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July 17th
It was a bombshell but an expected bombshell when the newly elected Independent MP for Oxley near Brisbane put aside the maiden speech in the Queensland Parliament which had been prepared for her and chose instead to speak her mind as " just an ordinary Australian". Pauline Hanson, a former fish and chip shop proprietor and divorced mother of four, a woman with no record of political success, a woman whose political career to date consisted in having been disendorsed as the prospective Liberal Party candidate for the safe Labor seat of Oxley for her views that Aborigines should not receive preferential welfare treatment and housing loans. She was subsequently elected, to the dismay of establishment commentators and politicians, to the supposedly safe Labor seat of Oxley as an Independent. The unthinkable had happened: not a career politician but an ordinary Australian had been elected to the state legislature. Her maiden speech broke with the established tradition which holds that a new member of parliament's maiden speech be prepared for him/her, be inoffensive and uncontroversial, and applauded at the end by all parties in the house. Pauline Hanson's speech, which hate or love it, all accept is a milestone of sorts in Australian political history, was critical of the entire direction of Australian politics for the last thirty years, deplored the national debt, warned that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians, called for the introduction of national service, the repeal of preferential treatment for the Aborigines, a halt to immigration, the slashing of interest rates to farmers, and even hinted at withdrawal from UNO.
The speech was received in stony silence in parliament. Not one member applauded at the end. The press reaction was entirely negative. Demands were soon heard for stripping her of parliamentary immunity, banning her, and prosecuting her for remarks she was supposed to have made as quoted in a book about her called the Pauline Hanson Story. She began to receive death threats; since her speech she has been more than once physically attacked, so that she must now go everywhere with a bodyguard, agitators are bussed to all her meetings with the expressed purpose not of debating with her but of stopping her from speaking, and there are sites on the World Wide Web to discuss how best to "stop" her. All the indications are that from day one of her speech there has been an organised campaign through the press to silence her, supported by mainstream politicians. Since 10th September 1996, Australian politics has been confronted with the issues she has raised. In June 1998 the party she had founded in response to the attacks on her, One Nation, won 11 seats at the Queensland state elections and came within a hair's breadth of holding the balance of power. The "fish and chip lady" had in plenty what Aussies are well known for: gutsiness under pressure.
Australians do not have the reputation for being very politically minded and Australian politics normally evokes scant interest outside Australia; but in fact the commonly held view that Australian politics are based on consensus, are parochial and of little interest to the rest of the world does not bear close examination. A thread of stubbornness, a love of freedom, a distrust of strong government, a loathing for corruption, an awareness of the broader political issues at stake in any political debate, runs through the history of Australian politics. Alone among the combatants of the First World War Australia refused twice by referendum to introduce compulsory military service. At the height of the Cold War the Communist Dissolution bill of 1950 which was intended to outlaw communist organisations, was thrown out by the high Court of Australia as unconstitutional. Australian history points to a keen awareness of the rights and duties of citizenship. The Australian Union was based on hard negotiations to arrive at amicable consensus, ratified by referenda, with the people of every state agreed to the terms of union. Australians do not like to be made to do anything in the name of theory or doctrine. There is strong admiration for practical solutions and fairness in Australian society. When the Australian Union was formally ratified in 1901 it was called the Commonwealth of Australia. The name was apt-from the beginning the broadest principles of Australian unity were wealth sharing and the need to a show a common face towards an outside threat. It was fear of Japanese, French and German expansion in Australia's backdoor that was the decisive factor in creating Australian union through what Henry Parkes called "the common thread of blood relationship".
