'Thank goodness someone is saying what I am thinking.' Both (Coalition and Labor) governments ... were listening too much to the minorities: the Greens and radical groups. They took us for granted."
The speech is best remembered for her declaration that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians. But a few sentences further on, after complaining that Asians formed ghettoes and did not assimilate, she expressed a view that acquired a certain resonance. "Of course I will be called a racist, but if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country," she said.
Five years later, after he had stopped the Tampa with its cargo of boatpeople from landing in Australia, Howard raised the rafters at his election campaign launch by declaring: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come." Coincidence? Perhaps. But it represented a certain meeting of minds.

There was no issue that cut as much ground from underneath Hanson as Howard's tough stand on asylum-seekers. In 1998, Hanson announced One Nation's policy of "temporary refuge for those who meet the UN definition of a refugee, with repatriation when the situation resolves". Philip Ruddock, who was immigration minister at the time, condemned One Nation's approach as being "highly unconscionable in a way that most thinking people would clearly reject". Temporary entry would mean "that people would never know whether they would be able to remain here. There would be uncertainty, particularly in terms of attention given to learning English, (and) in addressing the torture and trauma so they healed from some of the tremendous physical and psychological wounds they have suffered."

By the following year Ruddock had changed his mind, introducing three-year temporary protection visas for refugees coming by boat. Not only did they create the uncertainty he complained about but they imposed harsh conditions, preventing spouses and children from joining refugees in Australia and denying access to English language programs.
The issue on which Hanson spent most time in her maiden speech was the one she said had largely won her the election: her claim of privileged treatment of Aborigines. It was this criticism in the heat of the election campaign that provoked the Liberal Party to disendorse Hanson, giving her a great deal of free publicity. She won with a swing of more than 18 per cent, the largest in the nation.
"Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the inequalities that are being promoted by the Government and paid for by the taxpayer under the assumption that Aborigines are the most disadvantaged people in Australia."
She called for equality for all Australians, including through the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, an elected indigenous body. Howard challenged Hanson on her view, saying Aborigines were indeed the most disadvantaged group. But he acted on Hanson's specific complaints.
One of them, made before her maiden speech, was that Aboriginal students whose parents had income above $25,000 a year received more in Abstudy payments than other students in the same situation received from Austudy. The 1997 federal budget applied an income test to Abstudy, largely eliminating these differences. This was the main component of $39million in savings over four years on Abstudy. At the same time the Government doubled the Austudy payment for families who sent two or more children away for tertiary study.
It took longer to abolish ATSIC, and it may have survived had its leaders not done so much to bring about their own undoing. But Howard grabbed the opportunity when it arose. He never liked the idea of a separate elected indigenous body: it offended his idea of "one nation", a phrase he used to use before it was appropriated by Hanson.
Hanson did not get her way on everything. She argued foreign aid should be abolished. Instead, the Government cut it heavily in its first two budgets and its spending still ranks well down the list of developed countries.
Hanson called for a complete halt to immigration in the short term. The Howard Government did cut the intake significantly in the early years, but with economic prosperity reducing concerns about immigrants taking jobs, it has since been increasing. Multiculturalism should be abolished as well, said Hanson. Howard is no fan of the policy and avoided using the word for years. But he has redefined it in his own terms and retains multicultural affairs as part of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone's responsibilities.
The Government's response to Hanson was not simply a case of dancing to her tune. Her views, though sometimes crudely expressed, were often not far from Howard's thinking. LaTrobe University political scientist Judith Brett says Hanson's legacy may be that she created space for Howard to reposition himself politically: "Howard likes the image of balance and taking the middle path. By her taking an extreme position, that legitimates him shifting the middle to the right."

In one sense, Howard's response seemed like an overreaction. Although One Nation gained almost 937,000 votes, or 8.4 per cent of the total, in the 1998 federal election, it never looked like becoming a mainstream party. Not only was its organisation a shambles but it attracted fringe dwellers from the loony Right.
Queensland University of Technology political scientist Clive Bean says the Howard Government's response to Hanson was in the tradition of major parties adapting to changing circumstances and "mopping up" support leaking to minor parties. He sees this as a significant factor in the demise of One Nation.
Hanson agrees. "Howard was very smart," she says. "He didn't come out and have a go at me like everyone else because he saw the number of votes I received at the ballot box. There are a lot of things they have actually picked up, which I am pleased about." But it still grates with her that, where she was demonised, Howard goes from strength to strength. "They called me a racist for calling for equality (between Aborigines and whites). But that is exactly what Howard has done."

