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an Aussie's viewpoint on Australia's
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Since
October 1995
On the inside of One Nation trivia
We hear that the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline is currently following One Nation deputy
leader, Ian Petersen, candidate for the
state seat
of Gympie around.
During their travels they interviewed 20 people on the trot in Gympie. Turns
out they were all going to vote for One Nation.....
Chris Savage One Nation's candidate in the state seat of Callide tells us that an extensive poll carried out by the party reveals that 65% of the primary vote is expected to be for One Nation.
Channel 10's survey of four marginal seats has revealed that One Nation will probably win them - two from the Nationals (Gympie and Barambah) and two from the ALP (Hervey Bay and Maryborough).
An informed political journalist at The Courier Mail (who will remain nameless) told me that the word is that One Nation will win between 9 and 22 seats at the State Election on 13th June 1998.
A first for News Limited's Courier Mail
It would appear, based on history, that News Limited's Courier Mail Chief of Staff was sick last night as a pro-Hanson's One Nation article somehow sneaked through.
The article by Christine Jackman headed "Forgotten folk flex their muscles for family values" reads as follows:
Late last year community
worker Heather Hill went to see her local MP, Pauline Hanson, with a long
list of grievances about government inaction within the Ipswich area.
Ms Hill, previously "very much a Labor voter", had first met Ms Hanson shortly after the controversial candidate was disendorsed by the Liberal Party during the 1996 Federal campaign.
Heather Hill with Pauline Hanson
after being nominated in January 1998
She kept in touch with Ms Hanson after being impressed by "what her values were, the fact that she could listen, and could talk openly and honestly about what was going on in this community", but by November 1996 Ms Hanson had apparently had enough.
"I went to see her with my grievances and she looked me in the eye and said, 'Heather it's time you put up or shut up'," Ms Hill recalled yesterday.
"She said, 'You're qualified. It's time you did something yourself for the community'."
So Ms Hill put up in January, she agreed to become a One Nation candidate for the pending state election.
Four months later, she was state leader of the party.
It has been
a rapid rise to prominence, requiring the Hill family to learn the art of
media management on the run.
This week, while Ms Hill and husband Ken were trailed by cameras for A Current Affair 16 year old daughter Hayley juggled phone inquiries at home. The Hills believe they are typical of a large group of mainstream Australians who feel they have been forgotten by the big parties or taken for granted.
Family values - the One Nation platform.
Ken and Heather Hill
"Chasing minority voters, chasing marginal seats - that is where the major parties have become derailed," Ms Hill said.
Ostensibly, they are what used to be known as good people. The kind you could trust to watch your kids while you went shopping, who would happily collect the mail and the papers and feed the dog while you were on holiday.
Mr Hill would
probably whip over and do the lawn as well.
It is the transfer of the loyalties of people like the Hills to One Nation that has the major parties worried.
No one really wants to believe folks like this are so disenchanted with conventional politicians they would place their trust in an embryonic and much maligned third force.
The Chinese community have been at the
centre of
disinformation against One Nation.
So the temptation is to search for clues that would expose another, more sinister side to One Nation's softly spoken state leader. Ms Hill says you won't find one.
Instead she says she is simply, unashamedly pro-family and is sick of parties that campaign on a family values platform but fail to match their words with meaningful policies.
"Under our policies, indigenous people who are most in need will not be worse off - they will probably receive more funding," she said.
"But no one should be putting their hands out based on race.
"And with immigration, we are looking to bring people in who have job skills, not very disadvantaged people who need significant funding to move them into mainstream Australia. We can't afford that."
Liberal preferences to One Nation upsets the Chinese
I personally find it very irritating when the papers claim that the Chinese represent the ethnic vote. This they do not. The Chinese represent the Chinese community. The latest publicity thrust by the Queensland Chinese Forum (QCF) says that the Liberal's decision to put One Nation above the ALP on their "How to Vote" card is "repugnant".
QCF spokesman Chek Ling said that the Coalition seemed to be willing to throw away "noble and civilising influences" of society to further its political ends.
