<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/11/pauline-hanson-voters-economic-pressures-blaming-migrants-ntwnfb>
"In 2017, when I had only been living in Australia for a few years, Pauline
Hanson came to my neighbourhood. The event was billed as “Pots and Pizza with
Pauline at the Paddo”. About 200 people turned up to listen to her speak, and a
similar-size crowd gathered outside holding protest signs and likening her to
Donald Trump. Twenty police officers showed up in 11 police cars. A few days
later, my daughter ran over to one of our neighbours’ houses for a play. When I
walked in there later to get her, there were One Nation pamphlets on the
counter. “You went?” I asked. I was hoping (desperately) that her friend’s dad
had gone as a protester. “Yeah,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed. “I thought
it would be good to hear what she had to say.”
Amid all the political punditry about the One Nation win in Farrer, it’s
important not to lose sight of the fact that, for those on the receiving end of
One Nation’s grievance politics, this all feels really personal.
A few years later I was talking to a young woman who came to Australia when she
was in primary school. If I remember correctly, she was from east Africa. One
of her first assignments at school had been to choose a person in the public
eye who she admired and do a presentation on them. It could have been a footy
player, a community leader, the prime minister (at the time, Julia Gillard) –
anyone.
She chose Pauline Hanson. She didn’t know anything about her except that she
was in parliament and had brightly coloured hair. In a sea of men in
parliament, her budding feminist instincts told her this was someone worth
celebrating. She was cutting out a picture of the red-haired wonder when her
teacher came by and asked, with great curiosity, who she had chosen. She
proudly proclaimed, “Pauline Hanson!” We had a chuckle as we imagined the
delicate choreography of a teacher trying to dissuade an innocent child from
idolising someone who had built her entire platform around normalising
anti-immigration and Islamophobia."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
