Courier Mail May 12th 1998
Article by Terry Sweetman
Tourism minister Bruce Davidson, famous for his geographical confusion over rhino habitat, also seems to have a problem with his history or his sense of occasion.
Asked whether he would put the Nazi party before the ALP on a ballot paper, he said, “I’ll always put Labor last”.
His long suffering Miss Fixit came running with the Tarzan’s grip to patch up the results of his latest attack of dropsy by saying the comment was a throwaway line in response to a hypothetical question.
Some throwaway line, such sparkling repartee.
In case Davidson has forgotten the Nazi Party was an evil German organisation led by Adolf Hitler which took the world to war, laid waste to half of Europe, brought tears to Australian homes and murdered millions of people.
The Labor Party is a legitimate Australian political grouping with an honourable history. It has, at various times led Australia in war and in peace, it has performed well and it has performed badly, it has produced some giants and it has propped up some political pygmies.
However, one can have some passing sympathy for Davo’s’ confusion. He is, believe it or not, a leading light in a once honourable political party caught in an immoral dilemma.
The Liberal Party became the first to put self-interest ahead of principle by placing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of Labor in the allocation of preferences. Faced with such party indignation, it backed off, announcing the issue would be dealt with on a seat-by-seat basis.
That, I guess, means the party won’t direct preferences to One Nation unless it wants to or unless there is some advantage to be had.
Somehow, the ethical difference escapes me.
You might support One Nation, you might even be a card carrying member for all I know, but how do you like your fickle political friends?
Liberal Party members have spent the past two years putting their hands on their hearts and disavowing the thoughts and deeds of Hanson and her followers, yet now it says “maybe”.
It’s not as though even Davo doesn’t know what’s right or wrong.
Not a year ago he was telling Hanson to “pull her head in” after it was revealed some Asians had chosen not to visit Queensland because of safety fears.
“She needs to appreciate the enormous reliance Queensland has on Asian tourism into the state and I will visit Asia to make sure those messages are reinforced,” he thundered. Judging by his statesmanlike performance last week, it was just a wasted air fare.
His leader, Joan Sheldon, has given One Nation a few cuffs around the ear. It was all too easy to make “wild headline-grabbing claims’, she said while chiding Hanson’s “ugly and divisive views” in Parliament last year.
Just back from a trip to Asia, she lamented: “..on several occasions, particularly in Singapore, concerns were raised about Pauline Hanson’s comments and support for her in Australia.
Remember, this is the Treasury of Queensland speaking. She picked up bad vibes from the VIP suite. Try getting down on the ground in Malaysia, for example, and see how much damage Pauline Hanson has done.
Premier Rob Borbidge has no doubts about the harm Hanson has caused, yet his party is taking the seat-by-seat cop-out line.
In October, he told us that Chinese investors had quit Queensland for New Zealand because of a perceived anti-Asian mood in Australia”.
There was no doubt that Hanson was having an impact on Queensland’s ability to create jobs.
“It is now time for National and Liberal branches to adopt reasonable attitudes,” he said, not long after Hanson addressed the Bribie Island branch of the Nationals, “I don’t believe in promoting her is a responsible attitude when we have a situation where we are trying to sell our product overseas.”
Still, in the preference debate last week, Borbidge told the world that you’d have to have rocks in your head if you thought the Nationals were going to give preferences to Labor.
The opinion polls show he’s got some reason to be flirting with One Nation but I wonder whether, in quieter moments, he hears the echo of his own words.
Does the Premier, who has long warned of the threat to exports, investment and tourism posed by Hanson, remember the addresses he gave to the Ethnic Community Council of Queensland in which he said “no area of life can benefit from listening to simplistic or populist arguments based on misreadings of the facts”?
What do the events of the last week say about “simplistic and populist arguments?
“Let’s not put at risk the wonderful egalitarian nature of this country or its great tradition of the fair go by telling lies,” he said. It might not be lies but it verges on self delusion to believe that any mainstream political party can even contemplate comforting extremists and not itself be tainted.
After all, Labor, despite some unconvincing nit-picking and double talk, still carry the stain of swapping preferences with Australians Against Further Immigration in its ill-fated 1996 Lindsay by-election campaign.
Even National Party president David Russell, QC, saw the simple truth that the most important reason Hanson’s anti-Asian comments could not be tolerated was because “it is simply not decent”.
Will he be swayed by his own words when it comes to preferences?
“Everyone shares the responsibility for promoting a climate of harmony and cohesion, so that we can use our cultural diversity productively in the interests of our economic and social development.” Borbidge told the Ethnic Communities Council.
Even toying with preferences for One Nation seems a strange way to live up to that responsibility.
Preferences for One Nation is really not a question of political advantage. It’s a matter of political symbolism. It’s the message that our politicians send to a world that might not be quite attuned to the nuances of our system.
It is also a message to the people of Australia and quite a few are receiving it loud and clear.