{"id":34452,"date":"2016-07-10T20:29:21","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T10:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=34452"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:49:48","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:49:48","slug":"how-margokingston1-saw-hansonism-in-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/how-margokingston1-saw-hansonism-in-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"How @margokingston1 saw Hansonism in 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Emma

Emma Phillips’ portrait of Pauline Hanson. <\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Intro: Extract of Still Not Happy, John: Defending our Democracy (Penguin 2007)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democracy v. the Beast<\/span><\/p>\n

Her appeal was simply that she represented something authentic\u00a0 in a culture of artefact. She was transparent in an era during\u00a0 which the political class have become expert at concealment. She was a still point in a culture of spin. She advanced our politics even if it was only to the extent of showing us what we might be up against if we chose to get involved as she did. Maybe others will learn\u00a0 from her mistakes<\/i><\/em> Webdiarist Dr Tim Dunlop, an opponent of Pauline Hanson\u2019s policies <\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in the great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the of\ufb01cialdom of organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race <\/i><\/em>Robert Menzies, \u2018The Forgotten People\u2019, from The Forgotten People\u00a0 radio broadcasts, 1942<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last year a woman named Pauline approached me at a caf\u00e9 in Marrickville and thanked me for a talk I\u2019d given on refugees at the Marrickville town hall. She sat down for a chat and mentioned that she and her sister in Wollongong had long been at loggerheads over the boat people. Now they were in dispute over the recent jailing of Pauline Hanson \u2013 to her dismay, her sister believed that Pauline Hanson should not have gone to jail. For her sister, Ms Hanson represented the little people, who had virtually no in\ufb02uence in society and whose voice the politicians did not hear.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s family had grown up dirt poor in a housing commission house in Wollongong, and Pauline said she\u2019d always voted Labor because no kid should have to endure such a deprived childhood. She was gay and had left her church when it refused to accept you could be gay and Catholic. But after attending the refugee meeting, Pauline \u2013 an alternative dispute resolution of\ufb01cer \u2013 had wanted to help the cause and approached the priest at Marrickville\u2019s Catholic church. He had invited her to join the church, and she became involved in its refugee activism.<\/p>\n

How could her own sister feel such anger at refugees, Pauline asked in wonder. How? I asked why her sister supported Pauline Hanson. She had recently separated from her husband, Pauline said, and one of her sons had been a drug addict. She was desperate for help but there was none. Pauline Hanson had provided the scream she needed.<\/p>\n

That scream wasn\u2019t really about refugees \u2013 but that\u2019s the part you wanted to hear, John.<\/p>\n

These two sisters seemed loving and compassionate women; the kind of Australians you\u2019d reckon would instinctively open the door and help someone less fortunate than themselves if and when the crunch came.<\/p>\n

Of course I will be called racist, but if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say on who comes into my country. <\/i><\/em>Pauline Hanson\u2019s maiden speech, 10 September 1996<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They were both, in their own way, lamenting the lack of justice for the world\u2019s strugglers. To me it was easy to see them working together instead of turning their backs on each other or simply agreeing not to talk about politics.<\/p>\n

A memory \ufb02ashed into my head, and I suddenly understood its meaning. During Pauline Hanson\u2019s Queensland campaign in 1998, in a shopping centre in Mareeba, a far north Queensland town economically devastated by the closure of its timber mills, an Aboriginal man of about 50, wearing an Akubra, dif\ufb01dently shook her hand. \u2018Thank you, Pauline,\u2019 he said. \u2018I\u2019m with you.\u2019 I asked him if he knew what he\u2019d done: that Pauline Hanson was against funding for special Aboriginal services to address their disadvantage. \u2018I know, but ATSIC is real corrupt, and nothing gets to us here. She\u2019s promised to stop that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson\u2019s core appeal was never about race.\u00a0 Sure, she attracted racists to her cause. Sure, she made<\/p>\n