It was the Chinese who bleated the loudest when Heather Hill revealed that she would close down the Eliminate Ethnic and Multicultural Affairs from Premier's Department and save Au$2.7 million in her family policy.
When Mrs Hill heard this she replied, "If the Chinese believe that they are Australians then they should be pleased because they have families and this is where the additional money will be directed."
ATSIC's south east Queensland chairwoman, Patricia Thompson, said the decision was "absolutely disgraceful" for the Coalition to support Hanson "I think it is the first time the Coalition is being really honest... that is, it supports Pauline Hanson's views."
Of course Patricia Thompson has a lot to lose when One Nation hold the balance of power. Not only is she very much part of what Pauline refers to as the "ATSIC Mafia" she has 5 members of her family working within the Ipswich Aboriginal Legal Service - getting about Au$200,000 per annum in tax payer paid salary packages.
Talk about vested interests and nepotism!
New Weekly - May 20 raises the truth behind the GST
The latest News Weekly raises an interesting insight into "Howard's GST policy". The truth is it isn't Howard's policy at all. It is the policy of big business... the multinationals... who will be left out of the GST loop - and escape paying tax as the burden is shifted more and more onto the poor.
The Australians that Heather Hill is talking about above.
Here are some extracts from the article headed: "IMF chief reveals its new agenda":
"So what does the IMF recommend for Australia? During a recent visit its managing director Michael Camdessus said: "Tax reform must address the problems of a narrow and eroding tax base for indirect taxes and the relatively high income tax rates on middle income earners. Therefore priority should be given to broadening the tax base, including by introducing a VAT type (ie a GST) tax on goods and services, and lowering marginal tax rates."
It goes on:
Mr Camdessus neither referred to the erosion of the direct tax base, nor
mentioned the 60% of multinationals (including Australian multinationals)
pay no Australian income tax, and the bulk of the remainder who pay very
little.
and...
The IMF is now considering extending its powers to intervene in the running of national economies, an agenda well beyond its original charter to oversee fixed interest rates and provide short term loans to ensure currency stability."
And while Australian jobs disappear and the new world order takes over Australia the dumbos in parliament say that this is "unstoppable"... well I and a growing number of Australians say it isn't.... roll on One Nation.
Even though just off the news is the statement that "big" business (read multinationals) are going to throw millions of dollars into an advertising campaign supporting a GST - saving them from the tax burden! Talk about vested interests!
ALP state leader Peter Beattie changes his stance on Wik.
Well, well, well, here is the man who claims to be squeaky clean, Peter Beattie, dancing to the One Nation tune.... Beattie, who was the parliamentary chairman of the CJC between 1989 and 1992 - at the height of "Shreddergate" already has a tarnished image despite his calls for the "Coalition to be accountable"...
Now, in the latest developments, Beattie says that he will accept the Federal Government's ten point plan after previously saying that he never would.
"If in the unlikely event that John Howard does get re-elected, and does get his 10 point plan into law, we would have to work with that legislation - flawed though it is," Beattie said yesterday.
"We would not hold up the consequent state legislation because that would just extend the uncertainty that has already gone on for too long."
Rob Borbidge said last night that Beattie was "bowing to the inevitable" as the "B" team continue to eat away at each other like a cancer on the television screen night after night.
"Is he really saying he is a closet supporter of the 10 point plan because he knows Queenslanders, by an overpowering majority, support it? The real question for Mr Beattie is whether he continues to support Labor's loopy alternative."
Patricia Thompson, ATSIC's south east Queensland chairwoman says that she is "disturbed" by the shift in Beattie's stance.
Making the
news" -
Subject: 'Fight discrimination, stamp out belief!'
According to Allan Jones the Red Cross no longer says prayers because to do so would "discriminate as to the nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions of individuals".
According to that view, holding and practising a belief somehow 'discriminates' against those who don't share it. It follows that the only way NOT to discriminate is to abandon the belief or its practice, which the Red Cross has done.
