The following is a reproduction of Chapter 19, "Pauline Hanson persecuted?", from Your Rights 1999 wherein John Bennett, President of the Australian Civil Liberties Union, describes the massive media bias against Pauline Hanson and One Nation [ON].
Bias in the media in support of immigration and Multiculturalism, and against Nationalism, is highly pronounced. This was especially shown during the so-called "Blainey debates" in the 1980s, when Professor Geoffrey Blainey criticised government immigration policies, whereupon the media, along with many of Blainey's "colleagues" in academia, set about to crucify him publicly.
Media bias again reared its ugly head in the 1990s during the rise of Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party. The bias was so intense against Hanson and her party, that one could have been forgiven for confusing Australia's major media with the Russian Communist media under Joseph Stalin or the German Nazi media under Joseph Goebbels.
The bias shown by the media against Pauline Hanson is not an isolated incident (an "incident" that continued over several years); the Multiculturalists in the media have been propagandising in support of immigration and Multiculturalism for several decades, and their unethical attacks against Nationalists, involving smears, half-truths, innuendo, and outright lies, are standard practice.
Australians should be aware that the media in general cannot ever be trusted on these issues. How many times should it be that we find out that the media is lying, or deliberately distorting the truth, until we are convinced that they cannot be trusted? As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".
Beware the bias and lies of the Multiculturalist media.
Pauline Hanson persecuted?
Anything goes against the Witch from Ipswich
One Nation won 11 seats in the Queensland elections in June 1998 and polled 8.5% of the vote in the Federal elections in October 1998. Media commentators, pointing to ON's disasterous flat tax policy, the resignation from the party of 6 of the 11 Queensland ON MP's, the numerous "free kicks" given by ON spokesmen to their opponents, and a seeming reluctance on the part of ON to democratise the party, predicted that ON would self destruct and become irrelevant. However ON polled 8% for the lower house in the NSW election - more that the National Party and much more than the combined vote of the Democrats and the Greens.
Many of ON's problems were of its own making. However the most important problem it faced was the extraordinary vilification, intimidation and censorship of ON by many prominent Australians, and by almost all sections of the media in 1997 and 1998. Organised mobs intimidated people wishing to attend ON meetings. These aspects of the ON saga should be of concern to all civil libertarians and to all people who support freedom of speech.
The extent of media bias for 1996 and 1997 was set out in Your Rights 1997 and 1998, which demonstrated the bias was greatest in Fairfax papers such as The Age and Sydney Morning Herald (but especially The Age) which, according to the prominent economic commentator Terry McCann writing in the Herald Sun and the Courier Mail are now effectively controlled by Kerry Packer, the owner of Channel 9 and a swag of magazines. The allegation that ON was racist and right wing was used as a smokescreen by the media to conceal the real objection to Hanson which was that her often old style ALP left wing economic policies of opposition to economic rationalism and globalization threatened the economic and political establishment.
The publication of a partial list of One Nation members by The Australia-Israel Review was perhaps the worst example of intimidation. Michelle Grattan, (Financial Review, 11/7) said that the publication of what the Daily Telegraph called Leibler's List highlights one disturbing aspect of the Pauline Hanson ON brouhaha - it has produced an "anything goes" mentality among some of Hanson's critics. Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun, 23/7) said that our media, cultural and political elites must share the blame for turning Hanson into "fair game for any dirty trick". The bias of The Age was even more, pronounced in 1998 than in 1997. Murdoch (News Limited) papers such as The Courier Mail, The Dairy Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Australian and The Advertiser were fairer to Hanson and ON in 1998 than Fairfax papers (as they had been in 1997), until the last few weeks of the election campaign when the papers adopted a "kill the cow" policy - that is, politically destroy Hanson. The new policy was reflected in a front page story of a woman refusing to open her door to Hanson because of a huge media pack filming Hanson's door knocking, inferring that voters did not wish to speak to Hanson. The journalists could have staked out any politician to get a similar story but they chose Hanson. She was "fair game for any dirty trick".