I was told I was part of a [Liberal Party] team, and the trouble is I\u2019m too much of an individual and I tend to speak my mind at times. If I really believe in something I will speak up. So I\u2019m quite happy now to be that individual, and I can have my own voice now. <\/i><\/em>Independent Member for Oxley Pauline Hanson, 17 March 1996, on why the Queensland Liberals disendorsed her \u2013 a decision Howard backed<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

I come here not as a polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life\u2019s knocks . . . I won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that has resulted in me being called a racist<\/i><\/em>.\u00a0 Pauline Hanson\u2019s maiden speech, 10 September 1996<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a sense, a pall of censorship on certain issues has been lifted . . . I welcome the fact that people can now talk about certain things without living in fear of being branded a racist<\/i><\/em>. John Howard, to the Queensland Liberal Party, 22 September 1996<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come<\/i><\/em>. John Howard unveils his unof\ufb01cial election slogan,\u00a0 October 2001<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

repellent statements about \u2018Aboriginal states\u2019, and framed some ugly policies on immigration \u2013 policies Howard later ran with for all he was worth. But these were just the surface symptoms, not the underlying disease. What Hanson and her supporters suffered from wasn\u2019t a disease anyway, but a very rude case of democratic good health.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s scream mattered because it was authentic and timely. Her mobilisation of the disaffected, most of whom had never been involved in politics before, saw the resurrection of the passionate town hall political meeting. These people \u2013 like Bob Brown and the Greens \u2013 were frustrated with the loaded Big Party rules and wanted some honest answers, now<\/i><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s catchcry \u2013 \u2018Please explain\u2019 \u2013 was heartfelt. The government was terri\ufb01ed by that virulent outbreak of grassroots democracy. In the beginning John Howard hoped that if he stroked it, it would be soothed. Then he thought he could get away with only treating the super\ufb01cial manifestations.<\/p>\n

Every time Hanson\u2019s voters screamed about a social issue, Howard sought not to explain or even engage \u2013 but to appease. Then, after One Nation devastated the conservative vote at the 1998 Queensland election anyway, he knew he had to do more to hold the battlers\u2019 vote he\u2019d so assiduously cultivated. Soon after, a young Howard prot\u00e9g\u00e9 named Tony Abbott signalled a shift in tactics when he wrote that \u2018the only viable Coalition strategy is to \ufb01nd ways of undermining support for the Hansonites\u2019.<\/p>\n

Yet \ufb01ve years, many more policy thefts and a lot of \u2018undermining\u2019 later, and even after Pauline Hanson had been disgraced and jailed, her supporters were still screaming at John Howard \u2013 and this time they were joined by a hell of a lot of Australians who couldn\u2019t stand most of her policies. A Brisbane poll on the weekend following Hanson\u2019s successful appeal against her conviction in November 2003 revealed that nearly one in three Queenslanders would have given her their primary vote in an immediate election.<\/p>\n

What about smug progressives like me?<\/p>\n

When Hanson \ufb01rst arrived on the scene I was among the many who thought that if the media ignored her, her scream would soon die out. Next, we overreacted to her growing popularity, helping stoke bitter divisions over issues such as race and immigration \u2013 the ones that would drive the Marrickville alternative dispute resolution of\ufb01cer and her sister apart \u2013 while ignoring what lay behind that scream as wilfully as the conservatives. These were mistakes I still regret today, for into the mainstream vacuum that greeted her 1996 election to Parliament as a representative of the people of Oxley stepped the worst kind of exploiters: those who heard in her scream only political opportunity.<\/p>\n

Dick Morris, former spin doctor to President Clinton, says in his book The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the 21st Century<\/i><\/em> \u2018The media play the key role in bringing the private pains and needs of real people to public attention.\u2019 This role, along with its corollary \u2013 to scrutinise the powerful to ensure they are telling the people the truth \u2013 is the reason the media have a privileged role in a democracy. The Hanson phenomenon exposed it as unful\ufb01lled.<\/p>\n

