This was the speech delivered on stage with Pauline Hanson.
The occasion was the establishing of the PHSM in Ipswich. Late February 1997. Membership 44 takings $236.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is a sweet irony about this meeting tonight, that may well find its way into the history books in the grand telling of this great nation. That irony revolves around a Son and Daughter of Ipswich. Ipswich, the very manifestation of what made this once great country the envy the of world. It is a microcosm of the heart and soul of the working people of Australia, it is in fact a graphic gauge of how the minds of simple people can shake the foundations of what we have come to accept without demur, when academia replaces the basic tenets of pragmatism.
Before the turn of this rapidly diminishing century, men sat under a tree in the vast open reaches in the west of this state and pondered over the plight of their fellowman. From those gatherings rose a political movement that undertook to address the plight of those who had only their labour to sell. Thus was born the Labor party.
Today the party like the tree those men sat under is but a skeleton of its former glory. It seems to me that the last of that breed, a man who knew what it was to be of the working class, rise above his station and become this nations highest citizen, was at heart the essential pragmatist.
Today Bill Hayden's former office bears silent witness to another in the same mould. Its wall reverberate to a new dynamism, that the people to whom the old Labour men respected, are warming to. Just as the Labor men of old gave hope, that was slowly eroded by the academic increments that slowly filtered its ranks, until it forgot what its fundamentals were, so too does this daughter of Ipswich, Pauline HANSON.
In an anxious, sometimes violent world, it takes a certain courage, a certain indefinable quality, to stand up and be counted. We cower behind the facade of indifference, of apathy and often materialistic advantage, to remain silent, to remain non involved. We tolerate the exactitudes of modern day standards and ethics that would have violated the conscience of our forebears and still does today, for our older population. We have become immune to suffering, to the traumatising of families, to the wanton destruction of property, to the increasing problem of drug related offences and the young age to which these manifestations begin.
We suffer in silence the plundering of the peoples treasure chest, by those we have by time and tradition been weaned to trust. Gone are the old family doctor, the friendly bank manager, the lolly dispensing corner grocer, the butcher who gave you the dog meat for nothing. Gone too are the old politician who spoke on the street corner in shoes that in all possibility had holes in their sole; the local councillor, who gave a few hours a week to help run his towns affairs.
We live in an age, where the lower the moral and ethical standard, the more likely you are to become the darling of the new age. We have been drawn by the ideological beliefs of those who have served their apprenticeships, within the cloistered walls of academia, into a world, of civil libertarians, opportunistic lawyers, politicians besotted and paralysed with the doctrine of those who control the world's financial resources and the machinations of the United Nations. Much of todays population have simply been marinated in the philosophy that accompanies these ideological changes wrought upon the citizens of this nation by the creeping nature of gradualism. Like a ticking clock, it moves so imperceptibly, that you don't actually see it happen. Nobody has developed the art better than the last four governments
We tend to idolise without understanding why. Many people worship the very ground that one time Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, walks on. Yet it was this man, more than any other in my opinion, who lay the ground work for the systematic eroding of Australia. Why, you may ask? Well that is a matter for another time, but there can be no doubt that since the advent of the Whitlam years, this country has seen the whittling away of our industries, our manufacturing, our once great farming prowess and the promulgation and emancipation of minority groups. We have been encouraged to embrace the benefits of Social Security, that was once the humanitarian face of compassion for the disadvantaged and the temporarily unemployed. Today the system coupled to a government, the sworn devotees of full employment, who have failed and failed miserably to tackle this social cancer, until today that system has become a three hundred and sixty five day Santa Claus to possibly two million people. We have become ritualised to the endless escalator that sees tens of thousands of our young people ground down by the monotony and fruitless pursuit of work. Should we be shocked when the futility of this begins to show up in crime, drugs and wanton vandalism. My generation, brought these kids into the world: they didn't ask to be brought in, yet we sit back and often berate these kids when things go wrong. Any day of the week on the Gold Coast, you can witness water-logged swamps, riding the endless waves. Some say they simply don't want to work, but had these kids been absorbed as my generation was into apprenticeships, careers and labour, then we would not have the lost generation, out there abandoned because the rest of us do not really care.
Pauline Hanson, I think, ....once alluded to the seemingly endless pit of Aboriginal funding. She asked a simple question; "where has the money gone, please account for it." Unless there is something to hide, why has the question not been answered.
If this is a legitimate question, then isn't it time that we called to account all those who are rorting the system. Come now, lets not hide behind some spurious charade and try to justify these outrageous claims on the `system." Lawyers whose services come gold plated, doctors, specialists, pathologists, anaesthetists, dentists, who write out chits and make available services, with the unprincipled morality, that the system, that faceless stockpile in the nations coffers, will pay for it. To those who sell their labour, irrespective of its quality, are regulated by the system, not for them the latitude of charge what you like. It is the likes of these people, the microcosm that is Ipswich who have finally had a gutful. Little wonder that when one of its daughters slipped out from behind a fish and chip counter and said enough, that people began to listen.
