Pauline Hanson

Pauline Hanson
File:Pauline-lesmis.jpg Hanson at Les Misérables premiere in Sydney, on 21 December 2012
Leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 November 2014
Deputy	Ian Nelson Jim Savage (2014-2015)
Preceded by	Jim Savage Rosa Long (as Leader)
President of Pauline Hanson's One Nation
In office 11 April 1997 – 27 January 2002
Vice President	John Fischer David Ettridge David Oldfield (1997-2000)
Preceded by	Party created
Succeeded by	John Fischer
Leader of Pauline Hanson's United Australia Party
In office 24 May 2007 – 31 March 2010
Deputy	Graham MacDonald (2007-2009)
Preceded by	Party created
Succeeded by	Party dissolved
Member of the Australian Parliament for Oxley
In office 2 March 1996 – 3 October 1998
Preceded by	Les Scott
Succeeded by	Bernie Ripoll
Personal details
Born	(1954-05-27) 27 May 1954 Brisbane, Queensland
Nationality	Australia
Political party	Pauline Hanson's One Nation (1997–2002; 2013–)
Other political affiliations	Independent (before 1994, 1996–97, 2010–12) Liberal (1994–96) United Australia (2007-10)
Spouse(s)	Walter Zagorski (m. 1971; div. 1976; 2 children) Mark Hanson (m. 1978; div. 1987; 2 children)
Children	Anthony Zagorski (b. 1972) Steven Zagorski (b. 1975) Adam Hanson (b. 1981) Lee Hanson (b. 1984)
Residence	Beaudesert, Queensland
Occupation	Politician Socialite Activist (various, primarily opposition to Islam and multiculturalism) Businesswoman (Fish and chips, Real estate)
Website	Official website One Nation website

Pauline Lee Hanson (née Seccombe, formerly Zagorski; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician and the leader of One Nation, a far right political party with a populist, conservative, and anti-multiculturalism platform. She held this position from 1997, when she co-founded the party, to her expulsion from One Nation in 2002. She returned to the leadership in 2014. Hanson was a member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Brisbane-based seat of Oxley, from 1996 to 1998, as an independent and as leader of One Nation.

Hanson was born in Brisbane, Queensland. Her parents owned a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Queensland, in which Hanson and her siblings worked. She is the fifth of seven children. Hanson left school at 15, married at 16, and had two children by the time she was about 21. The marriage ended in a divorce, and Hanson took several low-skilled clerical occupations to support her children. She married again and started a plumbing and roofing business, based in Ipswich, with her new husband, and had two more children.

After her second divorce, Hanson opened a fish and chip shop, also in Ipswich. Hanson was elected as a councillor for the Ipswich city council in 1994. She joined the Liberal Party in 1995 after losing her seat on the Ipswich Council, and was preselected for the seat of Oxley for the 1996 federal election. She was disendorsed by the party before the election, but won the seat on a Liberal ticket, then sat as an independent. Hanson became the first female independent to be elected to the House of Representatives when she won the seat of Oxley in the 1996 election. The following year she founded "Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party", which she led for the next five years.

Hanson became a familiar face in Australian politics, gaining extensive media coverage during her campaign and once she took her place in the House. Her first speech attracted considerable attention for the views it expressed on Aboriginal benefits, welfare, immigration and multiculturalism. During her term in Parliament, Hanson spoke on a wide range of social and economic issues including the need for a fairer child support scheme and concern for the emergence of the working class poor. She also called for more accountable and effective administration of Indigenous affairs. Hanson’s supporters viewed her as an ordinary person who challenged ‘political correctness’ as a threat to Australia’s identity. The Bulletin magazine included Hanson in its list of 100 Most Influential Australians in July 2006. The term ‘Hansonism’ is used to describe policies that reflect Pauline Hanson’s views.

Since losing her seat in the 1998 election, Hanson has contested several State and Federal elections as the leader of One Nation, as the leader of Pauline Hanson's United Australia Party, and as an independent.

Early life

Hanson was born in Brisbane, Queenslandto Jack Seccombe (fl. 1998) and Hannorah Webster Seccombe (1920-1998). Her grandfather emigrated from England and arrived in Australia in 1908. Her parents owned a take-away fish and chip shop, where she and her siblings worked. Hanson comes from a family of seven children consisting of four girls and three boys.