Eight years later we\u2019re still not bringing the private pains and needs of those who once supported Hanson to public attention, and we\u2019re still not scrutinising the powerful to ensure they are telling the truth. Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

The scream was always about money, power and democratic exclusion, John.<\/p>\n

If this government wants to be fair dinkum, then it must stop kow-towing to \ufb01nancial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people<\/i><\/em>. Pauline Hanson, 10 September 1996<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

So far the Trust has raised nearly $100,000, almost all of which is committed to supporting the action brought by\u00a0 Mrs Barbara Hazelton in the Queensland Supreme Court to test the validity of the Queensland registration of One Nation \u2013 which may not have been brought but for the Trust<\/i><\/em>. Tony Abbott explains the purpose of a new trust to the Australian Electoral Commission, 20 October 1998<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pauline Hanson\u2019s political career represented the \ufb01rst people\u2019s revolt against what both Labor and Liberal governments were doing to our core Australian value: the fair go.<\/p>\n

A fair share in our growing national wealth.
\nA fair say in the way we shape our collective future.
\nA fair degree of access to power and privilege.
\nA fair shot at a decent job, a decent home and decent health care.
\nAnd \u2013 one of Hanson\u2019s key messages never taken up by the media \u2013 a fair education for our kids.
\nA fair bloody go, John.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s scream was never an articulate or informed one, but it was loud, real and made on behalf of many of\u00a0 Australia\u2019s powerless and disfranchised, and unlike many<\/p>\n

such screams it was expressed in the right way: using our democratic institutions. That\u2019s what made it so frightening to all the elites \u2013 Labor and Liberal, left and right,\u00a0 progressive and conservative \u2013 and Big Party, Big Money and Big Media. Pauline Hanson was screaming at the threeheaded Beast of Australian power not from some wacky fringe, but from right at its heart.<\/p>\n

Of course the Beast was going to destroy her.<\/p>\n

August 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nImagine this. You\u2019re a \ufb02y on the ceiling at Bistro Moncur, Damien Pignolet\u2019s splendid French bistro in the fashionable Sydney suburb of Woollahra. How fashionable? Paul Keating himself lives not far away. The clientele on any day at Moncur might be as famous as its Sirloin with Caf\u00e9 de Paris butter, which melts in your mouth. You can\u2019t book a table \u2013 patrons must wait in the Woollahra Hotel bar for a nod from the staff. They reckon it\u2019s \ufb01rst come, \ufb01rst served \u2013 no \u2018queue jumpers\u2019 here.<\/p>\n

Although being a Sydney MP known to be close to the PM probably doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

From your position on the ceiling you can see that the table below is occupied by four stalwarts of the neo-liberal scene, including a couple of associates of its most in\ufb02uential intellectual forum, Quadrant<\/i><\/em> magazine, published from another fashionable Sydney suburb, Balmain. There\u2019s former NSW Liberal leader and ex-federal MP Peter Coleman, a Woollahra resident, father-in-law of Treasurer Peter Costello. There\u2019s former Whitlam minister turned economic ultra-rightist John Wheeldon. The third bloke, who\u2019s just selected another bottle of crisp chardonnay, is the Daily Telegraph\u2019s fervently pro-Howard columnist Piers Akerman. The last man is the Member for Warringah and Parliamentary Secretary.<\/p>\n

The reason for this lunch \u2013 the \ufb01rst of several \u2013 is to create a new private trust. Its purpose? To nail Pauline Hanson through the courts. One Nation is riding so high on its recent Queensland election successes that it now threatens John Howard\u2019s chances at the upcoming federal poll, and these neo-liberal power-players have decided upon a dual strategy: let John woo her voters in public while they destroy her party in private.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s at least two One Nation dissidents up in Queensland willing to go after Hanson with civil actions. Abbott\u2019s already convinced Terry Sharples to seek an injunction stopping One Nation getting the cheque for $500,000 in public funds due after her Queensland success, to deprive her of resources for the coming federal campaign. He\u2019s given Sharples two top Liberal lawyers who\u2019ll do the work for free, and a guarantee he won\u2019t be out of pocket \u2013 but it\u2019s getting messy and Abbott\u2019s already misled the public about what he\u2019s up to, as we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