As if the political ideologists had not wrought enough mayhem, they have committed the most unforgivable sin of all. They have not only run down the industrial and manufacturing wealth of this country, but they have at the behest of the United Nation become signatories to conventions that have locked us into questionable immigration programs. The Asianisation of this country is wrong. It is wrong for Asians, it is wrong for Australians. The fact is that the advent of multi-cultures may well be a utopian concept, but this brings with it multi-religions and it is only a matter of time when religious conflict will evolve. For those who deride this notion, my answer is simple; what you have put in place will not incubate in your time, but future generations will reap the legacy of ill conceived immigration programs.
To this must be added the tremendous imposition of bolstering the unemployment figures. The indisputable fact remains that despite all the cries to the contrary, immigration means job depravation for our kids. One of the most often quoted cliches of my upbringing was that `charity begins at home.' Today Australia plays the worlds philanthropist to anyone that governments consider desirable. Given the penchant for the Asianisation of this country under Hawke and Keating, one must begin to question where loyalty to family begins. Call it what you like, racism, prejudice, anti-humanitarian or just plain common-sense, the fact remains that Pauline Hanson was right when she said that she maintained the right to say who came into her house. The difference, is that while the great majority of Australians believe she is right, few if any would say so publicly. It is from this silence that the minority prey. They interpret that silence as disapproval. It is not.
And of course, next to unemployment and immigration, comes the other great con job being perpetrated against the Australian people. The so-called plight of the so-called indigenous people of Australia. Perhaps it could only happen in Australia, but it seems to me as though the policy of black politics centres around the ethereal, that something that is privy to scrutiny from the old men and old women of their Palaeolithic past. They at least are honest enough to recognise that their tenure in this land can only be identified as the Dreamtime. But just as the quantitative properties of the Dreamtime cannot be measured, so too the question of Women's business remains more a matter of black politics, than the integrity of traditional practices.
Much of this destructive nonsense has I suspect, been aided and abetted by the machinations of the High Court. I find that from a layman's perspective the involvement of Jesuit Priest and Aboriginal lawyer Frank Brennan, in pre-trial garnering of material; the subsequent dealing of the Torres Strait Islander's complaint against the Queensland Government, the guiding of this deliberation to encompass the Aboriginal people and the subsequent judgment by a politically elected panel of judges, led by Chief Justice Brennan, Father Frank's Father, a matter of some concern. Given the legal mess that Mabo and Wik, have brought upon this nation. I believe the people have the right to not only be angry, but openly question the integrity of its High Court judges. Are we to be challenged and intimidated by questioning the unquestionable
These are some of the concerns of the ordinary people. These are some of the issues that are beginning to be aired, not because of any great shift of political leadership and commonsense, but because one woman had the collective guts of a nation of men and told it as it is.
How many politicians in the history of this nation, have inspired a movement, by the very strength of their personality. I put it to you, none. I also put it to you, that as a people, we cannot allow this modern day Joan of Arc, to become a martyr for a lost cause. We cannot and furthermore we will not. Nothing about Pauline Hanson, nor the movement, is conventional. At a most crucial and critical time in our history, you the people have been given the opportunity to take back what is rightfully yours, the right to control your own destiny.
We have been given a chance that we must seize with both hands. In an age when the politics of our two alternative governments, tend to merge to a point where there is no perceptible change in the hardship experienced by this nation of battlers, Pauline Hanson at least provides an avenue to renewed hope. That hope, that expectation can only come from the combined efforts and determination of its citizens. The Movement must become the catalyst for better Government and when the people realise and believe that they have the power by virtue of their vote to change the direction and welfare of this nation, Australia will begin to claw its way out of the hole that a generation of academic politicians have dug for us.
In closing let me say this. Whilst I accept the responsibility for creating the PHSM, I must give the real credit for the resolve to carry it out to my late father, Bill Whiteside. It was from a poem that he wrote fifty years ago that I took the courage and inspiration, to do it. Today, I dedicate this poem to his memory, by asking Pauline to accept it as the spark, that gave rise to the Movement, ...the work that gave me the strength to 'seize the moment.'
I AM FEAR!
I stand beside the statesmen
As in gilded council hall,
They plan a new world order
For the nations big and small;
I watch their grim, set, faces
Read the hopes within each heart,
Hear the lofty aims propounded
As each one speaks his part:
I see the documents they sign
For I am always near;
I am the background to their thoughts
The voice that whispers in each ear;
I am the shadow of History ...
I am Fear!
I shape the destinies of Nations
I breed Hate and Bitterness
I spread the Rumour and it grows
Helped by Radio and Press;
I speed the wheels of industry
In the race of armament
I sow the blood red seeds of war....
Of Greed and Discontent.
I march in the ranks of all men
From the vanguard to the rear,
A shadowy wrecker of Unity!
I am Fear!
I am the invisible horseman
Riding the highways of Time,
Blighting the lives of millions
In every age and clime;
For mine is a great and awful power
And many vic'tries be;
But I have often known defeat!
Courageous hearts spell Victory!
God planted in the soul of Man
A tiny vital spark
Which flaming to its fullness
Lights his pathway in the Dark!
Only the shining Light of Faith
Can strip me of my power;
I have fought it down the ages,
I will fight it to the hour,
When men of goodwill everywhere
Crossing the deadline of Doubt
Bearing the Banner of Brotherhood
Put my legions to the rout!
Man's faith in man and Faith alone
Can break my fatal power
For I am Fear ... and all I fear
Is Faiths Triumphant hour!
Whakatane, Nov. 4th 1947.
THANK YOU.