Hanson left school at the age of fifteen. She also left the fish and chip shop, as well as leaving home, and worked in a variety of unskilled clerical and service jobs. She accumulated several rental properties which is where she met her first husband, Walter Zagorski, a Polish refugee. Hanson returned to the family home, but quickly left to elope with him when she was sixteen, and had their first child, Anthony (Tony, born 1972), when she was seventeen. Walter worked as a plant manager in the mining industry in rural central-Queensland, while Pauline worked again in unskilled part-time jobs. They had another child, Steven (born 1975), before separating and divorcing. Hanson was about 21 at the time.

Later she met Mark Hanson, a tradesman. They married and started a plumbing and roofing business, and settled in Ipswich. They had a son, Adam (born 1981), and a daughter, Lee (born 1984). Mark and Pauline were later divorced. Before entering politics, she – like her parents – opened a fish and chip shop, which was also in Ipswich.

Political career, 1994-2002

Early political career (1994-1996)

City of Ipswich Council, Member of Parliament

Hanson was an independent local councillor in the City of Ipswich from 1994 until an early election due to administrative changes in 1995. Narrowly losing her seat, she joined the Liberal Party of Australia and was endorsed as the Liberal candidate for the House of Representatives electorate of Oxley (based in Ipswich) for the March 1996 Federal election. At the time, the seat was thought of as a Labor stronghold. Hayden's successor, Les Scott, held it with a 12.6% two-party majority, making it the safest Labor seat in Queensland.

Leading up to the election, Hanson advocated the abolition of special government assistance for Aborigines, and she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party. Ballot papers had already been printed listing Hanson as the Liberal candidate, and the Australian Electoral Commission had closed nominations for the seat. As a result, Hanson was still listed as the Liberal candidate when votes were cast, even though Liberal leader John Howard had declared she would not be allowed to sit with the Liberals if elected. On election night, Hanson took a large lead on the first count and picked up enough Democrat preferences to defeat Scott on the sixth count. She won 54 percent of the two-candidate preferred vote. Had she still been running as a Liberal, the 19.3 percent swing would have been the largest two-party swing of the election. Due to her disendorsement, she entered parliament as an independent.

One Nation (1997-2002)

Main article: Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Origins

In April 1997, Hanson, her senior advisor David Oldfield, and professional fundraiser David Ettridge, founded the Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party. Disenchanted rural voters attended her meetings in regional centres across Australia as she consolidated a support base for the new party. An opinion poll in May of that year indicated that the party was attracting the support of 9 per cent of Australian voters and that its popularity was primarily at the expense of the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition's base.

In its late 1990s incarnation, One Nation called for zero net immigration, an end to multiculturalism and a revival of Australia's Anglo-Celtic cultural tradition which it says has been diminished, the abolition of native title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), an end to special Aboriginal funding programs, opposition to Aboriginal reconciliation which the party says will create two nations, and a review of the 1967 constitutional referendum which gave the Commonwealth power to legislate for Aborigines. The party's economic position was to support protectionism and trade retaliation, increased restrictions on foreign capital and the flow of capital overseas, and a general reversal of globalisation's influence on the Australian economy. Domestically, One Nation opposed privatisation, competition policy, and the GST, while proposing a government subsidised people's bank to provide 2 per cent loans to farmers, small business, and manufacturers. On foreign policy, One Nation called for a review of Australia's United Nations membership, a repudiation of Australia's UN treaties, an end to foreign aid and to ban foreigners from owning Australian land.

One Nation attracted nearly one-quarter of the vote in the 1998 state election and won 11 of 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. During this period, new right-wing parties emerged in most states, running on platforms which were equally anti-elitist but not as populist as One Nation. Australia First, led by Graeme Campbell, built support in Newcastle and the southern suburbs of Sydney. The United Australia Party, led by Ellis Wayland, fielded candidates in the 1997 state election in South Australia; the Australian Reform Party, led by the gun lobbyist Ted Drane, was active in rural Victoria and New South Wales; The Australians, led by Tony Pitt, formed out of the defunct Confederate Action Party in Queensland; and Tasmania First fielded candidates in the 1998 state election.