He now wants a more formal arrangement to fund the injunction application of another dissident, Barbara Hazelton.<\/p>\n

Some top Liberals down in Melbourne \u2013 Jeff Kennett, and even Coleman\u2019s son-in-law Peter Costello \u2013 have been calling for the party to take on Hanson the honest political way: preference her party last while arguing the case against her policies out on the voting stump. Jeff even went north to eyeball her in a shopping mall during the Queensland election campaign. But John Howard isn\u2019t having any of that democratic nonsense. \u2018Speaking freely and openly\u2019 in public about \u2018certain subjects\u2019 with Hanson voters?<\/p>\n

No one at this exclusive restaurant table today wants that.<\/p>\n

Instead Howard has long been publicly empathising with Hanson\u2019s voters on the strictly social issues \u2013 land rights, refugees, family breakdown, law and order. And especially on the way our nation\u2019s cherished fair go is being destroyed by those damned elitists \u2013 the kind of moralising lefty hypocrites who chatter on endlessly about doing good for the battlers, while enjoying an excellent steak and a crisp chardonnay in some \ufb02ash restaurant in some fashionable suburb.<\/p>\n

The trust\u2019s money-men \u2013 there are twelve wealthy donors lined up, for the law is an expensive business \u2013 know that what they\u2019re about to fund is just business as usual from the three-headed Beast of Australian politics: Big Party, Big Money, Big Media.<\/p>\n

The details will come together quickly, but there\u2019s an early snag: nobody can think of what to call this new trust. We imagine Piers \u2013 who, despite later claiming to crave \u2018greater transparency\u2019 in politics, will not write a word about these lunches for \ufb01ve years \u2013 suggesting another\u00a0 bottle while they think on it some more.<\/p>\n

Tony Abbott brightens. He\u2019s got it! Three heads turn his way and Tony grins his trademark grin. You\u2019re gunna love this, fellahs: let\u2019s call it \u2018Australians for . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

Their laughter hasn\u2019t stopped when the waiter arrives with the Moet \ufb01ve minutes later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a silly, made-up conspiracy theory, of course. Or is it? Let\u2019s have a look at what actually happened.<\/p>\n

The whole process of political funding needs to be out in the open so that there can be no doubt in the public mind \u2013 Australians deserve to know who is giving money\u00a0 to political parties, and how much<\/i><\/em>. Kim Beazley commends new laws requiring disclosure of political donations, 2 November 1983<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some things the public has no particular right\u00a0 to know<\/i><\/em>. Tony Abbott explains why the laws don\u2019t apply to his trust,\u00a0 5 September 2003<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

13 October 1997 <\/b><\/strong>
\nPauline Hanson applies to register in Queensland a political party she calls Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation. A major\u00a0 bene\ufb01t of registration is that election costs are recoverable from the public purse. To satisfy Queensland electoral law a party without a sitting MP in the state Parliament must have at least 500 members. She lodges more than 500 names and addresses and the constitution of a very unusually structured and centralised party.<\/p>\n

4 December 1997 <\/b><\/strong>
\nThe Queensland Electoral Commission, having con\ufb01rmed the membership in the standard manner, accepts registration of Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation. John Howard\u2019s party raises no objections.<\/p>\n

10 May 1998
\n<\/b><\/strong>On the Sunday program Peter Costello states that One Nation will be preferenced last in his Melbourne electorate at the next federal election.<\/p>\n

12 May 1998
\n<\/b><\/strong>John Howard argues in the party room against placing One Nation behind the ALP on Liberal how-to-vote cards at the federal election. He says he would prefer to work with One Nation than the Democrats in the Senate. Tony Abbott agrees, advocating the Voltaire approach: \u2018I disagree with what she says, but I\u2019m happy to defend her right to say it.\u2019<\/p>\n