Alfred Deakin who drafted the Australian Constitution, acknowledged his debt to Bryce's work on the American Constitution, with its emphasis on the balance of powers between states and between the executive and the legislature and the judiciary. Henry Parkes' slogan in 1891 was "One People, One Destiny" (slightly over a century later Pauline Hanson was to chose a name for her new party which seemed to echo this.). The Australian Constitution only makes passing reference to God (at the last minute behest of sundry religious groups) and indicates no wish to convert the rest of the world to the Aussie way. Australia, ever practical, saw the sense of unity at exactly the time Japan was emerging as a major power. With the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 the White Australia policy was adopted. For Alfred Deakin, "the unity of Australia is nothing when it does not signify a united race..This is the Monroe Doctrine for the Commonwealth of Australia". But President Monroe in declaring the New World an American sphere of influence had said nothing about race. A Monroe doctrine for Australia implied, indeed stated, exactly that: Australasia was for the white man. The White Australia policy was eagerly supported by the Australian Trade Unions movement which feared that the importation of cheap Chinese labour would depress wages and Asian immigration threaten the European way of life. Australia, which began life as a penal colony, was always strong on practical radicalism, weak on theory. Marxism took no hold in Australia but John Christian Watson, who followed Deakin as Prime Minister in 1904, was the first Labor prime minister in the world. The Conciliation and Arbitration Act, the introduction of moderate but not exclusive tariffs on foreign imports, old age pensions, the "baby bonus" , the eight hour working day, the fair wage, and a host of other rules indicated that for Australia "commonwealth" was not just a word but a commitment. Socialism has not fared well in a nation of home owners but radicalism has flourished in a country whose inhabitants have always loathed the stuck up and pretentious. Wealth may be admired, but in contrast to the US and Europe, a wealthy man is not "looked up to" as someone superior.
In contrast to the States, religion has never played a crucial role in Australian social history. Life is a barbecue and a beach party not a cup of sorrow or vale of tears. Secular education was established early on and although Australians are also profoundly mistrustful of the state, they recognise to a much greater extent than Americans that the state has a role to play in promoting the common wealth. While American populists tend to talk of challenging or defying the state, Australian populist talk of capturing it. The Australian political tradition could be described as one of Prussian equality before the law, British love of fairness, both moderated by a pioneer love of individual freedom and the right of every man and woman to "do their own thing". . The bushwhacker distrusts anyone who tries to convert him to a doctrine. Neither Marxism nor fascism in any form has had any appeal in Australia, but neither has religious proselytism nor militant anti-communism. The Aussies are a pragmatic lot and generally easy going. In the last century it was gold which gave Australia its wealth, later wool, then oil, then precious minerals. Why the hassle of fanaticism when there is enough wealth for all, enough room for all and the sun shines all day long? This is not God's own country but simply a "lucky country". In 1995 the World Bank published a report which declared that Australia was the richest country in the world, second to none. Does fairness consist of sharing your luck with the rest of the world? With the Aborigines, who inhabited the vast spaces of the outback for thousands of years before Captain Cook arrived? With the Japanese, who have no spaces, no oil, no wool but enough money to snap up the best real estate?
In Australia, as everywhere else in the Western world, a major change came about in the late 1960's. The Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, elected in 1972, is well known for his radical legislation, but the reversal of the White Australia policy had begun before him and continued after him. The internationalisation of Australia really began under Harry Holt in the sixties and the abolition of the Australian pound and introduction of a decimal dollar, the introduction of the kilometre to replace the mile and the gradual view of Australia as an Asian rather than European nation. (From the internet to the shareholders' reports of international equity funds, Australia is firmly placed in the Asian camp.) . It culminated in the pro-Asian policy of Gough Whitlam Malcolm Fraser Howard Hawke and most radically in the republicanism and pro Asian politics of Paul Keating, whose insistence on the importance of making Australia a republic before the year 2000 lead to his electoral defeat in 1996 in favour of the colourless . As one commentator noted, "In their arrogance, Howard and his colleagues thought they had won the 1996 election, when in reality it was a kill Keating election." . The two key elements of the change to internationalism were firstly: the abolition of the White Australia policy announced by the Whitlam government in 1973 ("I now trust that Australia's image as a racialist nation is buried forever"). Interestingly, the minister directly responsible for the repeal spectacularly lost his seat in the next election. Officially non discriminatory, Australian immigration policy, like American, is in reality biased against whites; and it is now extremely difficult for a British citizen to obtain the right of residence in Australia. The second key element of a change in Australian politics was the acknowledgement of Aboriginal landrights which began with the "self determination " legislation of 1972 and culminated in the Land Rights Act of 1993. Under the Aboriginal Land Rights Northern Territories act, Aborigines were given 26% of the land of the Northern Territories. (Aborigines make up 1% of the population.)
