Saturday 17th May 1997
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Pauline Hanson's One Nation Official home page.One would be excused for considering that the announcement to close down BHP's steelworks at Newcastle and the resulting substantial rise in the company's share price was timed to perfection for the benefit of a senior employee.
The chairman of BHP, Brian Loton, who holds a massive shareholding in the company, retired on Friday the day before his 68th birthday. He can now cash in his chips as if we had hit the jackpot at a casino.
What about the steelworks that he once trained in? Well about 2,500 workers will lose their jobs there before the year 2000.
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday stepped up pressure on the Reserve Bank to reduce interest rates based on a projected inflation rate of just 2% in Australia over the next 12 months.
The Prime Minister is battling to sell his budget - and an interest rate cut would make life a lot easier for him right now.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Indonesia's English-language newspaper "The Observer" yesterday called on Prime Minister John Howard to act "before Hanson's racist theories adversely affect Australia's relations with countries in the region".
To support the point (about the pot) - you try and establish a sizeable business in that country without having first to do a deal with the Suharto family and you will be one lucky investor.
And on racism - just ask the people ther how they are treated.....
But the article, under the heading: Hanson will haunt Australia, suggests Indonesians should take a closer look at Hanson saying,
"It makes us sad to realise... there are still people in Australia nurtured on the discarded racist theories held that some people are superior to others.
"She holds dangerous views. These views have been blamed for a rising number of racial attacks on Asians in the country.
"We would like to call on the large majority of understanding Australians to do something about this before fears rise in Asia that Australia remains a racist country despite its promotion of multiculturalism that followed the dismantling of the policy of accepting only European immigration. This was only about 25 years ago."
Former Governor General Bill Hayden took a few swipes of his own at Hanson yesterday while the media gathered around in a feel good setting where indigenous people "clucked around" him.
Later he was the shown on national television sitting on the porch of his acreage home overlooking the Wivenhoe dam like the proverbial wizened old political elder.
Speaking to the media Hayden said that he was shocked at the amount of support that Hanson had generated "with all these simple little slogans of prejuduce".
"I have come out in the hope that I can make some contribution to have her defeat in the next election," he told the ABC's 7.30 Report.
The Prime Minister's office has refused to give details, but today's planned public meeting by the Prime Minister at Longreach has caused the entire region to be booked out with over 1,000 graziers expected to attend. It is expected that the meeting will be noisy - with the Prime Minister facing some of the action recently reserved for launches of the One Nation Party.
Speaking about Howard's visit Queensland State Premier Rob Borbidge said, "The Prime Minister has completely underestimated the angst and the rage and the sense of betrayal there is across rural Queensland."
The Graingrowers president Ian Macfarlane said that Wik was a watershed for the National Party but the Prime Minister had, so far, "ground the Nationals into the dust".
"If we don't win the Wik issue in the next few days then the issue will be lost and I would say so will the National Party.
"If the National Party is not seen to be able to deliver, then there will be a question mark in rural areas as to what we have the National Party there for at all," he said.
Anybody viewing Stuart Littlemore`s `Media Watch` A.B.C. 12th May, might well have imagined they had somehow been transported back in time to the era of the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem Witch Hunt. Here was a supposedly unprejudiced reporter devoting almost his entire program to the character assassination and revilement of an independant M.P. whose only crime is that she wants all Australians, irrespective of creed or colour, to take pride in their country.
Littlemore became so engrossed in malediction and feeding his prejudices on a smear campaign that his whole face became suffused with hate. I waited for him to recover his sanity or at least get on to another subject but it was not to be. Denigration of Pauline Hanson obsessed the man to the exclusion of anything else. On and on Littlemore raved long after everyone of his unbiased audience had switched off. I lapsed into a coma in which the spite filled face of a malevolent Chesire cat gradually faded into littlemore than a snarling rectum.
I have always been a fan of Auntie`s but if this was a sample of what the A.B.C. considered to be unbiased reporting then my sympathies towards the present funding cuts have been sadly and drastically diminished. At a time when the Australian media has joined in a conspiracy of negation or silence against a free speaking individual we do not require our last bastion of independence to support this kind of biased intolerance.
Come to your senses, Stuart, and listen to what Pauline has to say rather than support the insidious, capitalistic propaganda you are paid to expose.
Bill
Balmy... have a great day.
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