13 June 1998
\n<\/b><\/strong>After the Coalition in Queensland gives its preferences to One Nation above Labor, Brisbane liberals desert the Liberal Party for Labor, and One Nation decimates the Nationals\u2019 vote, gaining eleven seats. The ALP wins of\ufb01ce in Queensland.<\/p>\n

Mid-June 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nTony Abbott begins attacking the legality of One Nation\u2019s registration in Queensland. He tells the House of Representatives on 2 July, \u2018I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that . . . One Nation, as registered in Queensland, does not have 500 members, it is not a validly registered political party, and it cannot receive any public funding.\u2019 He personally lobbies the Queensland electoral commissioner to investigate One Nation\u2019s legality. He travels around the country encouraging One Nation dissidents to take legal action.<\/p>\n

7 July 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nAbbott meets One Nation dissident Terry Sharples in the Brisbane of\ufb01ces of establishment solicitors Minter Ellison to nut out the legal and \ufb01nancial support needed for Sharples to launch a Supreme Court injunction to stop One Nation getting $500,000 in public funding due after its strong vote in Queensland before the impending federal election. Abbott brings with him two top lawyers with Liberal Party connections \u2013 one is Queensland Liberal Party President Paul Everingham \u2013 who will run the action for free. Sharples later claims that Abbott tells him that any\u00a0 Liberal Party connection should be kept secret, but that he will \ufb01nancially underwrite Sharples\u2019 intended civil action testing the legality of One Nation.<\/p>\n

11 July 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nAbbott gives Sharples a signed and witnessed \u2018personal guarantee that you will not be further out-of-pocket as a result of this action\u2019. Sharples issues his Supreme Court writ for an injunction. Abbott has obtained the \ufb01nancial backing of someone \u2013 who he still will not name \u2013 to stump up $10,000 to meet that guarantee.<\/p>\n

31 July 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nTony Abbott and journalist Tony Jones have the following exchange in an interview for an ABC Four Corners broadcast\u00a0 on 10 August.<\/p>\n

JONES: So there was never any question of party funds \u2014
\nABOTT: Absolutely not.
\nJONES: Or other funds from any other source \u2014
\nABOTT: Absolutely not.
\nJONES: \u2014 being offered to Terry Sharples?
\nABOTT: Absolutely not.<\/p>\n

21 August 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nIn the witness box during what will be an unsuccessful action for an injunction, Terry Sharples is cross-examined on his funding relationship with Abbott. Asked whether Abbott ever talked to him about \u2018providing an indemnity for this action or any action you may bring\u2019, he replies \u2018No,\u00a0 he didn\u2019t.\u2019 (Later, on 11 March 2000, in an interview with Sydney Morning Herald journalist Deborah Snow, Abbott will recount his reaction to Sharples after the August 1998 cross examination: \u2018Terry, this thing is out of control . . . you should just terminate this action and there\u2019ll be a costs order against you and I\u2019ll look after it.\u2019 )<\/p>\n

Soon after 21 August 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nAbbott disassociates himself from Sharples\u2019 civil action.<\/p>\n

24 August 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nTony Abbott establishes the Australians for Honest Politics Trust. Its stated objective is \u2018to support actions to challenge the activities of a political party or association within Australia which is alleged to conduct its affairs in breach of the laws of Australia\u2019. First cab off the rank is former secretary and estranged friend of Hanson, Barbara Hazelton, who duly issues a Supreme Court writ also seeking an injunction against payment of the $500,000 before the federal election.<\/p>\n

29 August 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nThe Sydney Morning Herald\u2019s Marian Wilkinson reports Abbott\u2019s Australians for Honest Politics Trust under the headline \u2018Lib MP Backs Trust to Attack Hanson\u2019. Abbott denies any Liberal Party involvement in AHPT, and says he is acting \u2018as a citizen and a democrat, because One Nation is a fraud on the taxpayers and must be exposed\u2019. Hanson\u2019s senior adviser, former Liberal David Old\ufb01eld, who\u2019d worked for Abbott before defecting to Hanson, claims that AHPT \u2018is a clear example of big business money being used to stop Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation. It is the \ufb01lth of the Liberal Party at its worst, and Abbott\u2019s involvement in such nefarious activity is appropriate and understandable.\u2019<\/p>\n