The ABC showed some bias against Hanson and those defending her freedom of speech. Thus at the same time the ABC was trying to stop the distribution of Your Rights because it offered a criticism of the way one interviewer questioned Hanson, while another interviewer let a critic of Hanson off the hook, it strongly promoted Pauline Pantsdown, a vicious satirist of Hanson, who implied Hanson was a homosexual, a prostitute and a transvestite, who was involved in the Ku Klux Klan. An episode of Wildside involved a Hanson-like character who was described as a drongo and menopausal motormouth who hated Aborigines. The episode appeared to draw on Hanson's career and included a character resembling her former advisor John Pasquarelli (Herald Sun, 4/6/98). The ABC would not dare to portray any other politician in this way. Anything goes. Even Phillip Adams, a constant critic of Hanson, said the Wildside episode should not have been put to air. Another critic said that the episode would lead ON supporters to believe that the ABC was sufficiently unscrupulous and contemptuous of the electorate that they would use any level of character assassination to damage a political foe. Kerry O'Brien said there was a lot of anger out there against the ABC because of the Hanson phenomena (Age, 19/12/98) but there seems to have been a lot of anger within the ABC directed against Hanson and ON. However despite the above lapses the ABC was generally fairer to Hanson than much of commercial radio and TV. Many ON candidates were given a fair run, for instance, on ABC rural programs such as Landline and presenters often seemed to go out of their way, on talk back, to allow supporters of ON adequate air time. An episode of Australian Story on ABC TV in February 1999 treated Hanson fairly.
3AW in Melbourne, seemed to be quite biased against ON, but some other commercial stations such as 2UE in Sydney, and 6PR in Perth often gave Hanson and ON supporters a good run. SBS TV chief Nigel Milan called on his staff to counter One Nation's "racist" policies - a call described by The Sunday Times (WA 28/6) as being a dangerous path for a publicly funded broadcaster. Such written directives would not be necessary for most media outlets. Most journalists know what to do on sensitive issues. Various programs on Channel 9 such as a 60 Minutes program claiming but not documenting alleged links between ON and extremist paramilitary groups in the USA reflected the "anything goes" policy to destroy Hanson politically. The attitude of the Packer-owned Channel 9 may reflect Packer's attitude to freedom of speech when as a student at Geelong Grammar he tried to have me ejected from a student's debate in which I was expressing my then pro-Communist views, but was ejected himself.
The anything goes mentality was apparent at the ON immigration launch, which was described as a "rowdy affair with questions flying from journalists even before the policy statement was finished. There was an air of open hostility" (Herald Sun 21/7) while the SMH [Sydney Morning Herald] said "the media went feral". ON skepticism about official immigration figures, much derided at the time by the anti-ON media rat pack has been vindicated by recent figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which show that net immigration is at an all time high with many category jumpers - short term visitors who change their status to live here permanently or stay on long term visas. The percentage of ethnic Asians and Polynesians is much higher than originally conceded in view of immigration from New Zealand of many New Zealand citizens originally from Asia. There are no reliable figures on illegal immigration.
The anything goes approach was also apparent in the sheer volume of anti-Hanson material in much of the media but especially the Fairfax Press, such as The Age and the SMH and in the vituperative nature of the material. Hanson was variously described in feature articles in Fairfax papers, as the Witch from Ipswich, as looking a touch unhinged, screaming, as using hate soaked rhetoric, having a nervous indignant whine, as being a demagogue with her own peculiar brand of fascism, as playing the role of a conscientious school girl, as creating a disease similar to leprosy, as the leader of cane toads marching south, and as having both a thin querulous voice and a strident resentful whine. Her supporters were described as village idiots and classic Aussie whingers, while Queensland One Nation MPs were described as economic illiterates, a complaining, xenophobic bunch of people. An article in the SMH headed The Witch from Ipswich commenced by saying "damn right I am biased against Pauline Hanson", referred to her whining voice with its lumpen inability to pronounce the name of our country correctly - Straya, and said that "to be biased against her is a patriotic duty". It is not clear whether the writer is subject to the. code of ethics for journalists put out by the Media Alliance. A cartoon in The Age contained a limerick:
There once was a kitsch bitch from Ipswich
Whose speech made some rich people's lips twitch
She ripped up their itch
Which she whipped to a pitch
Like a Ditch Witch, this kitsch bitch from Ipswich
Such new class snobbishness riles many Australians, and is one reason for Hanson's initial popularity.
