Return to launch of Pauline Hanson's One Nation on the Gold CoastGold Coast, July 1, 1997
Fellow Australians,
This job, that I suppose in many ways has been thrust upon me, provides a wonderful opportunity to meet decent patriotic Australians who come from all walks of life.
Ordinary people, just like me. They come up to me in the street, in restaurants, at Parliament House, in airports, on aeroplanes and at functions everywhere and they ask to just keep going.
They find hope by putting their faith in me, and sometimes I wonder if I can do this, but always it is the knowledge that Australians everywhere, think as we do, that keeps me going.
Many have come from other countries and have not enjoyed the quality of life Australians have fought so hard to create and preserve. They recognise their good fortune at being able to join us, and to join with us in all the good things that are Australian.
To all of you, whether you were born here, whether you have been here most of your life, or even if you have only just arrived if you have a genuine desire to be Australian and to give our country your undivided loyalty, welcome.
Remember, Australia is unique.
Probably the best place in the world, and those of us who are here have a responsibility to make sure our Australia does not simply become like the so many strife torn places that are near us.
Remember that being an Australian should be considered a state of mind. It doesn’t really matter where you came from.
To those of you who love our country as I do, and want to save our country as I do, I say thank you, and I salute you.
The fight ahead will need us all, for our children and the generations of Australians who follow them, will inherit either our success, or our failure.
No matter how many threats, no matter how much slander and no matter what lies they tell, they must not stop what we have begun.
We will fight together against whatever odds are stacked against us and we will win, because we are Australians, and Australians will never give up their country.
Never have, never will.
Australians, fellow Queenslanders, thank you for taking the time to hear me this evening.
It is a great honour to have the opportunity of being able to speak to you in person rather than simply have you hear or see what is often a distorted media view of what I’ve said or done.
Thanks to Paul Trewartha, Ken Waalwyk, Anthony Puis, Lindon Litchfield and their team for an outstanding effort in bringing me before you tonight.
As I have moved around our vast country, it has been very disturbing to bear witness to the fact that many of the freedoms enjoyed by Australians are more than under threat.
In particular, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are under attack from extremists whose ‘ends justify the means’ approach, must be a concern for all Australians who believe in democracy.
In the last few weeks there have been many incidents that can only be described as an assault on the Australian way of life.
Now Australians everywhere once again feel free to talk about the issues that political correctness had expelled from public debate, the misguided and dangerous enemies of all we hold dear are popping up to oppose the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly of anyone who has a different view.
The recent impediments to the formation of the first One Nation Branch in Canberra smacks of deliberate obstruction by local authorities.
Would you believe one council in Sydney even tried to declare a Pauline Hanson free zone.
In Adelaide we were forced to go to the Supreme Court to uphold our booking after approaches by shadowy figures had brought pressure to bear.
On that occasion we won, but would you expect that in Australia such a battle would need to be fought?
It has been no small feat that our efforts to maintain freedom of speech in Australia have overcome their efforts to put an end to the rights of individual Australians to have their say, and for those who are interested to have their opportunity to listen.
Perhaps now in Australia we are unfortunately experiencing that the battle for democracy is a fight that never ends.
The Mayor of Wyndham in Victoria has emphasised that he has done all in his power to stop a One Nation Branch from being able to meet in his area.
He wants us to know he has done all in his power to prohibit Australians from having their right of assembly.
This Victorian Mayor wanted the world to know that he had done all in his power to stop Australians from having their right to freedom of speech.
Where does this man think he lives. Remember being an Australian is a state of mind, a matter of loyalty, so what state of mind does this Mayor have and where do his loyalties lie.
All Australians should be grateful this Mayor and others like him have failed despite the use of tactics which have often been deceitful and dishonest.
People such as these who would try to stop Australians from attending meetings, from being able to listen and have their say, should never be allowed to have an influence in public life.
You must be able to divorce your own beliefs from decisions affecting the rights of those who may hold different views.
It is incumbent on leaders of all kinds in our community to never allow their prejudice or personal views to in any way darken the fairness of decision making.
To stand against an Australian’s right to speak and to stand against other Australians’ right to listen is to stand against Australia itself.
Many of you know I am often the subject of media bias and while it is fair to say there are those in the media who are balanced and reasonable in their reporting, let me share with you some of the curious activities of Melbourne’s Herald Sun.
