When Pauline Hanson burst onto the political scene in 1996, she unleashed a tidal wave of racism, and gave it renewed strength. As she attacked Asian migrants, refugees and Indigenous Australians, Prime Minister John Howard defended her, claiming she "accurately reflected what people feel".
Hanson played a vital role for the Howard government. Her open, unrefined, racist bile allowed the mainstream political debate to be shifted to the right. Accusing anyone who challenged her of defending "political correctness", Hanson brought out into the open every racist myth that had simmered below the surface under 13 years of the Labor government.
Seven years' later, those myths have enabled the Howard government to implement the vast bulk of Hanson's racist policies.
Two years ago, the government did what Hanson had been advocating for years and turned a boatload of desperate refugees around, refusing to let them enter Australia.
By implementing the "Pacific Solution", the government has denied most refugees the most basic legal rights. Those in Australia are still locked in desert prisons.
Migration from the Third World (except white migration from South Africa and Zimbabwe) has declined significantly under this government. The family reunion program has been cut and English-language skills have dramatically increased in importance in migration tests.
In 1996, when Hanson described welfare aimed at Indigenous people as "unfair special treatment", she seemed to be on the far right of the political spectrum. But take out the word "unfair" and insert "harmful", and you have the Howard government's view on Indigenous-run welfare programs.
The government has all but destroyed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, slashing its funding to ridiculous levels and removing its right to determine spending priorities. The government has just taken away Indigenous control of the organisation by cavalierly suspending the elected chairperson for matters completely unrelated to ATSIC.
Hanson has become an embarrassment to the government, not because her racism has been defeated, but because it has become mainstream.
The precedent set by the trial of Hanson for electoral fraud is extremely dangerous. Those now calling the penalty — three years imprisonment with no parole possibility — too harsh miss the point: Hanson and fellow One Nation party leader David Ettridge's "offence" should never have been a crime in the first place.
The ABC's election expert, the ever-earnest Antony Green put it succinctly on the August 21 7.30 Report: "The [party] constitution that [Hanson has] been found guilty as falsely represented, is the same constitution that was put up to the Australian Electoral Commission and saw them registered as a federal political party, yet under the Queensland law it's now viewed that the way the membership was structured is invalid. So I feel it's more an administrative error than some false representation to gain benefit."
Hanson and Ettridge are in trouble because they attempted to set up an undemocratic constitution for their party. Although they did not lie about the structure to those joining, they breached the law in Queensland because the state will only register parties with an "acceptable" constitution. But the state has no business dictating the internal structure of electoral parties, even such appalling structures as One Nation's.
The Coalition parties, ably assisted by the ALP and, on occasion even the Greens, have made it increasingly difficult for smaller parties, which cannot afford to hire lawyers, to run in elections — a basic democratic right.
Hanson and Ettridge's convictions will serve as an even bigger deterrent. Green explained it succinctly: "This is showing the courts are getting prepared to intrude in internal party matters. That is something they haven't been prepared to do in the past. So this is another case which warns people involved in politics that there are ... real crimes that they can be charged with if they don't 'behave themselves'."
Green Left Weekly has no sympathy at all for Hanson, and has been one of her staunchest opponents. But her conviction has nothing to do with tackling the racism that has become so acceptable in Australia, and everything to do with maintaining the two-party system. The laws used to jail her must be opposed, just as the fight against racism must continue.
From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
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