But practising a belief could only be 'discrimination' if there were other beliefs. What about those beliefs? Don't they amount to 'discrimination' too, including against the Red Cross? By the Red Cross' own reasoning, absolutely. The only way to eliminate 'discrimination' would be to ban the practise of all beliefs. But we couldn't do that. That really would be discrimination on the grounds of belief.
So we have to be content with the bizarre spectacle of the Red Cross discriminating against itself. Some blow for tolerance!
Graham Strachan.
Subject: Comments on Australian News of the Day Dear Sir,
I have just read the articles by Terry Sweetman, Courier Mail, on One Nation preferences. Intellectual prostitute is probably too kind a description for this vacuous guttersnipe.
What stands out in glaring fashion, when reading these diatribes, is the obvious contempt that people like him have for the Democratic process.
So used are they to the good old days when they could trundle out any old bullshit to mis-inform and mis-lead the public, their bad old ways are merely exposing themselves for the charlatans that they are.
These days, Terry old son, we have access to the Internet , and independent publications like this one , who are not afraid of the truth or in reporting it , as it happens.
Sweetman and his ilk are so used to cramming their own agendas down peoples throats that they fail to recognise basic democratic actions and movements, when they occur, seeing them as a problem to be "overcome " by some good ole public relations shenanigans. Just pile on the invective , add lashings of emotive economics and stir well with a dash or two of cultural conditioning.
Used to work very well , and would keep most of those pesky voters well fed and happy, if any of them started muttering about the tucker!
So much for Democracy and its foundations ,courtesy Terry Sweetman and Co.
One Nations colossal growth over the past year or so is nothing short of a political revolution for this country. Just as years of corruption ,nepotism ,cronyism and economic mis-management in Indonesia has come tumbling down around an unresponsive despots ears, so the people of Australia are waking up to the Suharto's in this country(,easily identified by their steadfast support of the old crim.)
Sweetmans pathetic response?.........It's just an image thing! Democracy? Bah!
Regards
Steve Nichols
Subject: I found this written by Laurie Oakes at Ninemsn
Contagious bigotry threatens the
nation
Gympie and Barambah are the seats always mentioned in dispatches, but that is because they are the only ones for which published polling is available.
If those two seats are vulnerable, then so are a swag of others which have not been polled in any detail, seats like Crows Nest, Warrego, Callide and Warwick.
All are National Party strongholds on the basis of previous election results, but with One Nation polling so strongly in provincial Queensland they are no longer safe.
There is a very real chance that the June 13 election will see One Nation holding the balance of power in the Queensland Parliament. Even Labor preferences may not be enough to save them for the National Party. And, with National Party preferences likely to go to One Nation ahead of the ALP, the Labor-held seats of Hervey Bay and Maryborough could also fall to followers of Pauline Hanson.
So the major parties’ alarm about Hanson and her growing support in the Sunshine State is eminently understandable.
Given that One Nation is taking two-thirds of its vote from the Coalition parties, the pre-election fears of National Party Premier Rob Borbidge are obviously well founded.
But his strategy of striking hardline right-wing attitudes himself in a bid to woo back voters attracted by Hanson’s bigotry and populist rhetoric seems to have been unsuccessful.
Despite what the odd psephologist might say, there is a very real chance that the June 13 election will see One Nation holding the balance of power in the Queensland Parliament.
What that would mean for stable government is not hard to imagine. It would spook investors. And Queensland would again become the redneck state, the butt of countless southern jokes.
Labor strategists are no less alarmed than their Coalition counterparts, but they also recognise possible opportunity in the midst of confusion created by the One Nation upsurge.
They see a chance to harvest “soft” Liberal Party votes in Queensland’s southeastern corner. This explains the recent manoeuvring over how the major parties will react in the event that One Nation does hold the balance.
Labor leader Peter Beattie is quite unequivocal. Under no circumstances, he says, will his party be beholden to One Nation. If the post-election balance rests with the Hansonites, Labor will not even try to form a government, Beattie promises.
Borbidge rules out going into coalition with One Nation and says he will make no deals with them — but he does not exclude the possibility of governing with their support.
Nor does Liberal leader and deputy premier Joan Sheldon. There’s the rub.
