Pauline Hanson

Pauline Lee Hanson (née Seccombe; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-immigration platform. In 2006, she was named by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians of all time.

Early life

Hanson was raised in Woolloongabba, an inner city suburb of Brisbane. Her grandfather was an immigrant from England in 1908. Her father owned a take-away food shop (fish and chip shop). Hanson left school at the age of fifteen after barely passing, and worked in a variety of unskilled clerical and service jobs. She accumulated several rental properties, becoming independently wealthy. She married twice and has four children. In her early political career, she was famous for having owned a fish and chips shop in Ipswich, a city near Brisbane.

Political background

Hanson was an independent local councillor in the City of Ipswich from 1994 until an early election due to administrative changes in 1995. Narrowly losing her seat, she joined the Liberal Party of Australia and was endorsed as the Liberal Party's candidate for the House of Representatives electorate of Oxley (based in Ipswich) for the March 1996 Federal election. At the time, Oxley was the safest Labor seat in Queensland.

Just prior to the election, Hanson made comments to The Queensland Times - a daily newspaper in Ipswich - advocating the abolition of special government assistance for Aborigines above what was available for other Australians. These comments led to her disendorsement by the Liberal Party during the campaign. However, ballot papers had already been printed listing Hanson as the Liberal candidate, and the Australian Electoral Commission had closed nominations for the seat. As a result, Hanson was still listed as the Liberal candidate when votes were cast.

Hanson subsequently won the election easily, with the largest swing away from the Labor Party in Australia. A large proportion of her support appeared to have come from traditional Labor Party voters.

On 10 September 1996 Hanson gave her first speech to the House of Representatives, which instantly made headlines and television news bulletins across Australia. She warned that Australia was "in danger of being swamped by Asians" due to high immigration, asserting that Asian immigrants "have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate." She also denounced the policy of multiculturalism and the "privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians", advocated the return of high-tariff protectionism and generally decried many other aspects of economic rationalism and what she perceived to be 'political correctness'.

As a result of her controversial maiden speech, Hanson was briefly catapulted to the forefront of Australian politics, with the Australian population divided on whether Hanson was honest and plain-spoken, a far-right nativist, or misinformed and uneducated. Some of Hanson's critics also derided what they saw as her inarticulate style—the very trait that her supporters took to be evidence of her credentials as a speaker 'for the people'. On 13 October 1996, asked by Tracey Curro on 60 Minutes if she was xenophobic, she replied "Please explain?", which has since become an oft-parodied catch phrase within Australian culture.

The reaction of the mainstream political parties was overwhelmingly negative, with parliament passing a resolution (supported by all members except Graeme Campbell) condemning her views on immigration and multiculturalism. However, the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, was reluctant to speak negatively of Hanson, acknowledging that her views were shared by many Australians.

One Nation

On the back of her relatively small but loyal supporter base, in April 1997 she founded Pauline Hanson's One Nation with her senior advisor David Oldfield and professional fundraiser David Ettridge. Many of her branch formation meetings and political rallies across Australia in the next two years would attract protests, occasionally spilling over to violence between Hanson supporters and left wing protestors.

The peak of Hanson's success occurred in June 1998, when One Nation attracted nearly one-quarter of the vote in that month's State elections in Queensland, and One Nation won 11 out of 89 seats in the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

"Death" video

In November 1997 Hanson, under suggestion from Oldfield, recorded a video which was to be screened to One Nation members and supporters in the event of her assassination, following claims that she and her daughter had received anonymous death threats. The 12-minute tape started off with the following message:

Fellow Australians, if you are seeing me now, it means I have been murdered. Do not let my passing distract you for even a moment

and then urged that

For the sake of our children and our children's children, you must fight on. Do not let my passing distract you for one moment. We must go forward together as Australians. Our country is at stake

Declining popularity

Ever since then, Hanson's popularity has declined. During the campaign for the Federal election of 3 October 1998, she supported a number of policies which alienated much of her support base, such as no increase in pensions for second and subsequent children of single mothers, and replacement of all taxes by a 2% "easy tax" which would be payable on all sales, not simply at the point of consumption as with the GST.

Toowoomba East State School polling booth, 2007 election.

