Looking back, Pauline Hanson has been the most influential person on my work since I became a journalist in 1987.
After following her in the 1998 election, I examined all my assumptions and began changing my views on reporting politics and the optimum relationship between journalists and readers.
This morning in the Australian, Jeff Kennett – once of Hanson’s most persistent and outspoken critics – gave an honest political assessment of her career. He said:
“She was a meteorite that came from nowhere, burst on to the scene and fell to earth. She had a unique opportunity, which she failed to capitalise on through fundamental inexperience and being surrounded by a few people whose interests were not in her interests.”
I agree with Kennett, except that I wonder whether a professional, experienced player could have possibly risen to such heights of popularity as Hanson. Perhaps the Australian personification of far-right populism had to be an amateur to be so appealing.
But there is another big question here, apart from Hanson’s performance. Could her challenge have been responded to differently, in a way which averted the seismic switch from one vision of Australia to its opposite.
After the 1998 campaign, I hoped we would see her defeat as a timely warning – a get-out-of-jail-free card. I hoped we would seriously address the economic and social challenges posed by her. In my book on the campaign, I wrote:
After the 1996 election Howard, who had subliminally appealed to the new underclass and its resentments with his `For all of us’ motto and pledge not to govern for `minorities’, wanted a hands-off approach to Hanson. Let her have her say in the name of free speech, but don’t respond directly.
The other Liberal camp, with its base in Victoria, saw the seeds of appeasement in Howard’s approach. They saw One Nation as a monster of racism and economic isolationism, a fascist organisation that would only grow stronger if appeased. Hanson should be crushed immediately, they believed, by condemnation in the strongest terms by the nation’s leaders, and by the unremitting exposure of her party’s structural flaws. Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett was the leading proponent of the get-out-there-and-take-her-on school of thought, and planned a visit to Blair to argue his case on the ground.
The third way, constructive engagement – an attempt to understand this incredible and potentially self-destructive scream from the politically apathetic – was never really tried. So the barriers went higher.”
It seems so long ago now that Howard, mightily relieved that Hanson’s campaign had been so poor and that he’d scramble across the line with a minority of two-party preferred votes, pledged to aim high and to heal. “I also want to commit myself very genuinely to the cause of true reconciliation with the Aboriginal people by the Centenary of Federation.” A year later, this wasn’t even on his must-do list for 2001. And then, he simply embraced Hanson’s social populism. He took her over.
The downside for the ideological interests of his core constituency, however, has been substantial. He’s had to create a compensation scheme for workers who’ve lost their entitlements – even, in the case of One Tel, when they’d traded away their award rights for individual contracts. He’s had to knock back the Shell takeover of Woodside and make noises about toning down competition policy. There’s been a downside for politicians too – he also had to change the politicians super scheme to knock off its worst excesses.
It’s time for progressives to get back to tin tacks. It’s time to admit profound errors of judgement in responding to Hanson, based on foolish denial of core elements of the Australian psyche. Hanson, a strong, likeable, stubborn, polite woman, is like many Australians – fundamentally inexperienced and thus susceptible to snake oil salesmen. Howard has seduced them for now. When they realise that, some may be prepared to listen to some from the old enemy, the now defeated `elites”, if they get their act together.
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Last night I looked over letters from readers of my book written two years ago, and three extracts follow. The signs were there, and they were obvious. The abject failure of the political class and the media to see them and engage with them and do something about it must never happen again. The consequences of denial, as we’ve found out, are diabolical.
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A judge wrote:
My background and lifestyle are very middle class. However, my work as a judge of the Family Court of Australia takes me to many parts of the country including capital cities and many regional centres. I see the alienation and feelings of hopelessness which are rife in many parts of the major cities and in most if not all regional and rural communities in Australia. I do not think that the bulk of the Australian community, including a large proportion of those who govern us, have any real appreciation of how much child abuse, domestic violence, abuse of alcohol and other drugs, together with many other forms of dysfunctional behaviour, are a constant feature of the society’s landscape.
It is easy to understand how Hansonism flourished. There was hope where none appeared to exist.
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An academic lawyer wrote:
I have also been struggling with the One Nation phenomenon – perhaps because I come from a mining family in Tasmania, some of whom are strong supporters. I have found it hard to reconcile this with the obvious negative elements of One Nation, particularly its racism. Yet, I have also been repelled by the obvious class elements in many of the attacks on One Nation itself. I also recognise the feelings of alienation and despair felt by many, such as my relatives, who have seen their jobs disappear and have felt abandoned by the political process.
