I need to pay more attention to minor party announcements, because I had no idea One Nation launched their Tasmanian campaign at Launceston’s Tailrace Centre last week – with none other than the Great Lady herself hosting.
Make no mistake, I loathed Pauline Hanson when she first exploded on the Australian political scene. Like the rest of the good little lefties such as I was back then (there, I’m not ashamed to admit it), I reacted viscerally to what was an undeniable streak of racism in Hanson’s then-rhetoric. But, Hanson matured, and so did I.
Hanson grew out of the anti-Asian garbage (One Nation has fielded many Asian-heritage candidates in recent years) and grew into her role as a senator. Not that she lost her maverick streak – when she wore a burqa into the Senate chamber, it was one of the best pieces of political theatre Australia has seen in years. But she also gained a hard-earned reputation as a politician who listened to ordinary Australians.
And the more I listen to what her party has to say, these days, the more I like.
Even some of Australian political journalism’s most artful sneerers are grudgingly admitting that, Pauline Hanson has ‘got her crap together’.
After the requisite sniggers, Guy Rundle writes that:
Hanson is storming through, the speech is tight and focused and loooong, an American-style stump number, covering all the bases. Foreign ownership, our kids are never going to be able to buy a house here, farm land, the Chinese own 14 per cent of our agricultural land […]
You might disagree with her solutions to the housing crisis, to industrial relations, to her old-skool attack on arts funding (“a million dollars to do a tour of Beatles photographs!” got no vibe at all; most of these people have taken their kids to one of these regional shows), but no one can now deny that she has a big, joined-up argument, especially on the economy and the facts and figures at her fingertips.
Naturally the Mainland chattering classes can never pass up an opportunity to jeer those awful bumpkins in the regions. Not to mention the sort of conspiracy-theory cranks who think they have some sort of right to say, “I am in control of what I put in my body!” Haw haw, next thing, she’ll be saying that it’s “My body, my choice.”
In the end, though, even Rundle admits that, like the delegation of Aboriginal women who travelled to Canberra to talk about domestic violence in their communities, or the mother of the toddler desperately needing life-saving medication, here is a politician who is listening to the people. More importantly, she’s learned, through sheer grit, how to do politics effectively.
So it’s still there, the One Nation crazy, the crank stuff, the loose facts on a few key matters, but amid it all, here is something that many readers are not going to like that much: Pauline Hanson has got her crap together […]
Prompted on the debt, she goes into the iniquities of our resources giveaway. She’s connecting the tax giveaways, the overall revenue, what needs to be done. She targets the UAP’s flagrantly impossible promises on mortgage-capping – and, yeah, it’s the standard segue to get stump speech material into the mix. But just as you’re nodding along to it, I agree with that, I agree with that, she’s off again: And our Family Court, we got that done, we put it into the Federal Circuit Court and we’re going to do a lot more. We’ve got to push back against these feminists attacking good men – and I half agree with that, and the crowd loves it.
Crikey
A great many Australians more than half agree with it. Especially having seen so many of their fathers, brothers and sons ground down and punished by a legal system that’s ever-more stacked against them, where even the most improbable accusations can become an unshakeable albatross.
While One Nation’s national polling has remained pretty consistent, at about three per cent, it’ll be interesting to see if they can pull off any upsets in individual seats. If nothing else, as their campaign material and policies show, the party is giving this election easily their most professional shot ever.