Labor can now go after voters in and around Brisbane who would normally vote Liberal but who find One Nation distasteful, even frightening.
It will pose the question: “Do you want a government beholden to One Nation?”
In the Joh Bjelke-Petersen days Labor used to get between 20 percent and 30 percent of Liberal preferences.
There were, in other words, many moderate Liberal supporters who preferred Labor to the Nationals.
Those same voters are likely to find the idea of a government dependent on One Nation quite repugnant. That, at any rate, is what the ALP is banking on.
Howard's refusal to show leadership on the One Nation preferences issue smacks more of political cowardice than opportunism.
While this sort of discussion is confined largely to state politics at the moment, it will quickly become a federal issue if One Nation does well in the Queensland poll.
There is no reason why people who vote for One Nation in the state election would not do the same at the federal level.
If One Nation manages to win state seats in Queensland, it is hard to see why federal seats in that state would not also be vulnerable.
The causes of disillusionment with major party politicians will be just as strong — perhaps more so — in a federal election. Issues like gun control and native title will be even more potent.
And evidence of the Coalition playing footsie with One Nation in Queensland will be exploitable by Labor, not just in Brisbane, but among urban voters in other states as well.
It is possible, of course, that the One Nation threat will dissipate as the Queensland election campaign progresses and voters are forced to look closely at the consequences for their state of electing Hansonite candidates.
That is to be fervently hoped for, but if it does not happen, those Coalition politicians who failed to take on Hanson in the past — and who, through that failure, gave her credibility — will have themselves to blame.
The prime minister, as chief offender, will bear particular responsibility. It came as no surprise last week when Hanson praised Howard and proclaimed him a “gentleman”.
He has certainly been gentle with her. And he is still giving aid and comfort to this haven of bigots, racists and gun-nuts by insisting that the question of whether One Nation gets Liberal preferences should be left up to state branches of the party. Howard’s refusal to show leadership and insist that One Nation should be placed last on Liberal how-to-vote cards smacks more of political cowardice than opportunism.
Apart from anything else, he seems to have forgotten some of the things which helped him to win office in 1996.
Before that election, Howard went to great lengths to get ethnic voters on side. What he gained then has largely been lost again as a result of his gentlemanly approach to Hanson.
The Chinese community, in particular, is making no secret of the fact that the Liberals can probably now kiss goodbye its votes and its money.
But even if Howard is not particularly sensitive on matters of race, he might have been expected to react when One Nation unveiled a policy to introduce lifetime gun licences, scrap registration of rifles and reinstate access to semiautomatic and military-style weapons for members of gun clubs — a policy which flies in the face of the uniform national gun laws Howard proudly put in place after the Port Arthur massacre.
Law-abiding gun owners had been treated like criminals and “convicted without trial for political purposes”, Hanson proclaimed. In response to this rabid nonsense, the prime minister uttered not a peep.
Steve
Laurie Oates is a toad - in looks, views and ethics.
Editor
Subject: Comments on Australian News of the Day
I was thinking about the "Sorry Day". I was wondering why I should have to apologise on behalf of my ancestors. Then I thought about all the Aboriginal people I know who are not direct descendants of indigenous people.
Do they have to apologise to themselves because of what their white blood ancestors done????
After all, a person can be 1/16th Aboriginal decent and 15/16ths Anglo decent and still be Aboriginal. Does he have to apologise to himself?????
Can someone please explain?
S.E. Wagger
Subject: Preference Voting
I have always been a Liberal supporter until the Liberals let us "middle class white working Australians after being given a clear mandate for change from the Labor party.
One Nation deserves to be given preference over Labor as most of us One Nation voters will be placing Liberal as a preference over Labor.
Fair Go Little Johnny, you will shoot your party down by supporting Labor with preference votes.
DEAN WESTBURY
Subject: xenophobia
thanks to your public embarrassment a lot of Australians now know what xenophobic means (including me).
try not to let the media crud and the pollies get you down. i truly believe a lot of ordinary Australians are sick of political correctness killing our country.
be strong.
you have more support than you know in Newcastle nsw than you probably know.
good luck...
