Scroll Top

Analysis of Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech in federal parliament

Martin Lehmann – 8 September, 2003

This is the speech that drove the ruling elites and left-wing media into paroxysms of self-righteous  fury. The Murdoch, Fairfax and Packer journalists, together with the politically correct zealots from the ABC and SBS seized on these words, twisted them into a parody of lies, deceit and slander to launch one of the most defamatory, vicious and scurrilous attacks on the character of a person ever seen in Australia. The journalists spewed out venomous propaganda reminiscent of Nazi Germany. And they followed the Nazi principle that no matter how big the lie, if you tell it often enough it will be believed.

The lies they told were:

1) Hansom is anti-Aboriginal

2) Hanson is racist

3) Hanson is xenophobic

4) Hanson is a threat to Australia and to Australia’s reputation.

Other journalists, in typical lazy journalistic fashion, uncritically repeated the lies until all journalists were quoting each other and the lies had become “fact”.

What followed next is a shameful stain on Australia’s proud tradition of democracy and fair-go.

The journalists whipped each other into a frenzy of loathing and hatred of Pauline Hanson, her One Nation party and her followers.

Journalists denigrated Pauline Hanson’s character by dubbing her “the fish and chip lady”, made fun of her limited education and attempted repeatedly to ambush and humiliate her on national television. Although our voting is by secret ballot, the journalists created the myth that One Nation voters were from the lowest levels of society.

The journalists feeding frenzy spread to the academics, the elites, left-wing students, the taxpayer-funded ethnic councils and assorted thugs. Hanson received death threats, people attending public meetings were abused, spat upon and violently assaulted. 

At Hanson press conferences we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of hordes of jostling, squalling journalists trying to outdo each other in screaming loaded questions and abuse at the object of their fury.

The Australian democratic process was threatened. Public political meeting were cancelled. Political parties were stampeded into placing One Nation last on their how-to-vote cards, effectively disenfranchising one million voters in the 1998 federal election. 

What did Hanson actually say?

Nowhere in the speech is Hanson disparaging of Aboriginal people. She is however, critical of the handouts available only to Aboriginals. She attacked the Aboriginal “industry” and ATSIC.

It is interesting to note that The Australian newspaper,  which has run numerous politically correct articles on Aboriginal deprivation over the years, has in recent times under editor Michael Stuchbury, run articles exposing the corruption, in-fighting and abuses of power at ATSIC. Hanson called for ATSIC to be abolished. Seven years later the Howard government is attempting to do just that. Nobody is labelling Stutchbury or Howard as racist.

Most people have come to realise that  the billions of taxpayer dollars poured into ATSIC and other Aboriginal bureaucracies have created a black aristocracy, together with a group of wealthy white leeches, while the majority of Aboriginals see little improvement in their lifestyle.

Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson recently claimed that welfare was poisoning his people.

In fact the removal of Aborigines to remote settlements, the destruction of their initiative and motivation through the corrosive influence of welfare and the feeling of hopelessness engendered by being denied access to the rapidly evolving, modern competitive society is probably doing more to promote Aboriginal genocide than any past actions.

Hanson’s basic theme is that all Australians should receive equal treatment. This implies cutting back on special Aboriginal welfare and encouraging Aborigines to seek a fulfilling life learning job skills and battling to get ahead like the rest of us. That’s racist?

“I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians” – this is the statement that really fired up the elites and the left-wing media. It is  a harmless enough statement. But the fury it provoked exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of the ruling elites. Most Asian countries would be in fear of being swamped by Westerners. Malaysia’s loopy Mahatir regularly makes disparaging remarks about Western culture. A recent 60 Minutes feature revealed that a large number of Indonesian students (Indonesia’s future leaders) are hostile to Australia and its cultural values. 

In his revealing book, The Year The Dragon Came, Chinese author, Sang Ye says: “China is a country with a strong xenophobic, isolationist tradition; a place where deeply racist sentiments are not uncommon.”

Sang Ye based the book on interviews with  over one hundred Chinese immigrants living in Australia.  It is instructive to hear what the immigrants think of Australians. Sang Ye says, “Nearly all of the interviewees here referred to Australians as “devils” (guizi) or “foreign devils” (yang guizi) or the slightly more polite “foreigners” (laowai), apparently oblivious to the fact that in Australia, its they who are the foreigners.”

None of this evokes any response from the elites and the journalists.

When Hanson made the “swamped by Asians” statement, politicians and bureaucrats scrambled to publish misleading immigration statistics disputing her figures.

A report in The West Australian in August 2003 exposed the lie of the fabricated statistics when it revealed that  over 400,000 Perth residents, more than a third of the population, were born overseas. The report stated, “About 14 per cent of Perth residents were born in South-East Asia.” It went on to say that over half of the population of inner city suburbs such as Highgate and East Perth (well-known Vietnamese enclaves) were born outside Australia.

Hanson was making the point that multiculturalism was dividing the nation and posed future problems for Australia. Many mainstream Australians would agree.

Is this the voice of Satan or a person expressing the views of mainstream Australians? Judge for yourself.

Related Posts

Leave a comment