I¹ve
been part of Pauline Hanson's One Nation for bit over a year now, but I've
never been able to see more than a bit at a time. A branch meeting, a newsletter,
a membership card, a fund-raising dinner with Pauline, a phone call to head
office -- all trees and no forest.
But at the party¹s Annual General Meeting on Sunday, the view opened up and I could see clearly. It was as if the party had suddenly come alive, born before my eyes.
Here were members from all over Australia, in the flesh. Here was David Oldfield, frowning as he surveyed the agenda and pondered how to find 45 minutes, making pencil marks against various items. Here were stalls selling T-shirts, books, tapes, all manner of One Nation paraphernalia. Here was Bill Feldman, the party's Parliamentary leader, big, bearded and busy.
Members of all descriptions bustled about, finding friends, putting faces to names, assembling their voting cards and papers, fetching cups of coffee. One Nation members from all over the nation -- many from New South Wales where the meeting was being held, but contingents from every State and Territory, including a vocal West Australian troop, anxious to show their city-dwelling cousins that the biggest state in Australia might be thinly spread, but was just as much a part of Australia and the party as anyone else.
Members of every size, shape, colour and description. Here was a family group, a toddler looking around at all the colour and noise. Here was Pauline herself, smiling for a camera as she hugged a member of Vietnamese extraction. Here was Scott Balson, One Nation's webmaster, holding the digital camera.
Here was One Nation, large as life and full of excitement. For me, it was a whole new party -- not just a collection of scattered people, ideas and things, but a living, breathing whole.
The main function room of the gigantic Rooty Hill RSL was packed. The queue to get in started in the club's lobby, wound down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, past the registration desks, through the doors and into the room itself. Every member had to have his or her card noted, proxies registered, and name checked off against the database. At its peak, the wait was 45 minutes, and it was this delay that was causing David Oldfield to rearrange the agenda.
As it turned out, the two agenda items that he cut to make up the lost time were morning and afternoon tea. So we got the full program of speakers and votes, and the cups of coffee came from the adjoining room, available throughout the day.
Good value, I thought, as I surveyed the list. Any one of these speakers was worth an interstate journey, and we had a whole day of them.
David Oldfield pointed out that there were microphones throughout the room, that there was time set aside for members to speak, to ask questions, and to move motions. But he also stressed that there was a lot to get through, and if it wasn¹t on the agenda, it would have to wait until the final session set aside for general business.
Jim Millar was the first speaker. State President of New South Wales, he noted that in the upcoming State election, there were nearly a hundred parties registered. This was evidence that the people were not happy with the performance of the major parties as they took turns at government. Jim himself joined One Nation because he didn¹t want to be accused of sitting back and doing nothing as the country went down the drain.
I sat back and noted the mood of the meeting. The media was telling us that we were a party torn by division, a party imploding, a party on the verge of collapse. The evidence before my eyes suggested that they were out of touch with the truth. The members were listening with attention, applauding frequently and loudly and showing every sign of being of one mind, united behind the current leadership.
If there were any dissenters, they were doing a good job of hiding their dissatisfaction. We would see what the reality was later on in the meeting, when the executive stood down and the positions were filled democratically.
David Ettridge spoke next, a man whom the media love to hate. If you believe their stories, the party's funds are squirreled away under Ettridge's control in Vanuatu. Well, we'd see later, when the accounts were presented, fully audited.
I still couldn't see any signs of unhappiness, of dissent, of unrest, of mutiny. In fact, the mood was buoyant, enthusiastic, exuberant and vibrant.
Pauline Hanson received a standing ovation as she mounted the stage. The applause went on and on. The party wanted Pauline, and there was no stopping them as they roared their appreciation. If ever there was a united group, passionate in their party, One Nation was it.
"How proud I am." she said, when the cheers subsided. "How proud I am. We are not a flash in the pan party. We have come a long way since the party was launched less than two years ago."
"Today is the start of One Nation. Today we put behind us all the ups and downs, the hiccups and setbacks of the last two years. One Nation is united and strong."
As ever, she echoed my own thoughts. I have always been proud to be part of One Nation, to be part of such a wonderful group of people. And the party is united, strong and expanding. I thought of the Crookwell branch, to be launched in a few days, and a new branch to be launched in the ACT. No way are we the dwindling, disunited party the media would have us believe.