Two weeks ago, they printed twenty one quotes attributed to me, and asked their readers to decide for themselves if I was racist.
They provided the facility of a phone poll to assess this view and no doubt to their surprise, they got fifteen times the response their polls usually receive.
Of the nearly eight thousand calls, over 80% stated that I am not a racist.
On the following Saturday, the Herald Sun editorial acknowledged they considered the twenty one comments they had selected for the poll question to be racist.
The result of the poll indicates the editor of the Herald Sun has a different understanding of racism to most people and is out of step with over 80% of the paper’s own readers.
Will it surprise you to know that in the editorial, the editor failed to mention the result of the paper’s own poll.
To me, that spells out the word bias, it drums up the sounds of prejudice and typifies the lies by omission we must continually fight.
Tonight’s exercise in freedom of speech has drawn protesters from all over the country, and as usual includes one particularly unsavoury group who follow me everywhere, a socialist group, called “Resistance”.
Tonight’s exercise in freedom of speech has only been possible through the magnificent work of our own Queensland Police and their spirit of co-operation in working with the Federal Police..
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is not the Australia in which we were born, it is not the Australia we grew up in, it is not the Australia so many found when they first decided to make this place their home, and I will do my best to make sure the problems we face today will not be the same problems our children face tomorrow. We must address the political correctness which has destroyed our right to free speech. We cannot allow ruffians and those who believe it is only their view that can be heard, to stifle our rightful opportunity to express our views or thoughts on issues that concern us. For that matter, we should have in our society, the opportunity for public debate with the security of knowing we will not be attacked just because our ideas are different. There are those who hold extreme and what many of us would consider unreasonable or possibly offensive views, but it should not be up to the few who enforce political correctness to decide if they can be heard, rather, having been heard, if should be up to all Australians to make up their own minds as to what is true, what matters, and what doesn’t.
We all have a right to speak, and my fight is to maintain that right and make sure we never lose it.
We must address our immigration problems and the culture of crime associated with a segregated society.
We must get across the message that criticism is not racism, that to call for all Australians to be treated equally is not racism, to say that to be considered disadvantaged should be based on individual circumstances, not on race or cultural background, is not racism.
None of these things I have called for have anything to do with racism because they do not in any way infer one race is superior, rather what they do, is recognise that successive governments, both Liberal and Labor, have given us policies that have divided Australia.
They have given us policies that instead of recognising needs on an individual basis, have singled out certain groups for special benefits.
There are many government policies that divide us, and are now finally the subject of concern and debate.
Perhaps one of the best examples is the student assistance programme called ABSTUDY.
This is the strictly aboriginal version of the student assistance programme called AUSTUDY.
ABSTUDY is a perfect example of a policy that divides us.
It puts the case that aboriginals have special problems not faced by other Australians, but in truth what it does is determine benefits by race rather than by individual need.
What we need is policies that are not based on race.
We need programmes that recognise special circumstances relating to disadvantages faced by all Australians.
We need policies that see us all as Australians, not as different kinds of Australians, just as Australians.
This does not mean that anyone truly in need will lose their benefits.
It simply means that we recognise their individual need, instead of classing them apart from other Australians by considering their needs based on race.
We need programmes that treat all Australians equally.
Many programmes need to be reviewed, but anyone who has suggested this has been attacked and tagged as a racist and a bigot.
I say again, Criticism is not racism.
Does anyone seriously believe it is uniting Australia to spend over 10 million dollars helping new Australians maintain their native language?
How does this help us to communicate and live together as Australians?
Is this what multiculturalism is about?
Who comes up with these ideas?
Is this what the government should be doing with our taxes?
When I speak of the problems of Asian gang related crime, in particular, drug trafficking, this does not mean all Australians of Asian background are criminals and drug traffickers, most are decent Australian citizens.
It simply acknowledges that the majority of these problems come from particular sections of the community.
This is an inescapable fact.
Just ask Peter Ryan, the NSW Commissioner of Police, other senior police, or for that matter perhaps any member of the force who is aware of this aspect of criminal activity.
We must not single out Asian people as being responsible for all our drug problems, but we cannot ignore the protection afforded criminals through the closed and secretive nature of Asian communities within our country.
Many new Australians live in fear of their lives because of the thugs who hide within the community.