Perhaps sympathy over her jailing and her stint as a celebrity dancer have softened Hanson's image. Hanson is working on her autobiography, to be published next March. Her life in politics, she says, is just part of it. But she remains concerned about issues such as allowing black South Africans to immigrate, even though "these people offer nothing to this country and they are going to be a burden on this society". As for her old party, "there is no leadership whatsoever". However, she adds: "I tell you this, if push comes to shove, I will bloody well stand up and have my say. The number of people who say 'you should be back in it' ... But at the moment I'm enjoying my life where it is going."
There is irony that the late husband of the last surviving One Nation MP was Australian-born of Chinese descent. "The Asian people I have met have been some of the nicest and most honest citizens, not to mention the best cooks," Lee Long said in her first speech to the Queensland Parliament in 2001. Perhaps they don't have ghettoes in far north Queensland.
Mike Steketee is The Australian's national affairs editor.

38 Comments
 

JAC of Sydney
08/09  at  01:57 AM
Hanson is a waste of space. God, will we ever hear the end of her. - (A stooge I guess! N.M.)
 
William Chow of Melbourne
08/09  at  02:01 AM
Her legacy? Footsteps on a beach at low tide.
 
Maree S of Newcastle, NSW
08/09  at  02:01 AM
I do believe PH's legacy lives on in the best possible way. She forced an open, albeit divisive debate about issues that were deeply troubling to a much larger section of the Australian population than most of the polity or commentariat understood. Australia came to understand itself much better via that debate; where we had come from, where we wanted to be. I think Pauline and most of us would agree we're better placed now as a nation than if the debate hadn't happened.
 
Moriarty
08/09  at  02:59 AM
Ten years ago Pauline Hanson was howled down by the media and the left wing as racist; 10 years ago, The Australian would never have dared to publish its recent articles on sexual abuse and violence in Aboriginal communities. Noel Pearson has said the same things about unrestricted welfare (sit-down money) as Pauline did. I think most people can now see the dangers of 80s and 90s style multiculturism. Her views on economics were simplistic and largely wrong, but I reckon the media and the politicians owe her an apology over the racist slurs and insults.
 
Indigo
08/09  at  04:00 AM
One question for Pauline: are we still in danger of being swamped by Asians?
 
Luke Taper of Newcastle
08/09  at  06:42 AM
Hanson gave voice to the ugly Australian, a non-intellectual, selfish and resentful woman who, or so I thought, was the spokesperson of a minority view. Tampa changed that. I now believe that Australians have what it takes to become a fascist and racist people and some of us are likely capable of patriotic duty with a pistol beside the pit. We possess the potential for this malice and indifference. Thanks Pauline, for this insight.
 
Diane Teasdale, President Australia First of Shepparton
08/09  at  06:47 AM
Rubbish! Howard has not done the right thing by the people of Australia. He has simply pretended to do so. Howard will go down in history as the worst Prime Minister of all times. With the highest level of immigration and policies that are destroying the very culture that made us a great country, Howard, Abbott and Costello have sold us out to the New World Order. Families are suffering. Pauline was right and we should all be ashamed that we let them put her in jail on false charges.
 
Fred of Bundaberg, Qld
08/09  at  07:37 AM
No matter what is said about Pauline, one thing can never be taken away from her. She is the first woman in Australia's history to start a political party that ran at that time in all state elections and one federal election. I wonder if the day will ever come when the feminists will acknowledge this, and her effect on main party politics?
 
John Powell of Adelaide
08/09  at  07:39 AM
Pauline Hanson was also massacred by the media, quoting her words out of context, e.g. to a group of Aborigine youths: "I will not help you unless you are prepared to help yourselves". Laurie Oakes quoted this in an interview with the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs as: "Did you see where she said to some Aborigine youths that she would not help them?". The media gave her no chance.
 
John Powell of Adelaide
08/09  at  07:39 AM
Pauline Hanson was also massacred by the media, quoting her words out of context. e.g. To a group of Aborigine youths.'I will not help you unless you are prepared to help yourselves'. Laurie Oakes quoted this in an interview with the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs as 'Did you see where she said to some Aborigine youths that she would not help them?' The media gave her no chance.

John Powell
Adelaide.
John Powell
 
Shane of Sydney
08/09  at  08:11 AM
She simply said what a lot of people thought. We don't want to become an America with racial enclaves, where if you step into the wrong one you end up dead. That's where we are headed, and she saw this coming.
Howard has taken credit for exactly what she promoted, and that is simply a double standard, as Howard is seen as a noble man and Hanson as a racist. That isn't fair.
 
