Ratbags in the ranks: Hanson, the Coalition and the far right
The rise of the virulently racist and xenophobic Pauline Hanson has provided Australia's small and divided — sometimes warring — far-right organisations the opportunity to regroup beneath her banner. With the mainstream media treating Hanson's bigoted outpourings with kid gloves, sections of big business prepared for its own purposes to tolerate an openly racist presence on the political spectrum and the Howard government lending a sympathetic ear, the far right is increasingly influential.
Green Left Weekly's NORM DIXON donned a surgical mask, rolled up his sleeves and delved into the murky world of the far right to trace its links with Hanson and One Nation, only to discover there is no clear line where the ratbag right ends and the establishment parties, especially the Liberal and National parties, begin.
The election of Pauline Hanson as independent member for the traditionally safe Labor seat of Oxley, in Queensland, at the last federal election was unexpected. Hanson was the unremarkable Liberal candidate until her public expression of anti-Aboriginal racism forced the Liberals' state office to disendorse her just before polling day.
Hanson was not dumped for her crudely racist views, which are representative of the members of the Coalition parties in that part of the world (how else was Hanson endorsed in the first place?), but because she lacked the PR nous to utter them only behind closed doors or out of earshot of reporters.
Despite her "disendorsement", Hanson was supported by the local Liberal machine. Liberals, including the president of the local branch, distributed how-to-vote cards for her at the same time as they handed out for the Liberals in the Senate. Posters proclaiming Hanson as "Liberal for Oxley" plastered the electorate.
After her victory, Hanson appointed members of the Liberal and National parties to her staff. Further evidence that Hanson was not an "aberration" were the racist remarks while campaigning by Coalition candidates Bob Katter and Bob Burgess (the National Party leadership refused to take action).
Far-right groups immediately moved to ally themselves with and influence the new member. Three closely connected groups — former Labor MP Graeme Campbell's Australia First, Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI) and the Australian League of Rights (ALR)— were the first to jump on the Hanson band wagon and have had an enormous influence on One Nation's policies and ideology.
Within days of the election, Campbell dispatched a member of his staff, John Pasquarelli, to join Hanson as press secretary and adviser.
During the 1960s Pasquarelli worked in PNG as a Department of District Administration patrol officer, shot crocodiles and lived the life of Riley. In his book New Guinea Patrol, Martin Kerr writes that to "Big John ... the locals were coons. He thought they weren't long out of the trees ... His attitude towards natives bore the satisfaction of a completely dominant masta-servant relationship. A kanaka was a kanaka to John."
Kerr states that Pasquarelli was not averse to sexually and physically abusing PNG women.
Pasquarelli returned to Australia in 1975 and joined the Liberal Party. He unsuccessfully ran as Liberal candidate for the Victorian seat of Jagajaga in 1987. In the late 1980s he joined the staff of Senate National Party leader and "new right" personality John Stone. He was also a regular contributor to B.A. Santamaria's News Weekly. Pasquarelli resigned from Liberal Party only earlier this year.
"I saw the dingo-like attack from the media", said Campbell, explaining to the Australian Financial Review why he sent Pasquarelli. "I thought, hell, this girl needs help."
Pasquarelli approved all Hanson's press statements and wrote her speeches. It was during this time that Hanson stated she would represent only her non-indigenous constituents, that Australia was being "swamped" by Asians and that Asians were responsible for drugs and crime.
According to sources in Campbell's office who spoke to the Australia/Israel Review's Adam Indikt, Pasquarelli maintained daily contact with Campbell, sometimes phoning several times a day. The cooperation extended down to modifying Campbell's letterheads and stationery for use by Hanson.
Pasquarelli wrote Hanson's now infamous maiden speech, with its ill-informed anti-Aboriginal, anti-Asian tirades and conspiracy theories that echoed the views of the ALR. The speech remains Hanson and One Nation's manifesto.
Members of AAFI and Australia First also played an important role in the production of Hanson's book, The Truth, which includes claims that Aborigines were cannibals, found babies "delicious" and killed old women like livestock.
An Adelaide academic close to AAFI leader Denis McCormack is rumoured to have written sections of the anonymous book.
In April, George Merrit, Adelaide convener of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement, claimed that he also helped write the book. McCormack, who is also vice-president of Australia First, says he proofread the book and made editorial recommendations.
ALR leader Eric Butler announced in October that the league would give Hanson "all possible support". The league financed the printing and distribution of tens of thousands of copies of Hanson's maiden speech.
Peter Davis, mayor of Port Lincoln in South Australia and a member of the ALR for 30 years, in October pledged his support for Hanson. Davis has described children of mixed-race parents as "mongrels".
Davis has a penchant for quoting Nazi apologist historian David Irving during council meetings. Local councillors say that Davis plans to stand for the Senate on Australia First's ticket.
Davis also signed a joint letter to local papers with Port Augusta Mayor Joy Baluch in February 1996, urging support for AAFI candidates in the federal election. In a familiar refrain, they blamed Asians for drug peddling, unemployment, prostitution and crime. The two mayors also called for a vote for the Liberal member for Grey, Barry Wakelin.