They suffer crimes of extortion and home invasion, and in many ways this is because they have failed to assimilate.
Governments have failed them, and many of them have not adopted the Australian way of life, and so they have been left in little pockets more like parts of other countries, than suburbs of Australia.
The majority of Australians do not accept the culture of gangs and crime and drugs that many new Australians are used to living with.
We must not only help these new Australians who are suffering under the regime of crime lords, but we must also save ourselves and our children from those criminal elements that are protected by policies that simply import little bits of other countries into Australia.
For any of you who may be wondering whether any of this is really happening then let me read to you just a couple of reports on one page of the Daily Telegraph from last Saturday.
Is the further expansion of this imported crime what we want for Australia, what we want for our children and their children.
Would you let criminals into your home,
and if you did this unwittingly, would you let them stay after they stole from you or raped or murdered a member of your family or pushed drugs on your children?
Coming to Australia should be no different.
Australia is our home.
We need proper screening for people who hope to live in this country.
Not just for criminal records, but also assessment of their ability to assimilate.
There is also the question of imported diseases.
What of the re-emergence of Tuberculosis, a disease that had all but ceased to exist in Australia
Just look what has happened with Hepatitis B, Fifteen years ago Hepatitis B was a rare disease, now there are more than thirty thousand infections each year which result in more than twelve hundred deaths annually.
This largely imported problem is estimated to cost our health system over one hundred million dollars a year.
Most people who come to Australia have come for a better way of life.
We don’t ask them to forget where they came from, only that the please remember where they are now.
We welcome anyone who comes here with a genuine wish for a better life, to be law abiding citizens, and to give their undivided loyalty to this country.
We want everyone to be Australian, and to join us by being a part of One Nation, not one of the many parts of a divided nation.
All we ask is that you do not bring your ancestral problems with you.
Leave them behind, or Australia will become like the place you left.
Don’t take the flag of your former country to Australian sporting events which are contests between local teams.
If you want to wave a flag, wave the flag of the team you support of the Australian flag, not the flag of another country.
Don’t let your new life here become like the life you have tried to escape.
Don’t let the problems of your old country follow you here and become problems for all of us.
Australians have enough of their own difficulties that are home grown.
We should not have to face cultural or ancestral problems that stretch back hundreds of years, and come from another place.
I say again, Criticism is not racism. There is so much to do one hardly knows where to begin, but certainly we can no longer stand idle while our government continues to fail in the fight against the importation of drugs.
It has recently been reported by Fia Cumming that research at an inner city school in Sydney showed eleven percent of thirteen year olds had tried heroin.
Through Western Australia alone, it is estimated there is one billion dollars worth of illegal drugs creeping into our country, and the policy say the position is getting worse, not better.
In fact in Little Bourke street in Melbourne, and Cabramatta in Sydney, children as young as twelve are selling heroin at seven dollars a pop - the same price as a packet of cigarettes.
We must provide increased resources to Customs and Federal Police.
They cannot be excepted to do their jobs with ever dwindling budgets.
They cannot be expected to fight the war against drug trafficking by being forced to rely on the occasional tip-off.
They must be given the resources and ability to be pro-active in their fight to protect our children from the fiends who profit by addicting the innocent and their families to a life of misery and dispar.
The cost of waging the war against drugs and its impact on our community is far outweighed by the benefits of victory.
A Victory we must have.
We must further review the penalties and ways of addressing drug trafficking and the other serious crimes that continue to invade our society.
In the case of such serious crimes being committed by non Australian citizens, we should pursue treaties with other countries so that when our authorities catch these criminals, we try them, we convict them and we sentence them, but then we send them back to their own country to serve out the term of their sentence.
In Australia, it costs between forty and sixty thousand dollars a year to keep a criminal in the luxury of our jails, so even if under such treaties we have to contribute to the cost of jailing them in their own country, under most circumstances, we will still be better off.
On top of this, if upon being released in their own country, these foreign criminals decided to continue their life of crime, it would not be us here in Australia who would suffer as the subject of their terror when they re-offend.
We have more than enough criminals that we are stuck with, but for goodness sake lets make it a policy to deport the ones we can.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will formulate policies that will aim to make other countries criminals another of Australia’s export successes.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no group in this country that has a monopoly on poverty or hunger or unemployment.