My own response has been to work on issues such as voter alienation and means of allowing greater involvement in and ownership of the political process..my latest area of exploration is a modest bill of rights…
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A chaplain at a private high school wrote:
Discontent can so easily be ridden by fascism – so I’m very glad One Nation fizzed – yet, the last few chapters documenting the failure of the movement were truly tragic. You vividly painted the crying sadness of the `Common Man’ and simple political idealism being crushed by egomania, ignorance, poor planning and financing, and the slick marketing and image manipulation of its competitors.
But this book raises so many fundamental questions about our political processes, our political visions, and our political culture that I’m a bit disappointed that you were happy to just raise these questions rather than go very far in the direction of trying to tackle them. Maybe, as a reporter, you don’t see paradigm analysis as part of your brief.
But I put it to you that just as Hanson could connect with the grassroots of rural discontent because she was not a specialist, so a reporter can possibly ask the fundamental questions which the political scientists can’t even frame.
Scientists deal in laws prescribed by their theoretical frameworks, commentators deal in trends based on what has happened in the recent past when the system is basically in equilibrium and the power brokers are clearly known – but you, as a humanly engaged reporter, have seen the mystic writing on the wall, you have seen the possibility of the unprecedented, you have touched the raw human nerve endings of the politically alienated, you have felt the limits of our current political methodologies and theoretical orthodoxies.
Let me poke the issues that arose to me from reading your book.
Off the Rails points out to me that Athenian style democracy was never designed to function on a larger scale than about 500 citizens, it cannot in fact function on a larger scale than that, it has never delivered power to the Common Man, neither can it. Now, as Churchill implied, modern liberal democracy is the `least worst form of government’, and for that reason it has an awful lot going for it; but viewing democracy as an ideology that empowers the Common Man is a recipe for nothing other than horrible disillusionment.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the old corruption and power equation comes into force. Popular power often attracts ruthless, unscrupulous, pragmatic egoists – like Oldfield – who have a deep affinity with manipulation, and a horrible instinct for riding a crowd’s discontent, even if that manipulation and crowd discontent is invariably self (and other) destructive.
Secondly, our type of “democratic” government has nothing in reality to do with representing the Common Man. This is simply a problem of human scale. What makes for stable and humane democracy is leadership which is worthy of the respect of the Common Man, not the actual participation of the Common Man.
Because our leaders have so blatantly focussed their energies on doing pragmatically pleasing deals with the power elites at the expense of integrity and at the expense of the interests of the less fortunate common people, the ability to respect whomever our elections throw up is seriously damaged. This is the real story behind the Hanson phenomena: the betrayal of the unspoken social contract between the people and their leadership. Poor old Pauline’s fruity, ignorant, and bigoted faults were deliciously seized upon as scape goats to divert attention away from the cause of her rise.
I’m glad the racist, fruity, ignorant and bigoted instincts of alienated rural Australia did not gain the opportunity to solidify into a serious fascist movement – yet, the idealism, initiative, courage and grass-roots connectedness of Pauline gained almost no comment from any serious critical quarter – apart from you. Thank you very much for not demonising her, but for painting her in the full range of weird, interesting, ugly and beautiful colours that she presented. Yet, it worries me that apart from you I have heard only blind love or blind hatred towards her.
I am a high school chaplain and I see a major political sea change on the horizon in our youth. Ignorant of left/right allegiances, unimpressed with non-existential ideology and yet deeply idealistic, thoughtful and genuinely trouble by ethical issues, this rising generation is quite different.
They were not born in the post-war boom; many of them are reactionaries away from the narcissism, materialism, consumerism, career-fixated identity and hedonism of their parents; they are concerned about relationships; they are not just tolerant but genuinely liberal; and at the moment they are remarkably uninterested in politics.
But, in the past two years, we have seen Hanson and Timor radically shake the validity of US foreign policy reliance and the politics of pure economic mumbo jumbo. Our leadership delivers policy which is (with occasional exceptions) morally gutless, lacking in genuine creative initiative and playing sure-fire real politics under the guise of `concern’ and `reason’ whenever it can. And this is more the fault of our party machinations than of the personal characteristics of particular politicians.
But this leaves not only the rural, but many of our young, deeply politically empty. This kind of vacuum cannot last. Fortunately Hanson did not fill it – but filled it must be.
If our current leaders and gatekeepers can recognise this, then there is real hope. Continue to ignore it and either a genuine alternative will arise, or fascism will arise. And unfortunately – as Oldfield and the far right demonstrate – fascism is more likely if a new political movement has to emerge.