I saw One Nation as a threat not so much to civilisation as to the Coalition. It had brought down the Borbidge government in Queensland and was defeating Coalition MPs and candidates all over the country . . . [Tony Abbott] deserves a medal. <\/i><\/em>Peter Coleman reminisces in the Australian , 28 August 2003<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter Coleman and . . . John Wheeldon used to hold their irregular meetings over lunch at the Bistro Moncur in Woollahra . . . I know, because I joined the gathering for a few pleasant meals. Conspiratorial? Hardly . . . Those attempting to demonise Mr Abbott, however, would be better employed arguing for an overhaul of the nation\u2019s electoral laws to ensure that all political parties are forced to operate with greater transparency. <\/i><\/em>Piers Akerman reminisces in the Daily Telegraph , 28 August 2003<\/b><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3 October 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nJohn Howard is returned to government with a reduced majority. One Nation polls 8.4 per cent of the national<\/p>\n

vote, but only has one senator elected. The result earns One Nation about $3 million in public reimbursement.<\/p>\n

20 October 1998 <\/b><\/strong>
\nTony Abbott\u2019s response to a request from the Australian Electoral Commission on 18 September 1998 to disclose the trust\u2019s donors is to say that he is not required by law to do so.<\/p>\n

10 June 1999 <\/b><\/strong>
\nThe AEC writes to Abbott accepting his assurances that the trust is not an \u2018associated entity\u2019 with the Liberal Party and therefore need not disclose its donors.<\/p>\n

18 August 1999 <\/b><\/strong>
\nJustice Roslyn Atkinson of the Queensland Supreme Court \ufb01nds for the plaintiff in the Sharples civil action. (Barbara Hazelton had dropped her action.) She rules that Electoral Commissioner Des O\u2019Shea\u2019s decision to register Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation was \u2018induced by fraud or misrepresentation\u2019 because the people on the membership list were \u2018supporters\u2019, not \u2018members\u2019. One Nation is ordered to repay the $500,000 of public funds. A police investigation commences. Although victorious, Sharples is considerably \u2018out of pocket as a result of this action\u2019. He pursues Abbott to honour his indemnity pledge.<\/p>\n

Late 1999 <\/b><\/strong>
\nAbbott\u2019s lawyer writes to Sharples asking him to accept $10,000 to call it quits, maintaining this is not \u2018an admission of liability\u2019.<\/p>\n

24 September 1999 <\/b><\/strong>
\nIn Victoria Jeff Kennett\u2019s government suffers a stunning 4.5 per cent statewide swing against it, rising to 10\u201315 per cent in rural and regional seats, and is ousted. The backlash is attributed to voter anger after seven years of neo-liberal economic reform. Labor, which had made it its business to promise better services to regional voters, and Independents poll strongly in rural and regional seats. One Nation wins only 0.3 per cent of the primary vote.<\/p>\n

January 2001 <\/b><\/strong>
\nAfter extensive fundraising drives, Pauline Hanson \ufb01nishes reimbursing the $500,000 owed by One Nation to the Queensland Electoral Commission under Justice Atkinson\u2019s judgement.<\/p>\n

10 February 2001 <\/b><\/strong>
\nOne Nation polls 10 per cent of the primary vote in the WA state election, and up to 30 per cent in some rural seats. Its decision not to preference sitting members is crucial in the ousting of Premier Richard Court\u2019s Coalition government.<\/p>\n

\u00a017 February 2001 <\/b><\/strong>
\nOne Nation polls 9 per cent in the Queensland state election in which the ALP is returned with a record majority and the Coalition Opposition is further devastated. Twentythree per cent of Queenslanders abandon the main parties, mostly \ufb02eeing the conservative side to vote for One Nation, the One-Nation-derived City Country Alliance or ex-OneNation Independents.<\/p>\n