She lost her seat in Parliament after an electoral redistribution split Oxley before the 1998 election. She contested the neighbouring Division of Blair and won 36% of the primary vote,slightly over 10% more than her nearest rival. However, preferences were enough to elect the Liberal Party candidate, Cameron Thompson. Nationally, One Nation gained 8.99% of the Senate vote [1] and 8.4% of the Representatives vote, but only one MP was elected - Len Harris as Senator for Queensland. (Heather Hill was originally elected to this position, but the High Court of Australia ruled that although she was an Australian citizen, she was ineligible to sit as a Senator as she had not renounced her childhood British citizenship). Hanson alleges in her 2007 autobiography Pauline Hanson: Untamed & Unashamed that a number of other politicians had dual citizenship yet this did not prevent them from holding positions in Parliament.

At the next Federal election on 10 November 2001, Hanson ran for a Queensland Senate seat but narrowly failed. She has accounted for her declining popularity by blaming Prime Minister John Howard for stealing her policies.

"It has been widely recognised by all, including the media, that John Howard sailed home on One Nation policies. In short, if we were not around, John Howard would not have made the decisions he did."

Other interrelated factors which have contributed to her downfall include her connection with a series of advisors (John Pasquarelli, David Ettridge and David Oldfield), all of whom she has fallen out with; disputes amongst her supporters, including One Nation's webmaster Scott Balson (who left the movement after a disagreement with Oldfield), and a lawsuit over the organisational structure of One Nation.

Hanson also claimed over the years to have been systematically misrepresented and publicly vilified by the mainstream media. In 1997, Professor David Flint commented: "It was media indulging in its own fantasies, believing its own stories, which turned Ms. Hanson into a spectre stalking the land... Her message was presented in some quarters as if it were the voice of Satan. In fact, her views are more moderate than many right-wing parties in Western Europe."

In 2003 she left Queensland, moved to Sylvania Waters, Sydney in New South Wales (NSW) and stood for the NSW Upper House in the 22 March State election. She lost narrowly to Shooters Party candidate John Tingle.

Hanson had also assisted Australian country musician Brian Letton in making a record with Tommy Tecko. In 2006, she commenced a new career selling real estate in Queensland.

She has been parodied and impersonated by drag queen Pauline Pantsdown, who sampled snippets from Hanson's speeches to create a song called "I'm a Backdoor Man". After Hanson successfully pursued legal action against Pantsdown, Pantsdown used the same technique to create the track "I Don't Like It", a 1998 Top 10 single in Australia.

Fraud conviction and acquittal

On 20 August 2003, a jury convicted Hanson and Ettridge of electoral fraud. Hanson was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the District Court of Queensland for claiming that 500 members of the "Pauline Hanson Support Movement" were members of the political organisation "Pauline Hanson's One Nation", in order to register that organisation as a political party and apply for electoral funding. Because the registration was found to be unlawful, Hanson's receipt of electoral funding worth AUD$498,637 resulted in two further convictions for dishonestly obtaining property. Hanson's initial reaction to the verdict was - "Rubbish, I'm not guilty. It's a joke."

The case did not escape politicians' notice: Prime Minister John Howard thought it was "a very long, unconditional sentence". Bronwyn Bishop MHR claimed Hanson was a political prisoner, drawing analogy between Hanson's conviction and the oppression of Robert Mugabe's opposition in his Zimbabwean regime.

On 6 November 2003, the Queensland Court of Appeal (comprising Chief Justice P de Jersey, Justice MA McMurdo (President of the Court of Appeal) and Justice JA Davies) quashed Hanson's and Ettridge's convictions. McMurdo J publicly rebuked many politicians including Prime Minister John Howard and Mrs Bronwyn Bishop MHR, whose observations, she said, demonstrated at least "a fundamental misunderstanding of the Rule of Law...[and] an attempt to influence the judicial...process". The Court also ruminated that had the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions been better resourced, "the present difficulty may well have been avoided".

Some criticism was directed at the political interference of Tony Abbott, who had arranged for the lawyers who instituted the legal action which resulted in Hanson going to gaol to act on a largely pro bono basis. Investigations by the ABC's Four Corners programme showed that Abbott had financed disgruntled ex One Nation member Tony Sharples's court case against Hanson, in order to derail the One Nation party.

Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, initiated legislative changes to Queensland Law shortly after the verdict ensuring Hanson's conviction would mean she could not return to politics in the State, despite her convictions being eventually overturned and her prison sentence ruled wrongful. Peter Beattie and his Government also denied Hanson any financial restitution for her ordeal, despite her very public protests. Questions were raised as to why former Queensland Chief Magistrate, Di Fingleton, received a large sum of restitution following her wrongful imprisonment in a very similar set of circumstances. Critics slammed Peter Beattie for the apparent double standards.

