Hanson on the comeback trail
The controversial political outsider is likely to be elected to the Australian Senate – something her opponents say is ‘terrifying’.
Pauline Hanson, political pariah and genuine prospect for a Queensland Senate spot, has already in this election campaign done without much effort what she does best: divide people.
In this case, her Coalition, Labor, and Greens opponents – whom Hanson’s fellow One Nation candidate Malcolm Roberts says ‘‘are basically working as one, and we call them ‘them’ ’’.
That the bar has been lowered for the siren of Australia’s far right to enter the nation’s upper house on her fifth try since 2001 is not lost on ‘‘them’’.
A double dissolution has halved the necessary voting quota for candidates to just 7.7 per cent, and new Senate voting rules have put preference flows – which opponents have historically used to shut out Hanson – up in the air.
Murray Watt, who leads Labor’s state Senate ticket, says the real prospect of Hanson’s election is ‘‘pretty terrifying’’. He blames the Greens and the Coalition for colluding to change the voting rules.
Andrew Bartlett, the Greens’ No 2 Senate candidate, says Hanson’s views, which got her kicked out of the Liberal party 18 years ago, would now be ‘‘unremarkable’’ in the Coalition, given bouts of ‘‘refugee bashing, Muslim bashing and gay bashing’’ by figures who are either senior in the party or command widespread support.
Where Labor, the Greens and the Coalition are united is in their concession that Hanson has a chance but is unworthy of a place in the national political debate.
The dozen Queensland Senate spots are currently split seven to five in favour of the conservative side of politics. The political balance of Queensland’s senators could well come down to a contest between Hanson and Bartlett, both former Senate candidates who have a history of campaigning directly against each other and whose political contrast could not be starker.
There’s concern about unemployment in Queensland, which amid a mining slump is the nation’s second-highest behind South Australia’s.
Hanson and Bartlett last went head to head for the Senate in 2001, when Bartlett, then with the Democrats, prevailed despite the inevitable flurry of publicity around his opponent.
Hanson has updated her antiimmigration rhetoric from concerns about Australia being swamped by Asians 20 years ago to being swamped by Muslims today – with the added menace of linking their presence to terrorism threats.
One Nation is proposing nothing less than a cultural purge of Islam in Australia. This includes a halt to all immigration by Muslims, and bans on burqas and niqabs in public places, halal certification, and the opening of new mosques, pending a royal commission into whether Islam is ‘‘a religion or political ideology’’. The party is also calling for surveillance cameras in existing mosques and Islamic schools.
‘‘Islam has no place in Australia if we are to live in a cohesive society,’’ the party’s website states.
Hanson did not return calls.
Islam has no place in Australia if we are to live in a cohesive society. One Nation website
Roberts, who is One Nation’s No 2 Queensland Senate candidate after Hanson, says he isn’t sure whether a halt to Muslim immigration is actually the party’s policy or not.
Hanson ‘‘doesn’t discriminate on the basis of skin colour or religion’’ and ‘‘wants to bring Australians together’’, he says.
Pulling the threads of One Nation arguments to watch them unravel has long been irresistible to Australian media.
Opponents like Matthew Canavan, the Liberal National party senator from Rockhampton, argue that Hanson is simply ‘‘a PR vehicle’’ and the risk of ‘‘[beating] her up’’ is enhancing her name recognition and prospects of election.
Hanson’s record running for the Senate in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2013 suggests she is more than capable of getting 4 per cent, the threshold for receiving public funding of A$250,000.
‘‘If she spends it on campaigning, well and good, but she’s getting a lot of free publicity,’’ Bartlett says. This week her media rounds included appearing on Today, the top-rating show on national morning TV.
Hanson has consistently denied personally claiming money from election campaigns despite criticism, including her 2004 Senate campaign costing A$35,000 but getting a vote-based electoral commission refund of A$200,000.
Canavan says he is also ‘‘worried [that] other minor parties get the feeling she’s just part of the furniture now in Australia and not as fringe as she once was’’.
Preference votes may flow to Hanson from the likes of the Australian Liberty Alliance. However, it issued a terse press release this week branding Hanson’s idea of a royal commission into Islam ‘‘a waste of time and money’’.
Bartlett says there are a clutch of other minor parties ‘‘that are more determinedly hate-filled than [Hanson] this time’’.
Ominously, Hanson, running in the Queensland election last year, came within 114 votes – just 0.4 per cent – of snatching the seat of Lockyer from the LNP. That was with a lower than usual profile in a state campaign that drew national interest.
Plenty are looking now.