Phil lynch
Subject: Comments on Australian News of the Day
Dear Sir,
what fantastic gains Pauline Hansons One Nation is making, as voters realise the con job that the two B's (B1 and B2)! are pulling.
They are now falling over themselves in the effort to find the light switch.
They will both be found to be suffering various ailments , with heavy internal bleeding likely at any moment, as a result of repeated tumbles down the stairs of credibility.
Frequent about turns in the dark , while groping wildly for support not there, WILL lead to nasty falls and collisions, .......somebody should tell them!
Tweedle dum and tweedle dee, play duelling banjo's, out of key. They yell and shout and stamp their feet..."why cant you all just get it right?" The show gets better every night!
Pauline Hanson is standing tall through all this subterfuge
and division . She does not waver . Her stance is known ,her policy clear,
her support is stronger, she is not afraid to speak her mind because she
knows she speaks for us. We will back her all the way.
Best wishes
T Benge
Subject: Re: Pauline Hanson
I have taken the liberty of quoting the following verse published in The West Australian newspaper by another Pauline Hanson supporter:-
"TO KNOW HOW TO SAY WHAT OTHERS ONLY KNOW HOW TO THINK IS WHAT MAKES MEN POETS OR SAGES; TO DARE TO SAY WHAT OTHERS ONLY DARE TO THINK MAKES MEN (OR WOMEN) MARTYRS OR REFORMERS, OR BOTH". ELIZABETH CHARLES 1828 - 1896.
Very appropriate I thought.
Keep up the good fight Pauline.
Ken Hunter
Subject: Comments on the Day of Reckoning
Keep up the good work, don`t let the mongrels sell off the country to the highest bidder. Are the Democrats, the Greens & independents backing you in stopping what labour started & the coalition are continuing? How much is Johnny Jerkoff being paid by the OECD?
Subject: NONE!
If there is one thing in this world that really annoys me it is racism. Something that is all to common in the world of the nineties. People try to make it right but there always seems to be someone there to stir the hornets nest. The person who is famous for doing this in Australia is you, Pauline Hanson. Does the colour of someone's skin, eyes or hair change the way they are on the inside? NO! Not one tiny bit. Everyone is human, everyone has feelings, we're all alike you know. The rest of Australia is trying to make peace with the aborigines, why can't you? Because you want a white people only Australia. Well one of the things your going to learn about politics is that you don't get what you want. Politics is the debate of issues, important issues such as health, child care and reconciliation with the aboriginals for the stolen generation. The issues you wish to debate are personal political gain and personal political gain only. Don't you care that young Aboriginal children were taken from their parents. Don't you want to even try to be friends with them? The Aboriginies don't want much. They're not in it for any money. All they want is access to their traditional tribal grounds. Or is that asking too much already?
EVERYONE ELSE IN AUSTRALIA IS READY TO MAKE PEACE WITH THE ABORIGINALS, ARE YOU?
From: Louise Hogg.
Another perfect day in paradise.
Have a good one.
Recent stories exclusive to (how to) subscribe/rs of the Australian National News of the Day:
Taking on News
Limited at the Australian Press Council in Sydney.- 23rd May 1998
Launch of One Nation's
Queensland leadership.- 22nd May 1998
Protest over
closure of National Australia Bank branch in Ipswich - 21st May
1998
Pauline Hanson meets the people of Blair - 20th May 1998
Unethical trifecta
expose Courier Mail's intellectual prostitutes - 9th May 1998
MIGA - son of MAI
exposed - 8th May
Just me and Pauline - 5th May
One Nation breakfast
- 4th May
Just who are the
Mont Pelerin
Society - 3rd May
The Internet and
the DEATH of the MAI - 30th April
Launch of Pauline
Hanson's re-election campaign - 29th April
Second One Nation
protest surprises Bob McMullan - 28th April
Sultan
of Brunei buys up big tracks of Australia - then negotiates Indonesian
"settlements" 25th April
Maritime
Union of Australia win in the Federal Court 22nd April
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