There is no group in this country that has a monopoly on the insecurity, the lack of safety or the lack of hope felt in our community.
There is no group who has the right to either be treated, or expected to be treated any differently from any individual Australian.
We must help those who are less fortunate.
We must stand up for those who have fallen by the way, and lift them up once again, so that they may join us, and be proud of themselves, and of their country.
But we must do this on the basis of the needs of individuals, and not continue to pursue policies that set us apart.
I call for fairness and equal treatment for all Australians. We must be united as one people, under one flag and with one set of rules. We must stand strongly together. We must be One Nation.
The government has it all wrong. They’ve had it wrong for a long time, and with your help, I aim to change that.
When I say I want to stop immigration, I do so to save Australian Jobs.
In the speech which launched Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the first of what I put forward as One Nation’s immediate goals was, and I quote, “To stop all immigration except that related to investment that will lead to employment, and for this to continue until Australia’s unemployment is solved”.
I now note with interest that at last the Prime Minister, and his Minister for Immigration admit that unemployment and immigration, are linked.
When I speak of the need for tariff protection for Australian manufacturing, I do so because of the need to reverse the decline of Australian Industry that has been brought about by the so called free trade policies of both Liberal and Labour Governments.
I speak of these things because to create real long-term jobs for Australians, we must revitalise Australian manufacturing on Australian soil. Solving Unemployment must be one of our most urgent priorities.
We must get Australia manufacturing again, and we must damn this government and those before it for their inhumane pursuit of economic rationalism.
Some say my policies will hurt foreign trade.
Anyone in business will tell you that business is done by being competitive by having quality products, the right price and providing good service and delivery.
Pauline Hanson wanting to stop immigration or wanting to create employment by rejuvenating Australian manufacturing does not impact doing business overseas.
Ours is a domestic problem, it is our problem, and it is our duty and responsibility to fix it.
Most countries recognise our right to deal with our own problems without interference, just as we should recognise theirs.
These are not issues of international human rights.
They are issues to be addressed by Australians for Australians, ad not the business of the United Nations or anybody else.
They say we are to become part of Asia, that we are to be Asianised.
Who will gain from this, or more importantly, who will lose?
What will the union leaders and our politicians do as in every sense Australia is pushed closer and closer culturally and financially to adopting the practices of our Asian neighbours?
What will the union leaders and our politicians do as Asianation is forced apon us?
If wee become part of Asia how long will it be before Australian workers are forced to compete for jobs with Asian conditions and Asian wages?
How long have the interests of the Australian worker been corrupted by Labour’s leaders?
What was happening to you wages and your standard of living while Hawke and Keating were running this country and becoming multi-millionaires at the same time.
Australia is looking down the barrel of ever increasing job losses, and as always the government only offers the false hope of delaying their fervent pursuit of the removal of tariffs.
They only offer the delay of what they consider to be impediments to their fervent pursuit of the removal of tariffs. They offer the delay of what they consider to be impediments to their economic rationalism and policies of free trade that take no account of the impact upon our people.
The current policies are intended to educate our population into jobs. It is put that job prospects will improve through education, but it doesn’t matter how much education you have if there just aren’t any jobs.
The simple outcome of current policies is that you have more skilled people doing less skilled work.
Jobs that would have gone to high school graduates are being taken by people with university degrees.
We have solicitors and similarly qualified people taking whatever work they can get.
We must revitalise local industry and provide protection and incentive for Australian manufacture. We must acknowledge that not all Australians will become doctors or solicitors or research scientists and if they do there simply won’t be enough work available in their chosen fields.
We must provide a diversity of occupations for our people. We must tell young people it is perfectly OK to be a tradesperson or a truck driver or a factory worker or a bank teller.
We must tell young people that it is not important what job you have or what job you start with. What is important is how well you do that job for what will determine how successful you will be.
A determined hardworking person can go anywhere, but they must have a place to start. More Australians working means more Australian families will be secure, more Australians will feel a sense of hope for the future and a chance for employment for their children.
Unemployment is one of the issues that is at the very core of the ills that dog our social fabric. It faces people with such hopelessness that they turn to solutions that secure Australians would never contemplate.
It increases crime, dependence on alcohol and other substances, and brings such stress to families to tear them apart from within, and yet knowing all this, our government only arranges a minor delay in their destructive agenda. They cannot be trusted.