By way of comparison Murdoch papers were relatively restrained with several quite friendly articles in The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun, by writers such as Andrew Bolt, Piers Ackerman, Gerard McManus and Michael Duffy. The Australian (6/12/96) carried a front-page story quoting an Asian refugee Lilly Vickihavong, a former employee of Hanson, that she is not a racist. Mrs Vickihavong, who worked alongside Ms Hanson in Ms Hanson's fish and chip shop for 3 months, said she would hug Ms Hanson if she met her in the street, that she had never heard Ms Hanson make a racist remark and that Ms Hanson thought so highly of her that she wished her to take over the running of the shop. Such a sympathetic story would never run in The Age. It is difficult to reconcile this view of Ms Hanson and her statement that Asians have always had a presence in Australia and always will have, with the deliberate demonization of her particularly in The Age. However one article in The Australian referred to Hanson's warbly nasal voice and suggested she might be a sex object to a certain kind of extreme right wing, gun-toting bloke (5/10). An article in the Herald Sun (5/10) headed Forgive me if I gloat, written after Hanson failed to win a seat in the election, referred to "the whine of Pauline Hanson".
The only Murdoch paper which seemed to go overboard against Hanson was the Courier Mail, which described Hanson as an ignorant ill-educated person with a funny head, her supporters as troglodytes, and her policies as xenophobic protectionism, morally repugnant, and a danger to public order. Such elitist sneering and snobbish attacks were counter-productive and initially created sympathy and support for Hanson and ON. However the sheer volume of the attacks and the increasingly vituperative nature of the attacks, without a right of reply being given, helped to undermine support for Hanson. No other politician in Australia has faced such a barrage of hostile comment and misrepresentation. Other examples of media bias are referred to in John Pasquarelli's book The Pauline Hanson Story which is available from the ACLU ($15).
The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and One Nation
The bias of Fairfax papers such as The Age and to a lesser extent, the SMH in relation to Pauline Hanson and One Nation was set out in Your Rights 1997 and 1998.
In the 4 months following the first speech in Parliament by Pauline Hanson on 10th September, 1996, The Age and the SMH published in aggregate more than 60 editorials, feature articles and cartoons critical of Ms Hanson. A spot check for the 14 day period 2/5/97 to 16/5/97, revealed The Age published in aggregate 13 feature articles, editorial and cartoons critical of Ms. Hanson. The Age refused to publish even one feature article supporting her. A further spot check of The Age for the 6 week period 31/5/98 to 5/7/95 revealed 6 anti ON editorials and 61 feature articles of which I treated 49 as anti ON and 11 neutral. One article headed It comes to this-only ON defends the nation state which acknowledged that the ON policy of printing money up to $150 million for its peoples' bank was quite feasible, could be regarded as pro ON, despite referring to ON as "an angry inarticulate mob". In the same period The Age published 60 anti ON letters and 12 pro ON letters. Some anti ON letters were quite lengthy and anti ON letters took up 85% of the space devoted to the ON issue with only 15% allocated to pro ON letters. One letter from me, not so much defending ON policies, many of which I object to but defending the civil liberties of ON and its supporters was not published. But then The Age, despite its new Code of Practice, has a long standing policy of not publishing material from the ACLU, including a letter pointing out an error of fact in an Age attack on the ACLU. I discussed the bias of the Age at some length on the ABC program hosted by Jon Faine. The following week on the same program the Age editor Michael Gawenda said he would not accept my categorization of 49 of 61 Age feature articles as being biased. However, when I discussed the matter with a senior Age editor he nominated an article (7/7) as being neutral which stated in its first sentence that "ON is a disorganized, ratbag, white supremacist, inarticulate and dumb mob of populists and opportunists". This was the only article discussed and I did not initiate the discussion of it. I would prefer my own categorization of articles to that of senior Age journalists.
The Age adopted a curious and novel practice to ensure that Hanson's maiden speech to Parliament, and her speech on the possibility of an Aboriginal State were not taken seriously. An article headed Hanson's Second Wave (Age, 4/6198) surrounded Hanson's speech on the possibility of an Aboriginal State with boxes of comments, with arrows leading from the boxes to Hanson's text contradicting Hanson's arguments. She was said to be using the language of the lunar right borrowed from gun toting paranoid survivalists, to be comparing cactuses with lamingtons, and appealing to racists and the ignorant. No other speech by any political leader has ever been reported in the Age surrounded by boxes of comments to neutralise the speech.
The bias of The Age was reflected in its reports on demonstrators who succeeded in stopping ON meetings in Hobart, and in Melbourne at the Hawthorn Town Hall. The Age did not publish any press releases from the ACLU or other free speech groups in relation to the abandonment of these meetings and an Age editorial seemed to suggest that the mainly elderly people, including some Asians, wanting to attend the meetings were at fault.
