Launch of Pauline Hanson Support Movement by Bruce Whiteside
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I start this evening by asking a question; Is Pauline Hanson going to be buried by Aboriginal Community leaders, vocal immigrant leaders, queasy politicians and a hostile media, ......or is she going to be raised on the shoulders of the man in the street, to become a voice of the people? We either seize the moment now or we lose it. We either get behind Hanson and form a movement of support, or we do nothing and allow her be crucified.
We come together tonight because I believe that we share a common interest, ...essentially Australia's long term welfare. As prospective parents, parents and grandparents, we are conscious of the great need in this changing world, to leave a heritage of peace, harmony and security to our children. Many of us have deep concerns about this changing world and even deeper concerns about the way it is being managed here in Australia.
Nothing ever happens of itself, but rather by the way we make it happen. A community must, if we are to have any sense of direction, have leaders. In electing leaders we charge them with the responsibility of representing the common concerns of all the people. Those concerns should be honed on a very simple basis of the common sense. They are not. Bureaucrats, in their ivory towers do not know its meaning. They are the architects behind the politicians. It is they who shape our future. Ask a thousand people at random a given question and what you will nearly always find is a common thread of opinion. These are the manifestations of the ordinary man, not the sophistication of deep or academic thought.
When men, gather together around an idea, a philosophy, an ism is born. The result can become a political party, as it has in the past. These ideas are then sold by the party to gain acceptance or rejection. They are however a product for popular consumption.
In Australia, we really only have two political consumer options, two vehicles to carry our hopes and security. In essence they form a duopoly, we really do not have much choice. That duoply is the Liberal and Labor Party machinery. These powerful groups must win the minds of the masses if they are to stay in power. That is the name of the game. Every three years, depending on the margin of opportunity that may arise for political gain, we go to the polls. The politicians call it democracy. The public, cynically weary, are resigned to the situation. Once a party is elected, there is this belief, that it has a blanket mandate from the people. Unfortunately the winning of elections is usually about the rejection of governments in favour of a more palatable alternative.
As with any duopoly, the temptation often leads to a cartel, the interchange of ideas, the blurring of policies designed with retaining the status quo, the `old boys club'. Parliament becomes a comfortable institution, a career; if you play the game right and if you are a favoured son or daughter, you can sit on a `safe seat', perhaps gain a ministry and retire with a golden handshake. Locally, Moncrieff and McPherson are two such seats. All this at the expense of the enduring tax-payer. Even the tax burden is dependent on which philosophical party happens to have their hands on the reigns government.
This is the system we have earned. We have earned it because essentially we do nothing about changing it. We are not happy about it, but we endure it waiting for something better to come along.
We watch as millions of dollars are poured into the abyss, that is Aboriginal funding. We see nothing for it, other than copiously rewarded commissioners, councillors and boards. We watch as even more money is dispensed on underpinning a welfare system, that returns little or nothing to the common good. We watch as the doctrine of social justice supports everyone from beach bums to solo mothers, from new immigrants to detained boat people. We watch as our home-grown industries are sold off to foreign interests as research and development funds are decimated . We allow our self evaluated statesmen to sign international agreements, that commit our people to contracts they know absolutely nothing of. We watch as communities build in this country that sees trends developing that are foreign to our accepted way of life. We watch as strange new religions manifest in what is essentially a Christian country. We watch as the experiment of multi-culturalism, begins to spawn disturbing consequences. We watch and listen as minority interests play an ever increasing part in the development and direction of Australia. We watch and listen as our media, also largely duopoly controlled, mirrors the philosophy of governments. We loose sight of the power of the media, for through it we are daily bombarded with political correctness, political commentaries and a plethora of socio/political commentators, who have come up through a socialist indoctrinated education system. Like it or not the thinking of much of what we absorb has been marinated in a philosophical cauldron. We watch, too inhibited by fear to stand up for what we believe in. We watch as mischievous messages are sent to the public, indicating that any discussion on immigration is having a negative impact on our trade and near neighbour relationships. I have stark memories of the vilification that I received from the politicians and businessmen, when I spoke out on foreigners buying up freehold land. That was suppose to gut our trade with Japan and devastate the tourist industry. It never happened then, it won't happen now. Fear and intimidation are the tools these people employ. The fact is that it has taken a slip of a woman, to show us the true meaning of conviction, of strength and of courage.
The general election, held earlier in the year, if we stop to think about it, has been a water-shed for much of this ingrained discontent. The Liberal Party was not elected because it provided a way out of the country's woes. John Howard is no Moses. What the people voted on was the rejection of not so much a Labor Government, but rather where it and more pointedly its leaders were taking us. The forays into the Asianisation of Australia, the turning of the country into a republic, the concerted effort to denigrate the long established association with the monarchy and most of all the perceived attitude that the politicians, know what is best for us, were ever frightening to say the least. The mounting dole queues, the superficial job creation, the fudging of unemployment figures to cushion the reality, the real lack of imaginative and constructive ideas to give jobs and some real self-esteem to our young people, have all added to the public discontent.