It is only Pauline Hanson’s One Nation that will develop and implement policies for positive change. The government’s pursuit of removing tariffs and all traditional ways to protect local manufacturing and production and therefore Australian jobs goes back at least twenty five years.
Does anyone seriously believe the same politicians and the same parties that started on this devastating path have suddenly changed their minds.
They cannot be trusted.
How different would the recent decision to freeze automotive tariffs have been if it had been Peter Costello making the decision instead of the embattled John Howard?
What will we face when Costello overcomes our tiring Prime Minister and he and his forces take full control of the Liberal Party and our Government?
Recently, the Labour Party tried to run the idea they support tariffs and protecting Australian Manufacturing, but are we expected to forget they started us down the pot-holed road of free trade. Whose interests did they have in mind when they began these policies, certainly not the interests of the Australian Worker.
Any doubts about Labour’s position on tariffs and the protection of Australian Manufacturing and Australian jobs is removed by simply reviewing the history of their policies.
When Labour try to persuade you they support tariffs and an end to disaster of so called free trade, just remind them of Gareth Evens speech, “The Asia Pacific and Global Change”, a speech he gave as Foreign Minister to the Trilateral Commission in Tokyo on 20 April 1991.
His speech leaves no doubt of the pride Labour have taken in pushing upon unsuspecting Australian people policies that exported Australian jobs to other countries.
What was Labour thinking?
Or were they just not thinking?
Never forget what they have done.
Never forget the price Australia has paid.
Jobs that were once on Australian soil are now in other countries, and in the hand s of other people. Just like the situation with Peter Costello and John Howard, how long will it be before Gareth Evans finally overcomes the precarious leadership of Kim Beazley.
I say again, they cannot be trusted, so do not waste your trust on them. Always remember what they have done. Never forget, they cannot be trusted.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I certainly don’t want to tell you what is best for you.
In fact I support the concept of Referendums.
I know there are issues that would bring such sweeping change to our country that the decision cannot be left up to a government who having just been elected may not have to face the wraith of the voter for another three years.
Such issues such as our flag and the future of our Constitution and Euthanasia cannot simply be left in the hands of a few politicians.
There are many good ideas, and the best place to hear them is out amongst the people.
When Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is successful at the next election, we will use our influence to put inplace the policies that emerged from consulting with you.
Not policies that will take us backward to a bygone era, but policies that will take us forward in a different and openly positive direction.
Fellow Australians,
The next election will give you your first opportunity to vote for something other than Liberal or Labour, and know your vote is not being wasted in some form of protest.
At the nest election, the choice is now truly yours, vote the same way, and you can be sure of getting more of the same in return, but a vote for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will be a vote for positive change.
Give us your support, and together we will bring equality to all Australians. We will get Australia manufacturing again. We will cut unemployment and protect Australian jobs. We are the only ones who can be trusted on the issue of tariffs and protection for Australian manufacturing and production, for we are the only ones who have stood up for these issues.
It will not be other countries, or the United nations that decide our living and working conditions, or how we conduct our affairs.
We will make sure it is we Australians who determine our future, and the future of our country.
please join us, work with us, vote for us, so we can recover what we have lost, and one again be the proud nation, the One Nation, we once were. But remember in Australia, we settle our differences at the ballot box, not the boxing ring, we do it with votes, not with violence.
Turn the other cheek and walk away, do not be drawn into violence or any confrontation by those who oppose us. Just let your feelings be known on election day.
Remember, criticism is not racism. Patriotism is not racism. And above all, remember that for real change we need new faces with real influence, not tired old career politicians whose policies are lies for re-election rather than plans for recovery. With the same old parties and the same old politicians, regardless of what they say to get your vote, they will finish up giving you the same old policies, or they will change the score after the game has played.
Don’t be fooled by their smug and professional meandering.
Help me to put some real people into Parliament, people with new ideas, people with a fresh approach, people who know that being Australian is a state of mind.
People who will not fall prey to the international agenda. Help me put people into Parliament who have fresh ideas in their minds, and patriotism in their hearts, people who will always put Australians, and the interests of Australians, first and above all else.
Fellow Queenslanders, fellow Australians, thank you for having me.
Return to launch of Pauline Hanson's One Nation on the Gold Coast