Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) has reaped just over 20 per cent of the vote in Saturday’s South Australian State Election, proving racism is alive and well in the State.
Despite apparently spending a fortune on social media bots after the recent takeover of the Party by Australia’s richest Americophile MAGA Gina Rinehart, PHON has so far won just one seat in the South Australian (SA) Parliament, in the Lower House. It looks unlikely to win any others in that House and at most two in the Upper House.
Pauline Hanson, who has spent almost 30 stuttering years in politics, has based her whole brand on the “fear of others”. At first, in the late 1990s, this involved accusing Asian immigrants of taking over the country. She moved onto accusing Muslims of assaulting anything that moved in the early part of the new millennium. This was followed by stating that African gangs are cutting every one with machetes in the mid-2010’s. She has always deplored Indigenous Australians. Recently, Hanson has returned to telling the gullible to be scared of Asians, as well as Muslims.
While having no coherent policies, other than hating immigrants, and providing no costings for these policies aimed at hating immigrants, Hanson has managed to give the left over cookers, anti-vaxxers and Q-anon PTSD sufferers from Covid a safe space to let their inner racist shine publicly. While most PHON candidates are selected from each village’s pool of idiots, Hanson recently managed to enlist former Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi to run in the SA election. Bernardi’s only brief claim to fame arose when he announced that same-sex marriage would lead to bestiality; ironically, this might just get him into the Upper House.
Hanson, sorry Gina, has also recruited serial sex-pest and falling down drunk Barnaby Joyce from the imploding National Party. The "Beetrooter", as he is unaffectionately known, miffed at being un-electable as that Party's leader, jumped ship, sorry, jumped jets, to lead PHON at a Federal level, easily pushing tiny crayon-eating, climate change denialist, Dunning-Kruger poster-child Senator Malcolm Roberts off the planter box. How long this marriage between Pauline and Barnaby will last is anyone’s guess, however, Malcom always has his crayons at the ready. (This is Barnaby's third marriage, by-the-way; IA's wonder how Vicki feels about it?)
The mainstream media has, of course, trumpeted the "surge" of PHON in this election as heralding the rise in popularity across the country for Hanson. What they have failed to recognise though is that, while there has been a shift to PHON, the ALP's Malinauskas Government has been returned to power with an expanded majority, and the conservative base of the Liberal and National Parties has collapsed, with most of their fleeing voters flocking to Labor.
Gina’s bots may be flooding Facebook, where cranky old boomers, Trump-lovers and brickhead concreters are blindly lapping up the lies and mistruths, but in reality, with the ALP quietly creeping even further to the right, and in the face of rising living costs, a housing crisis, and the uncertainty of daily Trumpian lunacy, Labor is now capturing conservative voters craving steady, consistent leadership.
The ALP have a plan. Under Malinauskas, South Australia is booming.Pauline has no plan, no costings, a host of village idiots, a drunken serial adulterer, a midget with a crayon-consumption compulsion, and a child of Italian immigrants who fantasises about men in compromising situations with canines.
While Gina has thousands of bots, and a Rewards Card for the Mar-a-Lago Buffet, supporting her own racism by purchasing the most prejudiced politician in Australia has not worked. Again. And until the Liberal and National Parties can see their way back into the sensible centre, it’s never going to work — because Facebook bots can’t vote.
Darren Crawford is a surfer, environmentalist, sports coach/administrator and academic. He is also vice president of Save Our Spit Alliance. You can follow Darren on Twitter @Darrencanplay.
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