We watched and listened as the disputation that the people of the Torres Straits island of Mur, had with the Queensland Government, was brilliantly manipulated by the High Court of Australia, to address the political guilt that was deemed to be bourn on the shoulders of present day Australians. Mabo is political, it is not about the privations of Australia's presumed original people. Whatever the `high ideals', behind all this Mabo business, only one thing is certain; protracted litigation from the local courts to the highest in the land will reap millions of dollars for lawyers. The Mabo egg, is a golden egg. I put it to you,..... If the High Court was ruling on who owned this country, why did it not examine the question of Aboriginal Sovereignty? The answer is simple. To have arrived at that conclusion would have been to deny its own legitimacy. If as is often argued, we disfranchised the Aborigine, then what is law, if the law-maker is part of the process of disfranchisement. We took this land by conquest; we took it because as Professor Blainey says, the Aborigines could not, or more correctly did not defend it.
The same mob that took this country from the Aborigines, took New Zealand from the Maori.. These `politically underprivileged and dispossessed people'. Well let me tell you something about the so-called indigenous people of New Zealand, to whom I have the greatest respect .
He was a warrior. He stood up and fought the European invasion. He forced a Treaty by the strength of his character, but most of all he earned respect and was accepted as a New Zealander. I grew up in a town called Whakatane where 40% of the population were Maori; we were brother and sister, we never knew the word racism.
Along came the socialist philosophies, the socialist scholars, the socialist education....in the sixties and seventies. Our Universities became hotbeds of the new enlightened age. No longer was hard work fashionable, the dogma of the utopian humanitarian dream, deemed it right for governments of the future to become a national philanthropic paymaster. New Zealand became the home to thousands of Pacific Islanders; with them came unemployment, disillusionment, social unrest and finally the misplaced `addressing of previous injustices, land claims and fishery claims,' to the indigenous Maori. Yet through all this political nonsense of deprivation of New Zealand's `so-called' indigenous people, not one person rose to suggest that the nations original people the Moriori were hunted and cannibalised to extinction. I make the point, what matters is not the past, but as Pauline Hanson says, the future.
We further stand by and watch as economic rationalism is exercised on one hand, whilst millions of dollars are squandered on the other. We watch as our leaders preach austerity for the people whilst they slink off into retirement with millions of dollars of self granted emoluments. It is the era of the two million dollar men.
Is there any wonder we are gathered here tonight.
Hanson has mirrored the things that gnaw away at ordinary Australians; she has reflected the concerns of the majority, over the self serving interests of the minority. She has thrown down the gauntlet to the social engineers and the ideologist and threatened their ivory towers. For having the guts to stand up and sound the alarm bells she has been condemned to political isolation. Only the people, can remove her from this politically inspired Coventry, only the people can change the course of history. We stand or fall behind this modern day Joan of Arc. In an environment, incubated on the fear of speaking out, the only deterrent to bringing about change is the fear of fear itself. There is no good point served if the majority of people, are too frightened of man made restraints, to allow themselves to be governed by the distorted intellect of the few. Had a similar climate of fear not prevailed in Europe in the early thirties, Hitler and the reign of terror that followed would never have taken place. Unless the destiny of this nation is wrested from those who believe that our future lies with pandering to the big `A', Aborigines and Asians, then Hanson's prophetic statement may well come home to haunt us I reiterate that the only weapon the people have against this denigration of the Australia that was built on largely Anglo-Celtic initiative, resolve and determination, is the power to strike back. It should not be our lot to be intimidated by Aboriginal, Ethnic, union or political leaders. The time to call a spade a spade has dawned. The momentum for a change of direction must not be lost. We can and we will do it, if we put our mind to it. No better example is needed than Pauline Hanson who has wrong-footed every politician, every ethnic leader, every Aboriginal councillor and every teachers union boss. They simply do not know what to do. They are not scared of what she can do alone, what terrifies them is the forces she can harness. We my friends are those forces.