At the 1999 election, David Oldfield was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council, the state parliament's upper house. However, in 2000, Oldfield was expelled from One Nation for an alleged verbal dispute with Pauline Hanson. Within weeks, Oldfield established the splinter group, One Nation NSW, an organisation similar to the historical Lang Labor and Democratic Labor parties, which were splinter groups of the original Australian Labor Party.

One Nation won three seats in the Western Australian Legislative Council at the 2001 state election. The electoral success of One Nation began to deteriorate after this point because the split-away of One Nation NSW began to spark further lack of party unity, and a series of gaffes by One Nation members and candidates, particularly in Queensland.

Political decline

1998 federal election, 2002 imprisonment

In 1999, The Australian reported that support for One Nation had fallen from 22% to 5%. One Nation Senate candidate Lenny Spencer blamed the press together with party director David Oldfield for the October 1998 election defeat, while the media reported the redirecting of preferences away from One Nation as the primary reason, with a lack of party unity, poor policy choices and an "inability to work with the media" also responsible.

Ahead of the 1998 election, an electoral redistribution essentially split Oxley in half. Oxley was reconfigured as a marginal Labor seat, while a new seat of Blair was created in the rural area surrounding Ipswich. Hanson knew her chances of holding the reconfigured Oxley were slim, especially after former Labor state premier Wayne Goss won preselection for the seat. She opted to contest Blair, where most of her support was now located. On paper, Blair was a very safe Liberal seat with a notional majority of 18.7 percent. Hanson won 36 percent of the primary vote, slightly over 10% more than her nearest rival. However, preferences were enough to elect the Liberal candidate, Cameron Thompson, who had been third in the primary vote. Because all three major parties preferenced each other ahead of Hanson, Thompson overtook the Labor candidate on National preferences and defeated Hanson on Labor preferences. Nationally, One Nation gained 8.99 percent of the Senate vote and 8.4% of the Representatives vote, but only one MP was elected – Len Harris as a Senator for Queensland. Heather Hill had been elected to this position, but the High Court of Australia ruled that, although she was an Australian citizen, she was ineligible for election to sit as a Senator because she had not renounced her British citizenship, which the Court assumed she possessed because she had been born in Britain. Hanson alleged in her 2007 autobiography Pauline Hanson: Untamed & Unashamed that a number of other politicians had dual citizenship yet this did not prevent them from holding positions in Parliament.

At the next Federal election on 10 November 2001, Hanson ran for a Queensland Senate seat but narrowly failed. She has accounted for her declining popularity by claiming the Liberals under Howard stole her policies.

"It has been widely recognised by all, including the media, that John Howard sailed home on One Nation policies. In short, if we were not around, John Howard would not have made the decisions he did."

In October 2000, Hanson expelled David Oldfield from the party. Oldfield created One Nation NSW in 2001, achieving registration mid-2002. She resigned in January 2002 and John Fischer was elected the Leader of One Nation in Western Australia.

In 2002, Hanson was expelled from One Nation, which led to her, and David Ettridge's arrest for electoral fraud, which possibly contributed to her expulsion.

Other interrelated factors that have contributed to her downfall include her connection with a series of advisors (John Pasquarelli, David Ettridge and David Oldfield), all of whom she has fallen out with; disputes amongst her supporters and a lawsuit over the organisational structure of One Nation.

Hanson claimed in 2003 to have been vilified over campaign funding.

Return to politics, 2003-present

In 2003, following her release from prison, Hanson was an unsuccessful candidate for the NSW State Election, running for a seat in the Upper House. In January 2004, Hanson announced that she did not intend to return to politics. but then stood as an independent candidate for one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2004 federal election. She declared, "I don't want all the hangers on. I don't want the advisers and everyone else. I want it to be this time Pauline Hanson." She was unsuccessful, receiving only 31.77% of the required quota of primary votes, and did not pick up enough additional support through preferences. However, she attracted more votes than the One Nation party (4.54% compared to 3.14%) and, unlike her former party, recovered her deposit from the Australian Electoral Commission and secured $150,000 of public electoral funding.

On 24 May 2007 Hanson launched Pauline's United Australia Party. Under that banner, Hanson again contested one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2007 federal election, when she received over 4 percent of total votes. The party name invokes that of the historic United Australia Party. Speaking on her return to politics, she stated: "I have had all the major political parties attack me, been kicked out of my own party and ended up in prison, but I don't give up." In October 2007, Hanson launched her campaign song, entitled "Australian Way of Life", which included the line: "Welcome everyone, no matter where you come from."

