Pauline Hanson

Hanson doesn't speak for me

Newly elected Senator Pauline Hanson gave her maiden speech in the Senate on September 14 β€” 20 years after her first appearance as a parliamentarian in 1996.

Her incendiaryΒ speech outlined a far-right agenda of racist bigotry, misogyny and attacks on welfare rights.

Pauline Pantsdown on making a comeback and the value of political satire

Simon Hunt is a lecturer at UNSW’s Art and Design school as well as a political satirist. Hunt found success and notoriety in the 1990s as Pauline Pantsdown, releasing song β€œI’m A Backdoor Man” (1997) and β€œI Don’t Like It” (1998), which parodied far right politician Pauline Hanson. In 2004, Hunt released β€œI’m Sorry”, a parody of then-prime minister John Howard that was released as β€œLittle Johnny”.

Pauline Hanson and the legitimisation of racism

When a gang of right-wing goons from the Party For Freedom (PFF), dressed as stereotypical Muslims, stormed the Sunday service at the Gosford Anglican Church on August 14, their actions were nominally disowned by Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party in a written statement. However, the statement also sought to justify and excuse the actions of the PFF.

Sale of Ausgrid should be stopped once and for all

In the recent controversy over the proposed sale of key NSW state-owned electricity company Ausgrid to Chinese bidders, the primary issue seems to have been lost: a vital public asset such as Ausgrid should not be privatised in the first place, whoever the potential buyers might be. A storm broke out over the planned sale of Ausgrid by the state government to either of two Chinese corporations: the government-owned State Grid Corporation of China; or the privately-owned Hong Kong-listed Cheung Kong Infrastructure Group (CKI), controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Racism and the empire

In the discussion about Pauline Hanson's election to the Senate and her recent appearance on ABC's Q&A there have been appeals by some commentators to go easy on her because: "She is just saying what a lot of people are thinking". Well, dopey racist ideas need to be condemned for what they are, regardless of how many people share them. This defence of Hanson is like the completely false idea that the degrading treatment of asylum seekers by Labor and Coalition governments is just responding to what the voters want. This of course puts the cart before the horse.