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Now your thoughts after the redhead bowed out. Sarah Capper sent me this one, from Bruce, a talkback caller in Hobart this morning. “Pauline represented middle Australia. She wasn’t a bleeding heart academic elite lawyer minority who seems to run the place”. He believes Hanson’s legacy will be “to make people think about what is happening to Australia with immigration … we had a wonderful place here and it was tending to be destroyed”.
Yama Farid in Sydney
This is my (very) brief take on her legacy. Does Australia miss Ms Hanson? NO, because we have John Howard, the intellectual Hansonites, alive and kicking in our capital city, Canberra.
Paul Walter
Many thanks for reproducing Peter Brain’s for your little scattered band of earnest enthusiastic students of politics – national and global (see Beyond Hanson). Many readers will be experiencing the same sense of nausea; angst-driven, as this reader; sitting here and thinking “Yes, I thought so”. Like sitting in a dentist’s chair and being told that yes, that pain you are experiencing IS a major toothache induced by and emanating from comprehensive tooth-decay! And a sinking feeling emanating from the confirmation.
It links with your comments about the terminal state of media and press here in Australia (see Cross media endgame); with reports emanating on the Internet concerning the frenzied fervent politico/economic fundamentalism, neo-liberal “theology” mixed with a warped form of self-justificatory “Christianity”, unrecognisable against the real thing, now moving from covert to open dominance in the US, and hence the world.
Then there is the profiling of the entity by people like Susan George and Fabrizio Sabelli (Faith and Credit :The World Bank’s Secular Empire, Westview press,1994), an excellent intro for people in grasping the implications of the other main aspect of the equation to the one dealt with in detail by Dr Brain, namely the extra or international relationship between very small national “fish” and very big sharks in a vast international macro-ocean of money, ideology, persuasion and naked power, that shows both the imperatives and impetus of late-capitalism over the last twenty years or so.
As Peter Brain’s argument explains…”in Australia monetary policy is largely run for the benefit of the finance sector and not in the national interest” Could it be other wise were it not to be in synchronous alignment with global (ie US) “theology” and practice.We have John Howard; the world has “Dubya” – who today dared to deny he had any prior knowledge of the Enron debacle, a U.S version of HIH breaking over there.
Like his Australian clones, Bush WOULD say such a thing as much out of sheer perversity as fear of shame, knowing full well that people would see through such a statement to grasp a sub-text that thumbs its nose at wider humanity and entrenches the self-justified and self-justifying prerogatives of the REAL elites.
No, Pauline, you were wrong; not in saying Australia and Australians were being “had”, but by who. The true”elites” in control are right-wing they are not necessarily all as evident as those visible in public life and they used you as a cat’s paw to achieve the further undermining of a society you also recognised, no matter how dimly, as maybe still having real worth. And you, out of sheer ignorance, misappropriated left-liberal critiques of society and devalued their true worth as surely as the National-Action types misappropriating of the “Southern Cross” flag and unwittingly devaluing ITS significance as a national icon.
The truth is Australia is a garden-snail of a political entity that was well and truly stomped down at some time during the previous decade. The only problem: is the only consolation left the final apportionment of blame?
Do we blame the foaming-at-the-mouth Howard Malemute that has caused such damage within the chicken-coop of Australian society in the last half-dozen years, or the previous Labor governments of the late eighties and early nineties whose inability to solve the contradictions created by their “reforms”, and eventual tardiness in the mid-nineties allowed for the Dreadful Unleashing of the self-absorbed calvinist Neo-liberal Brute in the first place (shepherded by its empty-headed “aspirational” minions)?
Or do we go further and recognise, along with Dr Brain, that we were for sometime directly in the path of a political, ideological and economic steamroller that would have been difficult even for visionary leadership to deal with, let alone the divided and inimical interests grappling for control of the spoils of defeat while it was looming.
Like the ancient Athenians, the Portuguese of the 16th century and the once-mighty Moghuls of India, perhaps we are just going to have to face up to the enormity of what we had and were almost inevitably were going to lose, even if somewhat unjustly so, as is occurring now.
The Australian people themselves (including this reader) have years of apathy, conceit and sloth to look back on and regret now that the inevitable is occurring, perhaps even a seeming-eternity. So, with twenty-twenty hindsight, we look upon the shambles now rapidly actualising at our feet and ponder what might have been.
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In the light of Brain’s piece and Hanson’s demise, as an investor in the Platinum International Fund, I read the company’s description of what Enron did last night with more than usual interest. It’s the first account I’ve read that makes any sense, and it raises the question: in whose interests in privatisation of government utilities? You’ll find the report on pages 8 and 9 of Platinum’s quarterly report, enron