Originally elected as the anointed Liberal candidate for the blue ribbon Labor seat of Oxley, Pauline Hanson erred. She dared to raise the nemesis of John Howard, the spectre of politically motivated racism that had crucified him in the past. The Liberal hierarchy saw the ghost of 1990 and 1993 and panicked. The very fact that she was reflecting the general consensus of her people was irrelevant. The Party immediately disfranchised her and threw her to the wolves. Now, given this was never a winnable seat for Howard, the chances for an Independent were too long on odds to ever contemplate. When Pauline Hanson was elected against those odds, it became abundantly clear that she won the goodwill of the people. Labor Party loyalty is not easy to dislodge, yet in spite of the `so called', political incorrectness and racist label, the people of Oxley voted for her. That cannot be easily dismissed. The importance of the message, unpalatable to the conventional policies of both the major parties, is there for all to see. It was no accident of the local demography, for both Bob Katter, in the north, and Graeme Campbell in the west, speaking the same language, increased their majorities. If this alone was not conclusive enough, then the most humiliating defeat of all was that of Robert Tickner, the former Minister of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Perhaps it is no accident either that his handling of Mabo and the Women's business fiasco, were factors in his record defeat. There is no doubt that the Labor Government provided a discriminatory taxpayer funded political platform for this aspect of Australian society. The media has been besotted with Aboriginal leaders to a point where one can be forgiven for believing that there are more `Aborigine leaders than Aborigines.' We have watched too as ethnic leaders have responded to the government line, always attacking our `politically perceived racism.' Given that the majority of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants come to this country to become Australian citizens, this propensity for `ethnic leaders' to speak for all their people, branding as they do anyone who questions the level of immigration, as automatically being racist, is an affrontery to those whose ancestors built this nation. Most come here to become Australians, not to perpetuate what they, by choice, left behind.
Perhaps these concerns were running through Pauline Hanson's mind as she stepped forward to deliver her maiden speech.
Imagine, for a moment rising to speak, your first speech in this intimidating chamber, the House of Representatives. Normally the courtesy of attendance and silence are extended as a matter of form. Not only that, but it sits well with the great Australian ethos of `a fair go." Its a grand sentiment, its virtues forever being extolled by none less than the Prime Minister, himself. Normally a maiden speech is accompanied by this ritual, this accepted convention. You are nervous and as well as the speech you are about to deliver, hovering in the background of your thoughts the immediate serious health concerns of a loved one.
This was the lot of Pauline Hanson. Gone were the courtesies of convention. What fronted her was a virtual empty chamber. Absent were those we elect to listen to what our new representative had to say . Where was that magnificent Australian ethos of ` a fair go?' Where in fact was the Prime Minister? Where were all his colleagues who only weeks before had welcomed her to their bosoms? Where was the Father of the sentiment of a fair go? They had judged, drawn and quartered her before she spoke. They had closed ranks and instigated the policy of political isolation. They wanted the safe ground, the non-controversial ground. They wanted nothing to hurt their public perceptions. Gutless man, gutless women aided and abetted by a voracious gutless media.
Pauline Hanson, dropped a bomb-shell. She threw away the parliamentary rule book and committed a cardinal sin. She voiced the thoughts of the man in the street. She gave him a voice. In the eyes of the parliament, of the ethnic leaders, of the Aborigines, of those who have been philosophically indoctrinated with political correctness, Pauline Hanson is the doyenne of their perceived image of racism. They can hide behind her, nurturing her sentiments, happy in the knowledge that nobody will suspect them. She is the catalyst that can be pilloried to stifle debate, she is their bunny to be crucified. Well we've got news for them, an army is about to come to her aid. In the eyes of the man in the street she has become their Moses, their darling. Pauline Hanson has ventured where men have feared to tread and lifted the pall of social inequity that has bedevilled Australians for too long. Now, the machinery of the intimidation of free speech, namely the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, the arm of anti-political correctness and child of the socialist doctrine, has summons her to the high court of moral indignation. Their aim is simple. Stop her, the system demands it.
Tonight we are gathered here because we believe in what Pauline Hanson is fighting for . Not anti-Aboriginal, not anti-immigration, but simply pro-Australian. Unlike the rest of us, she was not prepared to sit back and whinge, but get up and do something about it. The sooner ordinary people take on the spirit that Pauline has displayed, the better off we'll all be. I challenge you tonight, to abandon inaction and form this army of support for Pauline.
In a recent in-depth interview with Channel Nine's Today program, I was asked, quote: " If Pauline Hanson, has so much public support for her cause, why Mr Whiteside, does she need a support group as you are proposing?' My reply was simple. "When 5% of the population has 80% of the ear of radio, television and print medium, then what chance does Pauline Hanson have? The interviewer then asked what my stance was on immigration. Annoyingly for her I played around with the question. Predicably she became a little piqued. `You no doubt have no problems with English, Scottish or New Zealand immigrants, but what is your attitude to ASIAN immigration. Because she categorised the question, specifying Asian as distinct from immigration I then pointed out it was specifically that attitude that saw the need to stand behind Pauline Hanson. She then apologised for playing the `devil's advocate.' No I said, that is the nature of the media ...to lead and crucify". Remember that it is very seldom, except in the case of high profile politicians do interviewers disclose what their questions will be. A slip of the tongue a hesitant reply, is blown up into a national calamity. Two lines of a maiden speech, provide the axe and block for the executioner.
