The kids are alright — it's the One Nation Adults who are a concern

From Vietnam to today’s anti-Hanson rallies, young Australians have a proud history of speaking truth to power while the adults tell them to get back to school, writes Darren Crawford.

THOUSANDS OF HIGH SCHOOL and university students wagged school last Thursday in major cities across the country to reject Senator Pauline Hanson’s racist, xenophobic and revisionist future for Australia.

Harnessing the power of peaceful protest, the kids took to the streets shouting things like, “No Hanson, no racism, no fascism, no bigotry!”, carrying signs supporting immigrants and the Indigenous, and hoisting Indigenous and pride flags and various unflattering portrayals of Ms Hanson and the rest of the One Nation Adults.

The kids exercising their democratic freedoms of course, sent One Nation adults around the country into a lather, with some turning up to abuse the kids to their faces at the various protests (before being removed by the police for their own safety in Brisbane and Sydney), and South Australian MP Cory Bernardi and One Nation Adult (yes, the man who thinks gay people have sex with animals) stalking and filming kids without their consent on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide, before posting the interactions online.

I’m pretty sure there are laws about older men filming underage kids in public without their consent and posting the content online, but as usual, when would a One Nation Adult follow rules?

Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce: Hypocrisy is thy name

Parliamentary expenses show extraordinary waste from anti-waste campaigners Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.

But I digress.

Now, while that is all standard fare – old people being angry at young people for pointing out that some old people are idiots – the online world has really lifted the absolute bigotry, racism and ignorance of One Nation Adults to unforeseen heights.

Online and at the protests, the One Nation Adults told the kids to “get back to school”, to “get a job” and to “take those piercings out!” The One Nation Adults blamed the kids’ “woke teachers” and the “Far-Left ideologies taught at university”, and that “they’re all communists!”

The One Nation Adults also blamed the kids’ parents, claiming in various forms that because their kids have “protested”, they have failed in their parenting duties.

You know we’ve seen this before, right?

Historically, students and student unions have used peaceful protest to great effect in this country. For example, the protests that began in the mid-1960s through to the early 1970s opposing Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War were crucial in changing the public’s perception of our engagement in and ultimate withdrawal from the conflict.

And of course, while those kids were exercising their democratic rights, the “adults”, who were, of course, riding on the “sheep’s back” while being “all the way with LBJ” and the White Australia Policy, and were possibly scarred by the horrors of both World Wars, were telling these kids to “go back to school” and “get a job” or “get a haircut”. And, of course, the “adults” were blaming the “communists in the universities”. The parents, at the time, just washed their hands of them.

Similarly, during the same-sex marriage debate in 2017, students and student unions, including the National Union of Students (NUS), which organised the anti-Hanson rallies last week, helped mobilise major protests around the country, which again helped shift the public’s focus on the issue.

And what were the “adults” saying?

Well, the kids needed to “go back to school” and that “you’re all woke lefties”, and “take those piercings out” and “get that colour out of your hair”, and of course Cory was fixated on gay kids having sex with animals. But again, I digress. The parents, of course, were again blamed, along with the “woke leftie teachers”. Sound familiar?

The multicultural generosity Pauline can't see

From volunteers to blood donors, Australians of every background demonstrate the compassion and generosity that Pauline Hanson refuses to acknowledge.

Speaking truth to power

In my community, students and young people were a major part of peaceful protests organised by the Save Our Spit Alliance (SOSA) opposing the cruise ship terminal (CST) proposals for the Southport Spit — first against the Beattie (ALP) Government in 2006 and then against the Newman (LNP) Government’s Global Tourism Development in 2012 and 2014.

Again, these protests were successful because of the young people involved, in particular a then 15-year-old Ellen Palmer, who spoke passionately in front of thousands of residents at the Grand Theft Wave Break Rally in 2014 about the need to protect the last remaining undeveloped natural space on the northern end of the Gold Coast from being developed into an international CST and casino by Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate, and then Queensland Premier Campbell Newman.

Over 3,000 people attended the Grand Theft Wave Break Rally in 2014 (Photo by Darren Crawford)

Ellen, mature beyond her years, spoke about how the current generation of “adults” were destroying the environment for short-term gain, at the expense of her generation’s future.

Of course, the “adults” at the time claimed that Ellen was being “brainwashed by the Greenies” and “what were her parents thinking?” and that she should “stay in school”. However, without Ellen’s passionate online and face-to-face advocacy, I have little doubt that the protests would not have been as successful.

(After the SOSA rally in 2006, Peter Beattie pulled his CST proposal, as polling showed he was going to lose seats as a result. In 2015, after multiple public rallies, Campbell Newman blindly pressed forward and duly lost his seat and government, handing the keys to the state to Annastacia Palaszczuk, who later cancelled the CST proposal and consulted with the locals on what would become the Spit Master Plan. Mayor Tom Tate, somehow, is still Mayor.)

Ellen Palmer meeting Premier Palaszczuk in 2015 (Photo by Darren Crawford)

The reality

Kids aren’t dumb. They know when they are being stitched up, and that is why most of them can see straight through Pauline Hanson’s racist, xenophobic and revisionist future for Australia.

I have two young adults at home, one in their second year of a medical science degree and one about to finish their senior year at a government high school. Along with their mates, they can’t stand Hanson and what/who she represents. They have grown up in a multicultural community, and they both have lifelong friends from different cultural, religious, racial and economic backgrounds.

They’re watching and they know that what Hanson is selling helps no one. They have also seen enough of the One Nation Adults, either through sport, school or their part-time jobs, to know that they must stay away from them. Not because they are scared of them, but because, as my young bloke puts it, “They’re just dickheads, Dad”.

The One Nation Adults, for me, however, are another kettle of fish. Now I know that most of you One Nation Adults out there aren’t going to read this piece (let alone understand it), but you are going to complain about it. And there lies your hypocrisy.

Some of you One Nation Adults are going to go straight into attack mode and hit my page, or DM my socials with the standard accusations of “typical woke-leftie”, “you’re a communist” and “ya fucken’ libtard” (whatever that means).

Pauline shines in the political gutter, enjoying spoils from wealthy donors

Perhaps if Pauline Hanson actually turned up for work more often, she'd have a greater understanding of the issues Australia is dealing with.

And the funny part is, the One Nation Adults that shout these things the loudest are always the ones that have no proof of what they are shouting.

It’s always the One Nation Adult that didn’t go to uni who shouts “these bloody uni lecturers are all woke socialists poisoning our kids!”

It’s always the One Nation Adult with no kids that screams “these bloody woke teachers are teaching our kids to be woke commies!”

And it’s almost guaranteed that the One Nation Adult (usually with a motorbike for a profile picture) challenging the kids to “get a haircut and a job” is lined up at Centrelink with his hand out (not that there is anything wrong with socialism helping the less fortunate — I’m happy for my taxes to go there).

So again, the kids are alright. It’s their job to hold up a mirror to us old people and help us to keep things real — for their future and for ours. The kids did it in the '60s to oppose the Vietnam War; they did it again so people who love each other (not animals, Cory) could get married and a very special kid stood up and spoke up to save her favourite place, the Southport Spit.

Speaking truth to power is a universal right and we should be proud of our kids for doing so.

Hanson and the One Nation Adults haven’t figured that out yet and according to my kids, they never will.

The kids have a right to protest in the same way they will have a right to vote. And that’s the other thing Hanson and the One Nation Adults haven’t figured out — the kids won’t be voting for them any time soon.

Author’s note: Darren Crawford is a long-term member of the National Tertiary Education Union and the long-term vice president of the Save Our Spit Alliance.

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.