The editorial did not criticise the police for failing to take steps to ensure the meeting could go ahead. Imagine if a meeting to be addressed by the leader of the Democrats or the leader of the Nationals, both of which parties polled fewer votes than ON in October 1998, had been cancelled.
The way The Age reacted to the abandonment of the Hobart and Hawthorn meetings reflects its hostility to Ms Hanson and its ambivalent attitude to freedom of speech. The Age was also silent over the attempt by the ABC to shut down Your Rights, perhaps because of the documented criticism of The Age often contained in Your Rights. People who have a genuine belief in freedom of speech and assembly support these freedoms for everyone, especially those whose views they strongly object to.
None of the feature articles during the period of the spot checks have mentioned that some full blood Aborigines such as Robert Toby support Ms Hanson and agree with her criticisms of ATSIC and native title. None of the feature articles have mentioned the extent to which Australians of Asian and Aboriginal extraction oppose the current high level of Asian immigration, and very few mentioned, until the recent numerous racially motivated massacres in Indonesia, the extent of Asian racism.
Although none of the articles has given a rigorous definition of racism, nearly all have assumed that it is racist to oppose the current high level of Asian immigration. None have mentioned a new form of white racism, which implies that whites have higher standards than Asians, and that Asians do not and cannot be expected to adhere to the high anti racist standards of whites. None of The Age and SMH feature articles or editorials have mentioned the bias of the print media including The Age and SMH against Ms Hanson and against the majority of Australians who support her views on the high level of Asian immigration. None have mentioned the bias of Television current affairs programs in which Ms Hanson has been rigorously and rudely questioned, for instance by Maxine McKew on the ABC Lateline on 8/5/97, while her critics such as Robert Hughes have been let off the hook. Despite all this, The Age refers to a debate on immigration.
Can there be a debate when only one side of the debate is published in The Age and SMH and those putting that side are allowed to make over the top attacks on Ms Hanson but are protected against replies to their attacks.
The SMH was not as biased as The Age and carried an article sympathetic to Hanson by Margo Kingston, and other articles pointing out that some Australians of Asian ancestry supported ON. An article reprinted from the United Kingdom Spectator discussed rorts in the Aboriginal industry. No similar article appeared in The Age. Paul Sheehan in an article headed A daily diet of scorn and derision (SMH, 14/11/98) said that Hanson had become the most reviled figure in Australian politics. He said that as a direct result of the scorn and derision Hanson's policies ceased to matter for her supporters. What mattered was her courage in the face of hostility. Sheehen's book Among The Barbarians contains strong criticism of aspects of Australia's policies on immigration and multiculturalism. It is difficult to believe such a book could be written by an Age journalist.
Among the Barbarians
This book by Paul Sheehan, a journalist with the SMH, has exposed many of the rorts and the lies told to the Australian public. Christopher Pearson (FR [Australian Financial Review], 25/5), in an article headed Many touchy subjects are opened to debate said that the reason it is likely to stay in the best-seller lists is because it deals very straightforwardly with a lot of contentious questions and unpalatable facts, opening up long-overdue debates. P E McGuinness, (SMH, 28/5) said it will rapidly become the bible of the One Nation party, it will sell enormously in the provincial towns and the outer suburbs, and it will help shape the debate on immigration and the treatment of Aborigines from now on. "We all will (rue the day) that one first-rate journalist has been so angered by all this as to write the manual for the next five elections". Miranda Devine (Daily Telegraph 26/5) said Australians who have stewed in incoherent rage about the rorts and lies they know they have been told about immigration, multiculturalism and racism will read the book with gasps of relief.
Sheehan has said that a dangerous brand of racial politics flourished during the 13 years of federal Labor Government. The family reunion scheme was used to bring in immigrants who were thought likely to vote ALP. ALP branches were stacked with various ethnic groups. Slush funds are used in factional wars to pay for thousands of ALP memberships. When Channel 9 was about to reveal the extent of ethnic branch stacking in Melbourne the station received a warning from the ALP that it may become in breach of racial discrimination laws. People who drew attention to great disparities between ethnic groups in social welfare dependence, the ethnic mature of gang warfare and drug trafficking in areas such as Cabramatta and Springvale, the high rate (30%) of marriages to offshore spouses, leading to a systematic rorting of immigration programs, and the extent of direct Federal grants ($143 million in 1995) to ethnic communities, could often be intimidated and silenced by allegations of racism.
The Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission according to Sheehan is a busy media player which is not shy of making accusations of discrimination or racism to silence critics of multiculturalism. This has led an academic to say that the constant depiction of political opponents as racist is a form of latent fascism. Another academic said that what we are seeing in Australia is a struggle for the high moral ground using the method anthropologists call the politics of embarrassment. The aim is to soften up your opponents by making them feel bad about themselves or their ancestors. This puts them in a mood to make concessions.
Sheehan has said that for many people the biggest issue in Australia is social cohesion. Australians care about the dividing of Australia for political purposes They care about the manipulation of immigration against the clear wishes of the electorate; the race politics now systemic within the Labor Party; the censorious and often hysterical treatment of Aboriginal issues; the endemic accusations of racism and discrimination at the first signs of dissent; the news media's intoxication with discord, and the entrenchment of a multicultural industry that has reached its use-by date.
"The deliberate submerging of these issues, and the resentment against those who have imposed the silence, is the real strength of Pauline Hanson. It is not her policies. Ordinary Australians have not been fooled by the crocodile tears shed by the news media over her divisive influence, when the media have given her the news-status of a redneck Princess Diana. The attempts to disrupt and intimidate One Nation meetings have given the organisation martyr status. But take away all the attention and all the attacks and Hansonism is an empty vessel, a blunder into the deep waters of Australian politics by someone who cannot swim. She has been kept afloat entirely by the news media and the bubbles of suppressed voices beneath the surface of our public life.
The reality of Australian politics last year was that Pauline Hanson was spat on, repeatedly threatened, received a torrent of racist abuse from Aborigines, saw her views on racial tolerance ignored by the media and saw her supporters and many curious onlookers subject to intimidation. She was accused of racial discrimination in a complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which was finally dismissed 20 months later. Australian democracy was assaulted last year - in the name of tolerance".
Sheehan, who is worried about the balkanization of Australia, states that the central fantasy of the multicultural industry is that Australia should be a cultural federation. "But Australia has a distinct, dominant, cohesive, assimilative, blended culture that has been built through trial and error. There is an enormous difference between the self-evident diversity of Australia's multicultural society and the big, protective tent under which this diversity is thriving. Take away that big tent - Australian culture - and this diversity curdles into State-sponsored tribal animosities". Unlike most media commentators, Sheehan exposed the extent of racism in Asia and the failure of anti-racists in Australia to refer to the problem. Sheehan's Among the Barbarians is available in bookshops ($19.95) or from the ACLU.
One Nation a racist party?
Meaning of Racism. The primary dictionary definition of racism is a belief in racial superiority of one group over others. Ms Hanson and most of those opposed to a high level of Asian immigration are not racist in that sense. A secondary meaning of racism is a preference for one's own kind. Ms Hanson, those who support her views on immigration, and almost all Asians and Asian governments are racist in that sense.
The claim that ON is racist was used as the basis for demonstrators to stop ON meetings, and for all other parties to put ON last on their how to vote tickets, thus ensuring that ON, despite gaining the vote of almost 1 in 10 Australians won only one Senate seat and no House of Representatives seats in the October 1998 elections.
The only complaint against Hanson alleging racism dealt with by the HREOC, based on a false allegation that Hanson said she would not represent Aborigines was dismissed after an inexcusable delay, and Racewatch, set up to monitor racist statements in the October 1998 Federal elections found no examples of racist statements by ON candidates. Frank Devine (Australian, 10/8/98) in an article about Racewatch headed Malice through the looking glass said anti-racism is becoming Australia's version of McCarthyism. The witch-hunt for reds under the bed has become a witch hunt for racists over the garden fence. In an ill-advised partnership, Community Aid Abroad and B'nai B'rith, the Jewish anti defamation organization, are laying the ground for list waving in Australia as well as inviting blacklists and character assassination.
Is ON anti-Aborigine?
A letter to the Canberra Times claimed that ON was the only non-racist party since its aim was to treat all Australians equally and not discriminate for or against anyone on the basis of their race. The Aboriginal industry including ATSIC has been criticised by many Aborigines including Sharon Firebrace, an Aboriginal businesswoman of the year. A candidate for ON in the NSW State elections was an Aboriginal and it has many Aboriginal members including a branch convenor in Tasmania. Other Aborigines such as Robert Toby agree with ON criticisms of ATSIC and Native Title.