Hanson contested the electoral district of Beaudesert as an independent at the 2009 Queensland state election. After an election campaign dominated by discussion over hoax photographs, she was placed third behind the Liberal National Party's Aidan McLindon and Labor's Brett McCreadie. There were conflicting media reports as to whether she had said she would not consider running again.

On 15 February 2010, Hanson announced that she planned to deregister Pauline's United Australia Party, sell her Queensland house and move to the United Kingdom. The announcement was warmly welcomed by Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP). However, following an extended holiday in Europe, Hanson said in November 2010 that she had decided not to move to Britain because it was "overrun with immigrants and refugees."

On 23 July 2010, while at an event promoting her new career as a motivational speaker, Hanson expressed interest in returning to the political stage as a Liberal candidate if an invitation were to be offered by the leader Tony Abbott in the 2010 federal election. No such offer was given.

On 7 March 2013 Hanson announced that she would stand in the 2013 federal election. She rejoined the One Nation party and was a Senate candidate in New South Wales. She did not win a seat, attracting 1.22% of first preferences.

"Rattnergate" scandal (2011)

In March 2011, Hanson ran as an independent candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Council in the 2011 state election, but was not elected, receiving 2.41 percent of the primary statewide vote but losing on preferences. Following the election, Hanson alleged that "dodgy staff" employed by the NSW Electoral Commission put 1,200 votes for her in a pile of blank ballots, and she claimed that she had a forwarded NSW Electoral Commission internal email as evidence of this. Hanson then commenced legal proceedings to challenge the outcome of the election in the NSW Supreme Court, which sat as the Court of Disputed Returns.

From the start of proceedings, the NSW Electoral Commissioner maintained the view that Hanson's claims lacked substance. The man who alerted Hanson to the alleged emails, who identified himself as "Michael Rattner", failed to appear in court on 8 June 2011 "Rattner" was revealed to be Shaun Castle, a history teacher who posed as a journalist to obtain embargoed progressive poll results. Information that Castle had been arrested was shown to be incorrect. He never admitted faking the email exchange between Electoral Commission staff, which was central to Hanson's claim that 1,200 votes for her were not counted. "Michael Rattner", was a pun on Mickey Mouse, and reports linked the pseudonym to an "anti-voter-fraud" organisation led by Amy McGrath and Alasdair Webster.

After having refusing to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination, Castle apologised to the court and was granted protection from prosecution by Justice McClellan, before being compelled to answer questions relating to the fraudulent email. The judge ordered that Hanson's legal costs of more than $150,000 be paid by the State of NSW – a move which outraged Greens MP, Jeremy Buckingham, who would have been replaced by Hanson had her challenge been successful. Questioning whether Hanson's legal action should have gone ahead at all given the nature of the evidence, Buckingham said that: "This lack of judgement shows that she's unfit for public office."

Return as One Nation leader (2014-present)

On 18 November 2014, Hanson announced that she had returned as One Nation leader, prior to the party's announcement, following support from One Nation party members. Hanson commented about contesting future elections under the One Nation banner, preferably the upcoming Queensland state election, and that the party would stage candidates for the Queensland election and other elections in the future.

On 16 December 2014 Hanson announced that she would contest the seat of Lockyer in the 2015 Queensland state election. One Nation held the Queensland seat of Lockyer from 1998 to 2004. In February 2015, Hanson took the lead in early vote counts for the seat, before losing by a narrow margin.

In mid-2015, Hanson announced that she would contest the Senate for Queensland at the 2016 federal election, and also announced several other candidature edorsements throughout Australia.

Political views

Maiden speech

On 10 September 1996, Hanson gave her maiden speech to the House of Representatives, which was widely reported in the media. In her opening lines, Hanson said that "I won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that has resulted in me being called a racist. That issue related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals". Hanson then asserted that Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Asians", and that these immigrants "have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate". Hanson argued that "mainstream Australians" were instead subject to "a type of reverse racism ... by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups". This theme continued with the assertion that "present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals". Among a series of criticisms of Aboriginal land rights, access to welfare and reconciliation, Hanson criticised the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), saying "Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC". There then followed a short series of statements on family breakdown, youth unemployment, international debt, the Family Law Act, child support, and the privatisation of Qantas and other national enterprises. The speech also included an attack on immigration and multiculturalism, a call for the return of high-tariff protectionism, and criticism of economic rationalism. Her speech was delivered uninterrupted by her fellow parliamentarians as it was the courtesy given to MPs delivering their maiden speeches.