27 May 2002 <\/b><\/strong>
\nPauline Hanson is committed to stand trial on one count\u00a0 of fraudulently registering a political party, and two counts of\u00a0 fraudulently obtaining public funds.<\/p>\n

22 March 2003
\nHanson is narrowly unsuccessful in her bid for an Upper House seat in the NSW election.<\/p>\n

15 July 2003
\nHanson\u2019s trial commences before Judge Patsy Wolfe.<\/p>\n

20 August 2003
\nAfter nine hours\u2019 deliberation, a jury convicts Hanson on all charges. Judge Wolfe sentences her to three years\u2019 imprisonment, noting that the publicity surrounding the case has severely damaged any chance of her resurrecting her political career.<\/p>\n

22 August 2003
\nJohn Howard tells Neil Mitchell on Melbourne talkback radio:<\/p>\n

\u2018Like many other Australians, on the face of it it does seem [to me] a very long unconditional sentence for what she is alleged to have done. And you\u2019re dealing here with a breach of a law which is not based on something which is naturally a crime . . . Can I talk generally about the issue of registering political parties? . . . I\u2019ve always had some reservations about whether the requirement that you register political parties is justi\ufb01ed as necessary . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

28 August 2003
\nIn an article for Sydney\u2019s Daily Telegraph Tony Abbott writes, \u2018I\u2019m sorry that Pauline Hanson is in gaol. I believe that the sentence she received was too severe. But I\u2019m not sorry for trying to expose the fact that One Nation was never a fair dinkum party. It was a company with three directors, not a party with 500 members.\u2019<\/p>\n

6 November 2003 <\/b><\/strong>
\nThe Queensland Supreme Court upholds Hanson\u2019s appeal and orders her release. Chief Justice Paul de Jersey writes, \u2018The preponderance of available evidence points to the conclusion that the applicants for membership became members of the political party.\u2019 Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation was a fair dinkum party in Queensland, after all.<\/p>\n

7 November 2003 <\/b><\/strong>
\nOutside prison Hanson agrees with a Channel Seven reporter who suggests that the inmates with whom she has just shared eleven weeks have \u2018obviously touched you deeply\u2019:<\/p>\n

\u2018The whole thing has. I\u2019ve learnt a lot from it. I was a person that had my opinion and, yes, I thought I knew everything \u2013 as a Member of Parliament to go and look through the prisons you know nothing, and these politicians and bureaucrats that make the legislation have no idea. And, yes, it\u2019s been a very daunting, distressing time. I could never explain what it\u2019s done to me, but in so many ways I\u2019ve learnt so much from it . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

15 January 2004 <\/b><\/strong>
\nHanson announces that she is quitting politics:<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m sick and tired of seeing people elected to Parliament who haven\u2019t got the determination or the integrity, and who sell their souls to get their positions. I\u2019m not feeling sorry for myself. I\u2019m just really angry for the system we have, because I\u2019ve seen the breakdown in many aspects of Australian life \u2013 education, the family unit, health, Australian ownership, even the Australian way of life.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Beast \u2013 Big Party, Big Money, Big Media \u2013 has\u00a0 \ufb01nished off Pauline Hanson\u2019s political career. Tony Abbott is being called an underhand thug by some and a future prime minister by others. John Howard has already moved on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Intro: Extract of Still Not Happy, John: Defending our Democracy (Penguin 2007) Democracy v. the Beast Her appeal was simply that she represented something authentic\u00a0 in a culture of artefact. She was transparent in an era during\u00a0 which the political class have become expert at concealment. She was a still point in a culture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":34460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,3402,118,585,3048,73,21,32,399,40],"tags":[2144,172,1891,215,2592,269,906,2598,350,905,358,364,703,1208,470,471],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pauline_FINAL_1863100_90-e1468163377105.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-8XG","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}