T.S. Hotdog of Sydney
08/09  at  08:20 AM
Hanson does not leave Australia with a legacy. It's more like a giant oil spill: a natural disaster of catostrophic proportions. Still, she held up a mirror to Australia and said this is who you are: racist, xenophobic and hateful; and the majority replied in rapturous agreement. Every country has their extreme, unstable, incoherent, and ultimately intolerant representatives. If the Hanson era can truly be called a legacy, then it's only because it represents a continuation of the racist traditions that Australia was built upon.
 
Robbo of Lismore
08/09  at  08:36 AM
Long live Pauline! She should have been PM. Bring back the White Australia policy I say.
 
Geoff of Sydney
08/09  at  09:00 AM
Well, it's about time the media recognised the fact that many One Nation policies were "adopted" by the major parties, and are being "adopted" by the major parties (not just the Coalition). Unfortunately this has occurred years after they were suggested by One Nation. So much for them being backwards looking; so much for the honesty of the major parties. In fact even the Democrats were dishonest when it came to One Nation. One must ask why, when they actually shared so many commonalities on policy issues.
 
Adam of Adelaide
08/09  at  09:16 AM
What legacy? Pauline who?
 
Damian Murphy of Melbourne
08/09  at  09:26 AM
I have long suspected that John Howard was a closet Hansonite.
 
ramdas of Perth
08/09  at  09:28 AM
All that's happened is Hanson changed her name by deed Poll to Howard and it took the rest of us a long time to wake up to it.
 
Eterio of Carlingford
08/09  at  09:39 AM
Pauline Hanson's legacy has continued in spite of what Australians think. Her main aim was to send a message to all immigrants, the message being "if you are in Rome do what the Romans do"; so if you are in Australia do what the majority of Australians are doing. And the first message I learned from her speech was to eat a lot of fish and chips. She was a former fish and chips vendor; that really matters here in Australia.
 
P.K. Smith of Sydney
08/09  at  09:52 AM
That Pauline Hanson was acknowledged by the government as a valid political voice was a dark day indeed for Australia. It legitimised the undercurrent of mean-spiritedness, camouflaged as fear mongering, dressed up as economic restraint. The books may be balanced but the mind of the nation is not.
 
Barry of Wycheproof
08/09  at  09:57 AM
We still have One Nation: it runs the country as the Liberal Party.
 
Cosmopolitan of Melbourne
08/09  at  10:21 AM
How Australian do you have to be before you are accepted as an Aussie? I am Australian born with an Italian surname, of Italian and Irish descent, with my ancestors first arriving in this country in 1850. At times people I've met have assumed that I am a migrant or the son of a migrant. My grandfather and father served in the second AIF in the Middle East. This (un)favourable stereotype has either served me well or not, depending on the occasion or individual. When will fearful people (and opur government) learn to treat people as individuals, not as walking talking stereotypes?
 
Lucy
08/09  at  10:32 AM
I'm shocked that you give Pauline Hanson another platform for her inhumane and stupid policies. We are aware that she pinched into the Australian racist undercurrent, but unfortunateley you did that with that article. Conservative and racist policies were never well known for their visions and a better future for the people. She was a loudmouth that hit the nerve of people who did not know any better. It would be more beneficial for all to educate people rather than separate them by pointing out the difference.

Stuart of Canberra
08/09  at  11:01 AM
The legacy of Pauline Hanson can be seen in the polices of the Howard Government and the divisiveness in Australian society. John Howard cynically absorbed the policies of Hanson which attracts the most ignorant and prejudices sectors of the community. Australia is now a lot less tolerant than before Hanson came onto the scene, and the media also must be held to account. The coverage Hanson recieved was totally out of proportion to the level of electoral support she received nationwide. It galvanised the racist element in this country and encouraged Howard to absorb the policies of Hanson and give them the credibility that this mentally challenged woman could not.
It is a sad and black period of Australia's history after the enlightening Prime Ministerships of Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, with regards to racial tolerance and acceptance. Howard has always used division and conflict to retain power. His attitude on race relations is but one example of that.
 
Elizabeth Selleck of Gold Coast
08/09  at  11:26 AM
Pity the two leading political parties were not as honest as Pauline: the country would be a better place. However, it is a long road that doesn't turn, as John Howard is finding out.
 
J. McPherson
08/09  at  12:04 PM
I found Pauline Hanson's maiden speech odious when she delivered it, and I find Howard's adoption of her ideas odious now. Philip Ruddock's willingness to embrace temporary protection visas despite their effect on already damaged people speaks volumes about his lack of humanity.