After her speech, Hanson was, for a period of time, the subject of significant media and political attention. On 13 October 1996, asked by Tracey Curro on 60 Minutes if she was xenophobic, she replied, "please explain?" This response became a much-parodied catchphrase within Australian culture.

The reaction of the mainstream political parties was negative, with parliament passing a resolution (supported by all members except Graeme Campbell) condemning her views on immigration and multiculturalism. However, the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard refused to censure Hanson or speak critically about her, acknowledging that her views were shared by many Australians, commenting that he saw the expression of such views as evidence that the 'pall of political correctness' had been lifted in Australia, and that Australians could now "speak a little more freely and a little more openly about what they feel".

Hanson immediately labelled Howard as a "strong leader" and said Australians were now free to discuss issues without "fear of being branded as a bigot or racist". Over the next few months Hanson featured prominently on television and talkback radio, attracting popularist anti-immigration sentiment and the attention of the Citizens' Electoral Council, the Australian League of Rights and other right-wing groups. Opinion polls suggested that up to two in three Australians thought immigration levels too high, and with popularist anti-immigration sentiment obtaining expression around Hanson. In the face of this political climate, the Immigration Minister announced a tougher government line on refugee applications, and cut the family reunion intake by 10,000 despite an election promise to maintain immigration levels. Various academic experts, business leaders and several state premiers attacked the justification offered by Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock who had claimed that the reduction had been forced by continuing high unemployment. Ethnic communities complained that this attack on multiculturalism was a cynical response to polls showing Hanson's rising popularity. Hanson herself claimed credit for forcing the government's hand.

Hanson's views received negative coverage across Asian news media, and National Party Deputy and Trade Minister, Tim Fischer, criticised the race "debate" initiated by Hanson saying it was putting Australian exports and jobs at risk. In October other ministers and state and territory leaders followed Fischer's lead in attacking Hanson. In November, about 10,000 people marched in protest against racism in Melbourne, and other protests followed, while Anglican and Catholic church leaders warned that the "ill-conceived controversy" threatened the stability of Australia's multicultural society. Also repudiating Hanson's views on immigration and multiculturalism in 1996 were Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett, the Queensland National Senator Ron Boswell, Sir Ronald Wilson and former PM Paul Keating.

A poll in The Bulletin magazine at this time suggested that if Hanson formed a political party, it would win 18 percent of the vote. After months of silence, Howard forwarded a bipartisan motion (along with Opposition Leader Kim Beazley) against racial discrimination and reaffirming support for a nondiscriminatory immigration policy. The motion was carried on the voices. Howard later said that Hanson was plainly wrong and was "an empty popularist offering a cure worse than the disease". Hanson did not relent in articulating her views and continued to address public meetings around Australia. The League of Rights offered financial and organisational support for her campaign against Asian immigration, and in December she announced she was considering forming a political party to contend the next election.

Race and immigration

Despite repeated denials of the racism charge by Hanson, her views on race were widely discussed in Australia. For example, at the 1997 annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Communications Association (ANZCA) at La Trobe University, a paper was presented with the title 'Phenomena and Epiphenomena: is Pauline Hanson racist?'. In 1998, Keith Suter argued that Hanson's views were better understood as an angry response to globalisation. By August 1998 perceptions in Asia of Hanson's popularity being related to racism were affecting international relations, and this prompted Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs under John Howard to issue a media release calling on Pauline Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge to "disassociate themselves from the racist slurs being promoted in the Asian media by people claiming to be their closest supporters". In 2000, the University of NSW Press published the book Race, Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand, which identified Hanson as a central figure in the 'racism debate' in Australia of the 1990s, noting that senior Australian academics such as Jon Stratton, Ghassan Hage and Andrew Jakubowicz had explored Hanson's significance in an international as well as national context.