Other far-right forces independently threw their lot in with Hanson. The Queensland-based Confederate Action Party quickly formed Pauline Hanson Support Movements and is now believed to have dissolved into One Nation. Bruce Whiteside, who in the 1980s stood as a CAP candidate on an anti-Japanese investment platform, launched a very successful support movement on the Gold Coast the day after Hanson's maiden speech in September.
The neo-Nazi bully boys of National Action have pledged their allegiance to Hanson.
According National Party Senate leader Ron Boswell, who denounced Hanson's far-right connections in a speech to parliament on June 18, One Nation's organiser in Newcastle and would-be candidate Peter Archer helped organise a tour of Australia by a member of the right-wing militia movement in the US who also had close links with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Archer previously organised forums featuring speakers from the ALR. In a book entitled The Australian Crisis, Archer details a variety of world government conspiracies and praises the help he received from ALR leaders Jeremy Lee and Peter Sawyer.
For her part, Hanson was also reaching out to the disparate strands of the far right. During the election, Hanson directed her preferences to Victor Robb, a former Queensland state secretary of the openly neo-Nazi National Front. Robb returned the favour, saying he "thoroughly supports Hanson's views".
In October, she was scheduled to address a meeting in Melbourne of the Australian Reform Party, led by Sporting Shooters Association leader Ted Drane. In February, she was guest of honour at the launch of Campbell's Australia First, where she was given a standing ovation by a large audience in which members of the ALR and AAFI were prominent.
Edwin Morris, editor of the right-wing Bundaberg New Australia Times, told Australian reporter Mike Steketee that Hanson had supported his proposal to form an umbrella group to bring all far-right organisations under one banner. "There is only a cigarette paper between each of them in their policies", Morris said.
The plan was to hold meetings in each capital city, culminating in a final gathering in Sydney to launch the united party. Hanson had agreed to attend a meeting in Melbourne but pulled out, instead announcing her intention to form One Nation.
This change of tack seems to have been triggered by Hanson's fear that she was losing control of her movement. Pasquarelli was unceremoniously sacked on December 9, after Hanson reportedly found he was constructing a Senate ticket in her name. Australia First and AAFI, and through them, the ALR, would have benefited most, given Pasquarelli's links.
Hanson's new right-hand man, David Ettridge, set about bringing the support group branches back under Hanson's control. CAP's Whiteside was also ditched.
Since its formation on April 11, branches of One Nation have been formed under party director Ettridge's watchful eye. On April 19, Ettridge warned that if groups like the ALR or the CAP tried to control One Nation, they would be expelled.
"We have no real interest in affiliations or alliances", Ettridge told the May 3-4 Weekend Australian. "We are the ones that are forging ahead at a great rate of knots and they [the other far-right parties] are the ones who have been running very slowly in the water ... We have the Pauline Hanson phenomenon and they don't. Even poor old Graeme Campbell. We are big fans of Graeme but his movement doesn't seem to be getting any steam at all."
Hanson and Ettridge's differences with the other far-right groups are tactical and organisational. On the level of policies and ideology, there is little conflict.
ALR, AAFI and Australia First remain enthusiastic supporters of Hanson and continue to launch, or participate in, new branches of One Nation. Indeed, Hanson and Ettridge know that in order to create a party capable of making a significant electoral impact nationally they must allow those far-right groups with resources and troops on the ground an important role.
According to Ron Boswell, One Nation advertised in May for members in the "anti-Semitic, racist and extremist rag The Strategy", which has links with the most extreme sections of the Australian and international far right.
One Nation leaders want to avoid the impression that the party is an umbrella group for the nutty far-right. Their sights are set on two goals: attracting members and voters away from the far-right wing of the Coalition parties, especially in its rural heartlands, and winning support from sections of the urban working class with the most backward attitudes.
One Nation has already made progress towards the first goal. On May 9, David Oldfield, electoral secretary to Liberal MHR Tony Abbott and a former Liberal candidate in the 1995 NSW elections, defected to join Hanson's staff. Former Liberal WA MHR Paul Filing, now an independent, has aligned himself with Hanson and says other Liberal MPs are considering jumping ship.
Other Coalition figures and bodies to have expressed support for Hanson include: NSW Liberal Party state executive member and Gosford branch president Malcolm Brooks; a federal vice-president of the National Party and Tasmanian branch president, Peter Murray; former National Party premier of Queensland Joh Bjelke-Petersen; former NP Queensland Senator Flo Bjelke-Petersen, who told the May 12 Australian, "... so many of [Hanson's] policies are National Party policies but the Nationals can't always implement them because they are in coalition with the Liberals" (both Joh and Flo while in office openly sympathised with the League of Rights); John Stone.
The Liberal machine in Hanson's Oxley electorate remains loyal to Hanson. The Queensland state Liberals have announced they will direct preferences to Hanson, making her re-election highly likely, and a $25-a-head function for Hanson was organised by the Goondiwindi branch of the Liberals.
Not surprisingly, the National Party is very worried. Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge warned that the Coalition could be devastated by "Pauline Hansons from one end of the Australia to another", and National Party Senate leader Ron Boswell denounced Hanson and her links to the far right.
The Nationals' real concern is not that there will be a rash of new "Pauline Hansons", but that the Coalition's existing "Pauline Hansons", who riddle the organisation and openly sympathise with the views of the ratbag right, will desert them to join One Nation.