Farrer falls: One Nation crashes the Coalition fortress

The voters of Farrer have jumped from the dirty dishwater of the LNP into the seething sewer of Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON).

As every corporate news media outlet in the galaxy has shouted from the rooftops, the far-right herd of PHON won last Saturday’s by-election in the former Coalition stronghold of Farrer here in my home state of New South Wales.

ABC News describes the political sideshow thus:

‘The result saw One Nation record not only a landslide but an historic victory in Farrer, as the Coalition lost part of its heartland and the jewel in its crown — a seat it had held for nearly 80 years.’

This is the first time in PHON’s erratic and corrupt history that it has won a Lower House seat in Australia’s Federal Parliament. That said, these days the LNP Coalition is not all that different to the mouth-breathing, flag-waving, knuckle-dragging cranks, bigots, anti-vaxers, chemtrail alarmists, chancers, cheats and racists of PHON, but the current interim leader, Angus Taylor, is doing his best to make up that difference.

After all, way back in 1996, Pauline Hanson was an LP candidate until LNP PM John Howard gave her the boot. Howard even had her briefly gaoled for corruption, where she developed a fear of thongs (or flip-flops, in the parlance of Kiwis, Poms and Seppos).

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The irony, of course, is that Howard then appropriated her racist dog-whistle and turned it into a foghorn.

The seat of Farrer was formerly held by the laughably incompetent Sussan Ley for 25 inconsequential years, but was up for grabs when she quit after being shafted by her colleagues: she was briefly LP “leader”, but only for crash-test-dummy purposes.

A Trump worshipper, the barely coherent and sublimely ignorant Hanson is insufferable at the best of times – most recently when she received a “donation” from Gina Rinehart, the billionaire mining magnate and businesswoman, and the richest person in Australia – but, after this bonanza, the raving redhead will be screeching even louder.

Gina’s donation? A brand-new Cirrus G7 worth around $1.3 million. At the same time, $2 million in cash was showered upon Hanson like manna from the fossil fuel mining industry by stockbroker Angus Aitken, Gina’s Hancock Holdings CEO Adam Giles and Ian Plimer, the notorious anti-science scientist.

So much for Pauline’s claims of caring for the average Aussie battler! She just takes their mad money and lurches off into the tall grass. When she sheds crocodile tears for the “forgotten people”, Hanson doesn’t mean the foolish plebs who have made her a multi-millionaire during her 30 – THIRTY! – embarrassing years as a Senator — she means the rotten rich right-wing extremists who are her real backers.

But one thing seems a certainty: following One Nation tradition, winning pop-up candidate David Farley will probably soon quit the party and declare himself an Independent. Yes, folks, more than two-thirds of all elected One Nation members have jumped ship before the end of their term.

So, no need to panic. The reign of the raving redhead is not nigh. This PHONy win is just a flush in the pan and Hanson will continue to entertain us, providing ample material for comedians, cartoonists and blog floggers for years to come.