In 2004, Hanson appeared on the nationally televised ABC interview show Enough Rope. Archival footage from a 60 Minutes program shot on the streets of Ipswich was used to introduce claims about racism and bigotry in Hanson's views. Hanson challenged interviewer Andrew Denton to show her things that she had said that were racist. Denton instead responded with an example of an abusive letter sent to an Asian girl after Hanson's speeches. The letter included a racist tirade. Hanson was then challenged about derogatory comments about Aboriginals made by her "fellow travellers". Hanson distanced herself from the comments, by countering that several elected candidates of One Nation were "radicals that tagged themselves to me". She also stated that she had limited knowledge of her autobiography Pauline Nation's 'The Truth' and its contents.

In 2006, as an ex-politician, Hanson again achieved notoriety by asserting that Africans bring disease into Australia. Ten years after her maiden speech, its effects were still being discussed within a racism framework, and were included in resources funded by the Queensland Government on 'Combating racism in Queensland'. Also, in December 2006 The Age reported that Australian Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown had labelled Hanson a "bloodsucker" over her suggestion that Africans are bringing AIDS into Australia. She also said she was concerned by the ease with which people were able to gain Australian citizenship, especially Muslims and Africans. She also made claims that "You can't have schools not sing Christmas carols because it upsets others". Liberal Bruce Baird said Hanson had her facts wrong in her suggestions of immigrants bringing disease into Australia. He also said "Ms Hanson will never let the truth get in the way of a good story". In relation to African immigration, Hanson also said: "Do you want to see your daughter or a family member end up with AIDS or anyone for that matter?". In relation to this, the Federation of African Communities Council said that the group's lawyers were lodging a complaint of racial discrimination with the Australian Human Rights Commission. In 2007, Hanson publicly backed Kevin Andrews, then Minister for Immigration under John Howard, in his views about African migrants and crime.

Personal life

Hanson lives in Beaudesert, Queensland. She moved there after considering to move to the United Kingdom, but decided to remain in Australia, commenting that the UK was 'overrun with immigrants'. However, during the time when she thought she was going to move, Hanson said that she would not sell her house to Muslims.

Hanson assisted Australian country musician Brian Letton in making a record with Tommy Tycho.

In 2006, she began a new career selling real estate in Queensland, working with her son Tony at the Real Estate firm, The Professionals.

She has been parodied and impersonated by drag queen Pauline Pantsdown, who sampled snippets from Hanson's speeches to create a song called "I'm a Backdoor Man". After Hanson pursued successful legal action against Pantsdown, Pantsdown used the same technique to create the track "I Don't Like It", a 1998 Top 10 single in Australia.

After a civil suit in 1999 that reached the Queensland Court of Appeal in 2000, involving disgruntled former One Nation member Tony Sharples and a finding of fraud when registering One Nation as a political party, Hanson was facing bankruptcy. She made an appeal to supporters to give money to help her through her hard times. Shaun Nelson, who had been a One Nation member of the Queensland parliament, attacked Hanson: "She can afford to live on a $700,000 mansion just outside of Rosewood. The people up here that she's asking to give money to are pensioners and farmers that are doing it tough." Hanson, however, claimed she considered selling her home.

Hanson has been divorced twice, and has four children.

Fraud conviction and reversal

On 20 August 2003, in a separate and this time criminal case, a jury in the District Court of Queensland convicted Hanson and Ettridge of electoral fraud. Both of them were sentenced to three years imprisonment for falsely claiming that 500 members of the 'Pauline Hanson Support Movement' were members of the political organisation 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation', in order to register that organisation in Queensland as a political party and apply for electoral funding. Because the registration was found to be unlawful, Hanson's receipt of electoral funding worth A$498,637 resulted in two further convictions for dishonestly obtaining property – each with three-year sentences, to run concurrently with the first. Hanson's initial reaction to the verdict was – "Rubbish, I'm not guilty. It's a joke."

Prime Minister John Howard said it was "a very long, unconditional sentence" and Bronwyn Bishop said Hanson was a political prisoner, comparing her conviction with Robert Mugabe's treatment of Zimbabwean opponents.