Many will not have read or seen Hanson's maiden parliamentary speech, least of all those who have been her most strident critics. The media are continually negative, to the point where they lack objectivity. Hanson is painted as anti immigration and anti Aboriginal. Hanson is painted as racist. That is the cry of the celebrated media, not all, but most. Courier-Mail feature writer Heather Brown, suspects that racism has little to do with the current debate. The issues are more complex than that. I have to say, that I agree.
But what did Pauline Hanson actually say? I quote:
"Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals. Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the inequalities that are being promoted by the government and paid for by the taxpayer under the assumption that the Aboriginals are the most disadvantaged people in Australia. "
I put it to you, nothing in that statement remotely resembles racism. What it does resemble is a statement of pragmatism. I further put it to you that the Australian media are so besotted with their own agenda, I doubt very much whether they have the intellectual capacity to distinguish between the two.
Once again I quote:
"I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multi-culturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40% of all migrants coming to Australia were of Asian origin."
The Macquarie dictionary defines `multiculturism', as ; the theory that that it is beneficial to a society to maintain more than one culture within its structure. We have something like 143 different nationalities. Multi-cultural, on the other hand pertains to a society which embraces a number of minority cultures. Given the politically guilt ridden pre-occupation with who owns this country and who will own it, Pauline Hanson's comments it seems to me are long over-due. Anglo-Celtic in the main created this nation, not to hand it over to those who are modern-day free-loaders and discontents from abroad. People do not come to Australia, because they are leaving something better behind. They come here to better themselves, not to tell us what is best for us. If you want to be Australian, them get in the middle. If we need to pander to the proponents of populate or perish , then let us think about the 78,000 really disadvantaged Australians who are flushed down the sewers each year. If ever discrimination was practised then this has to be the ultimate hypocrisy. We shed crocodile tears over Asian family reunions, whilst denying the unborn, the chance. We should hang our collective heads in shame. We don't deserve to survive as a nation. Where do our loyalties lie?
If anybody was disadvantaged in the history of this country, then surely it was some of our early pioneers. Many had to shake off the shackles before they could start building this nation, but built it they did.
Hanson was right, let us ask the questions that send politicians running for cover. Let us challenge the sacred cows, let us challenge the immigration, the Aboriginal, the defence and employment programs. Let the government tell us that a stint of Military training for our young men, is counter-productive. Anything that helps build self-esteem and disapline, is money well spent. Employing, the unemployed on public works, on reafforestation, on soil degradation and a hundred and one projects that need to be carried out, makes sense. It can be done, if we have the will.
So it is we come here tonight to help form a national support group for a lady who strangely for a politician has put the interests of people before herself. If we don't support her, then we do not deserve the right to be heard. Remember this situation has arisen because the people have been taken for granted for too long. Sooner or later the Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, view of the world was bound to founder. The final irony was that it founded on a slip of a girl, from a blue ribbon Labor strong-hold. The Labor ghost of the past would be proud of her.
Finally in closing I wish to make two definitive statements. This proposed organisation will not speak for Pauline Hanson, rather it speaks in defence of her. The views and actions of the new organisation, will not reflect the policies of the member for Oxley, nor should it be seen as a platform for any future development of a party. It is not. Pauline Hanson, is singularly independent, she is singularly determined. She is acutely aware of the responsibility she carries, firstly to the people of her electorate and on the broader horizon for the Australian people. Whilst there are moves afoot by another Independent to form a political party and approaches have been made to her Pauline has absolutely no intention of becoming involved with any party, old or new. The Pauline Hanson Support Movement is to be an independent expression of the people's appreciation of an honest politician; one who stands up for the people, not the dictates of doctrine or philosophy of a party, but the logic of common-sense ...., not racism, but pragmatism.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have been given the chance to turn our country around. The policies of the last twenty years have gutted this nation. They simply are not working. The truth is that we are so far in debt, that we cannot afford even trade out of it in the forseeable future. We are in trouble. Someone once said that by 1990, no child would live in poverty. Unless
we take heed and listen, it won't be long before most of us will be living in poverty. Pauline Hanson stands like a beacon warning us of the dangers ahead. She does not stand alone with these views, but unless we rise to the challenge and form an army behind her, then we will lose what our forebears, worked, fought and died for.
I will now hand over to our Chairman for tonight , Mr Paul Trewartha, to acquaint you with our aims and how we mean to achieve them.
Thank you.
10/10/96