In January 2004, Hanson announced that she did not intend to return to politics.

Electoral Funding

After legal troubles in 2000 related to fraudulent registration of the One Nation Party, Hanson was facing bankruptcy. She made an appeal to supporters to give money to help her through her hard times. Sean Nelson attacked Hanson, saying, "She can afford to live on a $700,000 mansion just outside of Rosewood. The people up here that she's asking to give money to are pensioners and farmers that are doing it tough." Hanson, however, claimed she considered selling her home.

Hanson claims she did not run for the senate to make money, saying, "I think everyone would know I don't do it for the money."[13] However, running in elections has earned Hanson electoral funding. According to Misha Schubert from The Age, "Ms Hanson, earned $199,886 from taxpayers for winning more than 4 per cent of the vote, and another $7695 in donations. She declared only $35,426 in campaign expenditure, potentially pocketing as much as $170,000." Hanson refused to repay the money back to taxpayers.[14]

Hanson's return to politics

On 15 September 2004, Hanson announced that she would be standing as an independent candidate for one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 9 October election. She declared, "I don't want all the hangers on. I don't want the advisers and everyone else. I want it to be this time Pauline Hanson." She was ultimately unsuccessful, receiving only 31.77% of the required quota of primary votes, and did not pick up enough additional support through preferences. However, she attracted more votes than the One Nation party (4.54% compared to 3.14%) and, unlike her former party, recovered her deposit from the Australian Electoral Commission and secured $150,000 of public electoral funding.

United Australia

On 24 May 2007 Hanson launched Pauline's United Australia Party.. Hanson contested the Queensland Senate in the 2007 Federal elections of which she received over 4% of total votes [2] The party envokes the partial namesake of the historic United Australia Party. Speaking on her return to politics, she stated: "I have had all the major political parties attack me, been kicked out of my own party and ended up in prison, but I don't give up."

In October 2007, Hanson launched her campaign song, entitled "Australian Way of Life." At the first performance of this song she spoke inclusively of all audience members regardless of nationality, saying "Welcome everyone, no matter where you come from.". This is despite her support for a freeze on immigration and her claims that African migrants carry disease.

Appearance on Dancing with the Stars

In late 2004 during her election campaign, Hanson competed in the Australian Reality TV show Dancing with the Stars on the Seven Network. In the show a number of Australian celebrities compete against one another in ballroom dancing. Hanson and her partner Salvatore Vecchio made it to the final, surprising many in Australian politics and media as she advanced due to audience support in SMS voting, but lost to former Home and Away star Bec Cartwright.

Promotional work

In September 2006, Hanson appeared in a commercial for Donut King, an Australian chain of doughnut retailers, with the slogan "What do you feel like?". Hanson has also promoted New Zealand company MR MOSS run by friend John Lehmann.

Autobiography

In March 2007, Hanson published her autobiography Untamed and Unashamed.

Allegations of Racism

The public discussion of whether or not Hanson is a racist quickly became the the topic of academic discussion in Australia. For example, at the 1997 annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Comminications Association (ANZCA) at La Trobe University, a paper was presented with the title 'Phenomena and Epihenomena: is Pauline Hanson racist?'. On 20 September, 2004 Hanson appeared on the ABC show Enough Rope, which was televised nationally. Her interview with Andrew Denton covered a number of items in her personal background before focusing on the opinions that made her so prominent and controversial. Archival footage from a 60 Minutes program shot on the streets of Ipswich was used to introduce claims about racism and bigotry in Hanson's views, these issues being the main focus of the program. After Hanson defined racism, she challenged Denton to show her things that she'd said that were racist. Denton responded with an example of the kinds of things that were being said as a result of Hanson's expressed views. According to the transcript, Hanson was unaware of the racist outcomes of her views, despite the similarity to her own wordsIn 2006, ten years after her maiden speech, its effects were still being discussed within a racism framework, as well as being included in resources funded by the Queensland Government on 'Combating racism in Queensland'. In 2007, Hanson publicly backed Kevin Andrews, then Minister for Immigration under John Howard, in his controversial views about African migrants and crime .

External links

• Pauline Hanson's official website
• "Inside One Nation" by Scott Balson