ON argues that it is concerned with the plight of Aborigines but considers that they should be treated strictly on a needs basis and not given preferential treatment based on their race. Ms Hanson has pointed out that the number of people claiming to be Aboriginal has doubled in the last 30 years, possibly due to the benefits available only to Aborigines. ON claims that all benefits to Aborigines should be scrapped because people with little or no Aboriginal heritage are rorting the system by claiming the slightest degree of Aboriginality. (Herald Sun, 11/9)
The call by some Aborigines to boycott the Olympic games, the rudeness shown by Charles Perkins to Hanson on the Midday Show, the waste of $6 million over the Hindmarsh bridge farce, the finding of the black deaths in custody enquiry - costing $400 million - that Aboriginal prisoners were no more prone than others to die in gaol, and the statements by Wik negotiator Noel Pearson that the Howard government were "racist scum" have all played into the hands of ON. Moderate Aborigines such as Rodney Rivers, a spokesman for 20 tribes in the Kimberleys, has said that "the real Aborigines of Australia have forgiven the white men of yesteryear for their cruelty towards Aboriginal tribal elders. Activists are making a rod not only for their backs but for our backs, too". My own views on the plight of Aborigines are set out on page 92 of Your Rights 1998. I have worked and lived in close proximity to full-blooded Aborigines as an opal miner at Coober Pedy for six months and may have a greater appreciation of their problems than many journalists.
Is ON anti-Asian?
ON claims that many Asians agree with ON immigration policies (SMH, 13/6/98) and object to a high level of Asian immigration (Bulletin, 12/9/89 and Age, 12/11/96). Dr Kingston, who was elected as a Queensland ON MP, is married to an Asian.
The ethnic Chinese moderator of the NSW Presbyterian church, the Rev. David Tsai, has said that Pauline Hanson is a courageous woman raising all the right issues. ON argues that its immigration policy does not discriminate on the basis of race. When a questioner in her audience in Hobart said "I'm sick of Asian people, I'm sick of black people" Hanson replied "I don't like your attitude. If you are here because you think I feel that way, then you are wrong". (Bulletin, 28/7/98) One of Hanson's critics falsely attributed the remark by the questioner to Ms Hanson.
ON failed to highlight the pervasive racism in Asia and the failure of Kennett, Fraser, Downer, Howard and Beazley, etc. to condemn it. When the Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir told Jeff Kennett, the Premier of Victoria, that Pauline Hanson should be driven out of Australian politics, Kennett did not ask why those supporting the Malaysian racist policy of bumipatra - which discriminates against ethnic Chinese - should not be driven out of Malaysian politics. This would involve driving out most Malaysian MPs. It was left to Bruce Ruxton of the RSL to draw attention to Mahathir's double standards. If ON commented on the issue it was not reported. The failure of Australian leaders to condemn Asian racism amounts to a new form of white racism which implies that whites have higher standards than Asians and that Asians do not and cannot be expected to adhere to the high, anti-racist standards of whites.
Asian Racism
Such double standards also prevail in relation to the approach of the media and politicians to Asian racism. There has been almost no reference to the immigration policies of China and Japan, both of which seek to retain homogeneity, and refuse to allow whites to become citizens. Both give the brush-off to whites seeking information about becoming residents with a view to obtaining citizenship. Ethnic Koreans whose parents and grandparents were born in Japan cannot become citizens. Leading Japanese politicians say part of the reason for a weak economic performance by the USA is Negroes in the work force. Malaysia, which lectures Australia on its alleged racism, ignoring the fact that Australia, unlike almost all Asian countries, has a non-discriminatory immigration policy, has institutionalized racism by its policy of bumipatra, giving preference in education etc. to ethnic Malays, over Chinese and Indian citizens. There has been no criticism in the media of the Malaysian policy of cultural genocide against Penan, the indigenous people of Sarawak. Indonesia has pursued a policy of cultural genocide against an ethnic minority in Timor, and has done little to curb widespread anti-Chinese riots, which resulted in many deaths and mass destruction of property.
The New White Racism
Why have Australian journalists and politicians failed to highlight the racist policies of Malaysia, China and Japan, and why do they argue that a multiracial and multicultural society will succeed here when such experiments have failed elsewhere, as indicated by daily reports in newspapers?