Prime Minister John Howard has patronised One Nation voters ("want to listen to your fears") and condemned Pauline Hanson herself ("close to deranged"). He seems to have learnt nothing from the time when as treasurer he was physically expelled from a pub for showing miners his readiness to listen to their objections to his fringe benefits tax. (To be fair to Howard, it is entirely unthinkable that Theo Waigel would enter a Kneipe in Leipsic unprotected to listen to voters views on his budget, which shows how much further removed Germany is from true democracy than Australia). One Nation's proposal to grant farmers loans below the bank lending rate has been supported by many different political figures for many years, for example Sir Robert Sparkes President of the Country Party in 1971, when his proposals were published in Queensland Country Life also the Catholic socialist Santamaria showed interest in the idea later in his life. The Asian menace? Australians have long feared Asia in two senses: economically and demographically and for good reason.. Prime Minister Paul Keating's determined efforts to bring Australia into an Asian zone awoke old fears. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on earth, China the most populous. Australia is still relatively empty and rich in natural resources. For years investors from Japan, Hongkong and Singapore have been investing in Australian real estate and businesses. The major steel manufacturer BHP has sunk A$555,000,000 in steel rolling and coating mills in the Far East while Australia's own mills in Newcastle will either close down in 1999 or be taken over by the Chinese. China, as a "developing nation" is entitled to cheap finance from the World Bank. not only does Australia contribute to the World Bank's International Development Agency which gives low interest loans to China, it also gives direct foreign aid to China, more than A$50 m. a year. What is "deranged" about questioning the fairness of this?
Land Rights: Pauline Hanson caused outrage when she asked at the beginning of her political career: if the Aborigines love this land so much why do they make it so dirty? But many commentators have pointed out that Aborigines seem to be just as interested in exploiting the land as the whites. Where they do own the land they have not shown a marked interest in keeping the country unspoiled. In an article for the English magazine Spectator (20th June 1998) Edward Amory wrote of the Aborigines:
"Their first community project could be picking up all the beer cans that now desecrate the landscape they are supposed to hold sacred." The Aborigines are supposed to have been dispoiled of their culture by modern civilisation. True this may be but the fact is that none of them is keen to return to that condition of innocence the pre-technological golden age with Aborigines enjoyed before the White man came. The 1993 Land Rights Law gives Aborigines the opportunity to claim rights to land on the basis of a historical association with their people (for example a burial site). This makes a field day for lawyers but has created immense resentment among farmers whose land was purchased from the Australian government under free selection laws of 1861 and which is in danger of confiscation if a successful Aboriginal claimant can win a case that the land in question, for one reason or another is sacred to his people..
The success of One Nation heralds a challenge of the country to the urban and financial elites of Australia. But Pauline Hanson will need more than a few election successes to turn the tide of Australian politics and return to a White Australia. Like so many populist movements hers suffers acutely from a lack of qualified and experienced spokesmen. Especially feeble for example, has been the defence by One Nation National Director David Ettridge of the party's proposals to slash interest rates and make 2% interest rates available to farmers. In an interview on ABC radio he failed to defend his party's policy against the government Treasurer Costello, who erroneously insisted that One Nation policies would cause runaway inflation. Not only could Ettridge not counter this, he failed to point out for example, that Costello's own government is driving Australia ever deeper into debt, producing A$2 m. of new money per month, a policy which in the long term may well itself cause inflation. Pauline Hanson wishes to distance herself from "extremists" without understanding that so far as the liberal media and the major political parties are concerned, that is what she is already. She argues that she is not a racialist but the logic of her politics is a return to White Australia. How can that be seen as not racialist? Like most populist movements, her party welcomes all newcomers, which makes it an easy target for subversion. As with all populist movements the simplicity which brought early success becomes a serious handicap when media and public seek to examine the arguments more closely.
A revolt has begun in Queensland, started by a gutsy woman with no rhetorical skills, no special interest behind her, no profound knowledge of politics, nothing else but a fierce belief in common sense and fairness for her own people, the people who believe that they made Australia the "lucky country" and aim to keep it that way. The accusation by the Treasurer Costello that she is the pawn of "sinister forces" is a nonsense which should be thrown back in the face of the man who made it. Most threatening of all to big business is the radical undertone of One Nation's populism. The lady who is in favour of abortion is hardly a classic right winger: "For far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of the debate by the major parties".
(Pauline Hanson 10th September 1996 Queensland State Parliament). It takes "just an ordinary Australian" to say that and takes just an ordinary Australian to get up and start doing something about it. Fair dinkum, as they say down under.
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