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Divisive Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who once claimed Asians were in danger of swamping the country, was Sunday on the cusp of being re-elected to parliament after a near 20-year absence.
She is one of a host of minor party candidates or independents on track to win upper house Senate seats, as voters disillusioned with the ruling conservatives and Labor opposition opted for change.
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The final counts are not yet settled but Hanson, who rose to prominence in the 1990s as head of the right-wing, anti-immigration One Nation party she co-founded, is forecast to again be headed to Canberra.
“I have got no problems with anyone – if they have got a problem with me, that’s their issue, not mine,” she said, adding that the major parties needed to start listening to grassroots Australians.
Pauline Hanson is a former fish and chip shop owner. File photo: SMH/Reuters
“I’m the person that’s going to come in, like the cleaner, if they don’t clean your house properly you get rid of them and you have a clean sweep of the broom.”
Australian politician Pauline Hanson returns to lead One Nation party
But Hanson, who wants a halt to Muslim immigration and have a national inquiry into whether Islam is a religion or a political ideology, has already created waves.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale said it was “certain” Hanson had made a successful return to the parliament and his party would do all it could to keep her in check.
Pauline Hanson hands out ‘how-to-vote cards’ outside a polling booth in Brisbane. Photo: EPA
“The Greens will stand against her racist and bigoted agenda,” he said.
“There is no place for bigotry, for the sort of hatred that she is spreading through her views, that have no place in a modern 21st century Australia.
Anti-Hanson petition in HK
“We will be the opposition to her in the Senate, taking it right up to her and letting her know that we would rather be a country that doesn’t pray on people’s fears and anxieties but appeals to their better nature.”
Hanson smiles during a live television cross at her election-night function in Ipswich, west of Brisbane. Photo: EPA
Hanson, who famously ditched her fish and chip shop to represent Queensland in the national parliament, lost her seat in 1998 and quit as One Nation’s leader in 2002.
Hanson quits, citing toll on personal life
She announced her return to lead One Nation after a 12-year hiatus in 2014, saying she felt there was no choice given voter disillusionment with other parties.
In the strongest reaction to Hanson’s anti-immigration party’s success in a 1998 state elections, Australian Chinese in Hong Kong threatened a boycott of Queensland products and tourists spots. The Australian Chinese Association of Hong Kong urged in a letter to then Prime Minister John Howard to take “immediate and aggressive steps” to counter the damage being done to Australia’s multicultural image in Asia. It also said that it would urged emigrants to consider moving to other states and avoid sending children to schools in Queensland. The 1,000-member association also threatened to withdraw investment and avoid Queensland for holidays.
(AFP)