Pauline talked of the media, the major parties and our many opponents, spreading lies as they sold our country off overseas.
"Stand united, stand strong, and we will give them hell!" she concluded. The room broke into another wave of applause, another standing ovation. Another proof of her words -- there was no possibility of denying that we were a strong and united party.
David Oldfield was next on the list. If there was a mood of disappointment, it was that One Nation had not done as well as expected in the recent Federal election after the success in Queensland, where one in four voters had put One Nation first. Oldfield pointed out that he had gained far more primary votes than the Democrat candidate, Aden Ridgeway, but when the National's Senator Sandy MacDonald had been excluded, his quarter of a million votes had flowed on to the Democrat, electing him, and then the surplus had gone on to give the final position to the Labor Party.
"Did the National Party voters really want their votes to elect an Aboriginal Land Rights campaigner and a Labor Senator?" David asked. "That was what happened, and that can be shown by the simple mathematics of the electoral procedure."
I didn't think that National Party voters had really wanted this outcome either. But there it was. Clear evidence that Labor, Coalition, and Democrats were busy selling out their supporters rather than give the people what they really wanted.
David Oldfield noted that the Annual General Meetings of Liberal and Labor parties were not as strongly attended as One Nation's, and the AGMs of major companies such as BHP and NRMA were often the scenes of outright revolt from shareholders and members.
I won't give a blow by blow account of the rest of the meeting. The members inside were strong and united, but a few dissidents outside had spurned their right to attend the meeting and were busy feeding the media outside the club with rumours and outright lies. When I saw them on the television news and read the newspaper reports I wondered where they had got their material from, for they certainly were not reporting the same meeting that I could see before my eyes.
Unfortunately they couldn't, as the club management had forbidden all media access, and so the upbeat, united mood of the meeting remained behind closed doors, despite Oldfield's pleas for just a couple of journalists to be allowed to sit quietly at the back of the room.
Eventually, we decided that if the media couldn't see the proof of Pauline's strong support within the meeting, then the meeting would go out to the media.
And out we went, streaming down the stairs and out through the front doors to swell in a jubilant, cheering throng around the television cameras, as an exhilerated Pauline jumped in the air for the sheer joy of it. Sweet Glory, what a moment!
The cheers took a long while to fade away and the smiles on the faces of the members took longer to go as we returned to our meeting.
More disproving of more media lies took up the rest of the afternoon. Far from being a tight little dictatorship, One Nation proved a healthy democracy as a committee of eight were elected to take the draft party constitution to the members for a vote in six months time. One from each State and Territory, competing candidates were given a few minutes each to address the meeting before the votes were counted. Votes were counted and tallied and the successful candidates named.
The main event was the declaration of a spill of executive positions and a fresh election. The media would have preferred a tale of struggle and dissent, but the truth of the matter was that Pauline was elected unanimously to the position of Party President, Davids Oldfield and Ettridge were elected unopposed as members of the National Executive, Senator Heather Hill gained a clear majority as the fourth member, and the only vote that was at all close was for the fifth position, where a dozen candidates put themselves forward, John Fisher from West Australia gaining a narrow victory.
Two more National Executive members will be added next year, and another two after that. This first AGM gives the lie to at least one media myth -- that One Nation is an undemocratic party. This is a party that, far from being rigidly controlled and riven by division, is united and democratic. This is a party that is more democratic than the other parties, more democratic than the country itself.
The rest of the proceedings carried this forward, as speaker after speaker addressed the meeting from the floor, asking questions, and moving motions. Debates were conducted, motions put, votes taken, and results put down for action or disposal.
Pauline Hanson took no part in this, and her massive sheaf of proxies stayed in their box. I know, because I was part of the line that stretched across the stage, as the members queued up to get Pauline to sign T-shirts, posters, ties and books. Pauline had a smile, a signature and a kind word for everyone.
The meeting concluded in a cheerful haze of applause, coffee cups, proxy slips, and democracy. Above all, democracy.
As Pauline summed up, speaking of the major parties, "They ain't heard anything yet!"
One Nation is strong, united and here to stay. Watch this space!
Peter Mackay 1 March 1999