By Edward Johnstone
BRISBANE — The Democratic Socialists have issued a challenge to the Labor Party and the Coalition to get serious about Pauline Hanson in the Queensland election campaign. "Both ALP leader Peter Beattie and National Party leader Rob Borbidge are failing to address the Hanson challenge in the coming poll", Graham Mathews, Democratic Socialist candidate for the seat of Brisbane Central, said on May 28.
The Democratic Socialists are also running Coral Wynter for the seat of South Brisbane.
"The Coalition's decision to preference Hanson's One Nation party is an outrageous endorsement of racism. Labor, on the other hand, while attempting to distance themselves from the Hanson party, are conceding ground to its racist program", Mathews said.
"The One Nation Party is contesting this election on a platform of outright racism, confused populism and gun-slinging", Mathews explained. "Yet the major parties have refused to expose Hanson's lies or to defend the community she so callously attacks. If anything, they have recklessly joined in with Aborigine and migrant-bashing of their own."
"Hanson's policies revolve around attacks on the weakest sections of the Queensland community — Aboriginal people and new migrants", Mathews continued. "So why won't either major party state the obvious — the empress has no clothes?
"Unfortunately, the Coalition and the ALP both agree with Hanson's bottom line. They don't attack her policies because they share them to a greater or lesser degree.
"Borbidge has reserved his greatest ire for Aboriginal people making so-called frivolous land claims, while Beattie has been leading the ALP's retreat from any support of native title. Both parties also refuse to attack the myth that migrants take jobs, presiding over major cuts to migrant numbers in successive Labor and Liberal federal administrations."
The Democratic Socialists are campaigning to strengthen opposition to racism, Mathews said, calling for "a real opposition in the streets against the attacks on the poor, the environment and on working conditions. The Democratic Socialists are at the forefront of the anti-racism movement in Brisbane and around Australia."
The socialists' platform calls for full land rights, which Mathews called "a belated act of restoring some justice to Aboriginal people that will injure no one but the super-rich, who control 67% of the state's land as it is.
"In addition, all attacks on migrants (social security restrictions, cuts to services) introduced by Labor and the Coalition must be reversed. Aboriginal people and migrants must not be victimised for the crisis that big business alone has caused", Mathews concluded.