On 6 November 2003 (delivering judgment the day after hearing the appeal), the Queensland Court of Appeal quashed all of Hanson and Ettridge's convictions. Hanson and Ettridge were immediately released from jail. The Court's unanimous decision was that the evidence did not support a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that the people on the list were not members of the 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation' party and that Hanson and Ettridge knew this when the application to register the party was submitted. Accordingly, the convictions regarding registration were quashed. The convictions regarding funding, which depended on the same facts, were also quashed. However, in order to reach this decision the court had to suppose that the three founding members of One Nation – Hanson, Ettridge and Oldfield – had misinterpreted the party's constitution when they had claimed, in earlier public statements, to be the only members of the party. Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, with whom the other two judges agreed overall, suggested that, if Hanson, Ettridge and especially the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had used better lawyers from the start, the whole matter might not have taken so long, up to the appeal hearing, or even have been avoided altogether. Court of Appeal President Margaret McMurdo rebuked many politicians, including Prime Minister John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop MHR. Their observations, she said, demonstrated at least "a lack of understanding of the Rule of Law" and "an attempt to influence the judicial appellate process and to interfere with the independence of the judiciary for cynical political motives", although she praised other leading Coalition politicians for accepting the District Court's decision.

In 1998, Tony Abbott had established a trust fund called "Australians for Honest Politics Trust" to help bankroll civil court cases against the One Nation Party and its leader Pauline Hanson. Prime Minister John Howard denied any knowledge of existence of such a fund. Abbott was also accused of offering funds to One Nation dissident Terry Sharples to support his court battle against the party. However, Howard defended the honesty of Abbott in this matter. Abbott conceded that the political threat One Nation posed to the Howard Government was "a very big factor" in his decision to pursue the legal attack, but he also claimed to be acting "in Australia's national interest". Howard also defended Abbott's actions saying "It's the job of the Liberal Party to politically attack other parties – there's nothing wrong with that."

Autobiography and published books

Soon after her election to Parliament, Hanson's book, The Truth, was published in which she made claims of Aboriginal cannibalism, in particular, that Aboriginal women ate their babies and tribes cannibalised their members. Hanson told the media that the reason for these claims of cannibalism was to "demonstrate the savagery of Aboriginal society". David Ettridge, the One Nation party director, explained that the book's claims were intended to correct 'misconceptions' about Aboriginal history. These 'misconceptions' were said to be relevant to modern-day Aboriginal welfare funding. He asserted that "the suggestion that we should be feeling some concern for modern day Aborigines for suffering in the past is balanced a bit by the alternative view of whether you can feel sympathy for people who eat their babies". The book predicted that in 2050 Australia would have a lesbian president of Chinese-Indian background called Poona Li Hung who would be a cyborg. In 2004, Hanson said that the book was "written by some other people who actually put my name to it" and that while she held the copyright over The Truth, she was unaware that much of the material was being published under her name.

In March 2007, Hanson published her autobiography Untamed and Unashamed.

Further reading

• Scott Balson (2000), Inside One Nation. The inside story on a people's party born to fail, Interactive Presentations, Mt Crosby News (Queensland), ISBN 0-9577415-2-9
• Helen J Dodd (1997), Pauline. The Hanson Phenomenon, Boolarong Press, Moorooka (Queensland), ISBN 0-646-33217-1
• David Ettridge (2004), Consider Your Verdict, New Holland Publishers, Frenchs Forest (New South Wales) ISBN 1-74110-232-4
• Bligh Grant (ed.) (1997), Pauline Hanson. One Nation and Australian Politics, University of New England Press, Armidale (NSW), ISBN 1-875821-38-4
• Pauline Hanson (2007), Untamed and Unashamed — Pauline Hanson's autobiography, Jo–Jo Publishing, Docklands (Victoria) ISBN 978-0-9802836-2-4
• James Jupp (1998), 'Populism in the land of Oz,' in Meanjin, Vol.57, No.4, pp. 740–747
• Margo Kingston (1999), Off the Rails. The Pauline Hanson Trip, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards (NSW) ISBN 1-86508-159-0
• Michael Leach, Geoffrey Stokes, Ian Ward (eds.) (2000), The Rise and Fall of One Nation, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia (Queensland) ISBN 0-7022-3136-3
• George J Merritt (1997), Pauline Hanson. The Truth, St George Publications, Parkholme (South Australia), ISBN 0-646-32012-2
• John Pasquarelli (1998), The Pauline Hanson Story by the Man Who Knows, New Holland Publishers, Frenchs Forest (NSW), ISBN 1-86436-341-X

External links

• Official website

Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Les Scott	Member for Oxley 1996–1998	Succeeded by Bernie Ripoll