Pauline Hanson: One Nation

Pauline Hanson is a controversial Australian politician who was the leader of the One Nation Party, a party with a radical policy platform and well-known for its stance on immigration and Aboriginal issues. Now retired, in her early political career Hanson was famous for her background, having been a fish and chip shop owner in Ipswich, a city near Brisbane. Her political career began in the first half of the 1990s.

Hanson was originally a member of the Liberal Party of Australia, and from 1994 to 1996 was a local councillor in Ipswich. She was endorsed as the Liberal Party's candidate for the House of Representatives electorate of Oxley (based in Ipswich) for the March 1996 federal election. The Oxley electorate was one of the safest held by the Australian Labor Party in Queensland. Hanson was dis-endorsed by the Liberal Party after an interview with a local newspaper in Ipswich, in which she advocated the abolition of special government assistance for Aboriginal people. On a technicality, she still stood as a Liberal candidate. Hanson won the election easily, with the largest swing away from the Labor Party in Australia, indicating that a large amount of her support came from traditional Labor Party voters.

Hanson's first or 'maiden' speech to the House of Representatives immediately made headlines and television news stories right around the country. In her speech, she said Australia was 'in danger of being swamped by Asians' and denounced Aboriginal welfare and political correctness. Hanson also made her opinions known on the topics of unemployment, foreign debt and family law. She called for the abolishing of the policy of multiculturalism and for a program of compulsory national service for all school leavers. See image 1

In the wake of her maiden speech Hanson rapidly emerged as a central figure in the media and in the minds of Australian voters.  Many people were shocked by her statements and many people came out in support of her positions. She was portrayed as a divisive figure with respect to contentious issues. Public opinion was polarised on her as a politician and a personality. Hanson's profile in the media led to her becoming well-known for her accidental catchphrases and 'ordinary Australian' qualities. She was interviewed in October 1996 on the popular Sunday night television show 60 Minutes, at the height of publicity around her. Asked by interviewer Tracey Curro if she was 'xenophobic' (meaning having a fear of strangers or foreigners) Hanson's response was famously 'Please explain?'. This catchphrase and her performance in the interview were taken up by her detractors as reflective of her political naivety. See animation

Her support base was relatively small but sufficiently organised so as to form a political party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which was registered in April of 1997. Hanson's main partners in One Nation were her senior advisor David Oldfield and David Ettridge, a professional fundraiser. Many of the One Nation branch formation meetings and political rallies across Australia attracted protests, and on some occasions violence broke out between Hanson supporters and protestors.

The name 'One Nation' was chosen to signify the aim of national unity in Australia, reflecting Hanson's view that the country was becoming increasingly divided by government policies which supposedly favoured migrants and Aboriginal Australians. Interestingly, the name had previously been used for an economic reform program release by Labor Prime Minster Paul Keating in 1992.  His policies of increasing connections with Asia, the Free Market, and social welfare were the opposite of what Hanson's One Nation party stood for.

The June 1998 State election in Queensland stands as a high point for the One Nation party. In this election, One Nation attracted nearly one-quarter of the vote across the State and One Nation candidates won 11 out of 89 seats in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. From this point on, however, One Nation's grip on power could be seen to slide. During the campaign for the federal election of October 1998, Hanson put out a number of policies which were seen to alienate many of her supporters. These policies included abolishing welfare for single mothers, the introduction of a 2 percent 'flat tax' on all financial transactions, and the reduction of the Medicare system.

Hanson, in fact, lost her seat in federal parliament after the area of her electorate was changed before the 1998 election. She stood for election in a neighbouring seat and although she won a large number of votes, the preferential voting system ensured victory for the Liberal candidate. One Nation gained 9 percent of the vote across Australia in the 1998 federal election, but only one candidate was elected, as a Senator for Queensland.

At the next federal election in November of 2001 Hanson ran for a Queensland Senate seat but narrowly lost. Her troubles in this period extended beyond electoral defeat. She fell out with Oldfield and Ettridge and suffered disputes amongst her supporters and legal action over the organisational structure of One Nation.

On 20 August 2003, both Hanson and Ettridge were charged with electoral fraud. It was alleged that they had falsely claimed that 500 members of the 'Pauline Hanson Support Movement' were in fact members of the political party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation, in order to have them registered and apply for electoral funding. Hanson had received just under $500 000 in electoral funding. If the registration of One Nation was found to be obtained illegally, Hanson would be guilty of dishonestly obtaining property as well as electoral fraud.

A jury in the District Court of Queensland found both parties guilty and Hanson was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Although some supported the sentence, it was considered by many to be overly long and out of proportion. Prime Minister John Howard commented to this effect, and Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop claimed that Hanson was 'a political prisoner'. In November of 2003, the Queensland Court of Appeal reversed Hanson's and Ettridge's convictions, ruling that the 500 people were in fact members of the One Nation party, or of a 'closely related party', which was sufficient under the Electoral Act 1992 (Qld) to make the registration legal.

Hanson attempted to return to politics in 2004, standing as an independent candidate for a Queensland Senate seat. She was ultimately unsuccessful in the October election, receiving only 30 per cent of the vote. She has since retired from politics and appeared in light-entertainment programs and parodying herself in television commercials. In terms of the legacy of Hanson's career, it has been argued that her impact on Australian politics and society will not be understood for at least ten years. Commentators have suggested that the Hanson era revealed the importance of the role of the media in politics, and that the political threat she once posed to the major parties changed the way they positioned their policy platforms heading in to the 21st century. In 2006 Hanson was named by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians of all time.