Is it because of an implied white racism which seeks to apply higher standards to whites than to Asians? Asians who prefer their own kind (other Asians of the same ethnic stock) are regarded by Australia's "chattering classes" as normal while whites who prefer whites (but do not regard Asians as inferior) are regarded as racists. The sense of moral superiority of Europeans over Asians is also reflected in the call by Bill Hayden when he was foreign minister, for the Asianization of Australia. Mr. Hayden said that it was inevitable and desirable that Australia become a Eurasian society in which whites are eliminated by intermarriage. Can you imagine Mr. Hayden going to China and advocating that China become Eurasian through intermarriage between Chinese and Europeans?
Controlled Debate
Some people opposed to the current level of Asian immigration believe that many Asian immigrants, especially Chinese, due to greater intelligence and motivation will eventually, during the course of the next century, take over the Australian economy. Perhaps they believe in Asian superiority and would call for a policy similar to bumipatra in due course. Such nuances in the controlled debate on immigration seldom surface. Journalists, politicians and the well-paid bureaucrats of the Human Rights Industry, who have failed to significantly change public opinion on Asian immigration despite decades of gobbledegook, censorship, intimidation and threats of racial vilification sanctions, are largely responsible for the turmoil following the comments by a lone Federal MP The ethnic composition of the migrant intake should have been a matter for legitimate public debate. The curtailing of such debate has led to pent-up resentment. Australia for many years has taken in per capita a higher proportion of races different to the predominant inhabiting local race, than almost any other country in the world. Has the proportion been too high? Why can't such a simple question be asked and debated without hysteria and censorship in a democracy? Why are simple questions about some aspects of history also subject to censorship?
The claim that ON has caused an increase in racist discrimination and violence has not been documented. The violence associated with ON is the violence of demonstrators against ON supporters, As the Herald Sun, (11/1) reported, the HREOC adjudicated on only 2 cases of alleged racism in 1997-98 and received fewer complaints of racism than in the previous year.
It is difficult to take the claim by Zeta Antonios, the Race Discrimination Commissioner, for the HREOC, that she is racially abused everyday, seriously. She had been asked if she ever suffered racial abuse and she replied: "Yes, I have and I do. Every day".
The Age published a feature article headed Racism in our City about an Vietnamese-born doctor who punched someone affected by alcohol who had made a racist remark to him as evidence of growing racism. These sort of incidents have happened in Hotels well before Hanson and it is interesting that The Age did not ask why the Doctor had not been charged with assault. An example of the new white racism. Apart from the anecdotal evidence relied on by Ms Antonios there is little evidence of an increase in racist attacks due to Hanson.
Privacy & One Nation List of Members
The publication of a list of 2,000 members of One Nation in June, 1998 by the Jewish magazine, The Australia-Israel Review (AIR) was probably the worst mass invasion of privacy in Australia in the last decade. The Courier Mail, The Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, and the Herald Sun all published comment by the ACLU. The ACLU pointed out that the publication of the list, the extreme vilification of One Nation, the disruption of its meetings, and attempts to deregister the party, have all been counter-productive, and have created sympathy for the party. The aim of the AIR in publishing the list was made clear by the heading on the magazine's front cover: GOTCHA! There is no doubt that the aim was intimidation and to establish a McCarthyist guilt by association.
The Jewish leaders who condemned the publication of the list, recalling how publication of lists of Jews in the past was used as the basis for persecution, are to be applauded, and the heavy handed action of the AIR, which may promote anti-Semitism, is to be condemned. The incident indicates the need for a greater acceptance of the importance of privacy, the need for stronger privacy laws, and the need for a police investigation to establish whether a criminal offence was committed.
One of the best criticisms of the publication of Gotcha - One Nation's secret membership list was written by Ron Brunton of the Institute of Public Affairs. Writing in the Courier Mail, 18/7/98, Brunton said that like a great many other Jews he was angry that such a nasty and foolish deed was carried out by a group which wants to be seen as serving the interests of Jewish people in Australia.
Brunton said that the AIR was not representative of Jews, that the publication of the list would intimidate the ordinary people who joined ON for a variety of reasons, that the bulk of ON members were probably people with socially conservative rather than racist or anti-semitic views and would tend to admire Israel because of its strong sense of national pride. He said that by comparison with some of the groups that play an influential part in Israeli politics, ON was really quite moderate. He said that Israel's immigration policies which were designed to preserve the Jewish identity of the nation were no less discriminatory than ON's desire to ensure that Australia's immigration policies maintained our essentially European character. He said that ON's hostility to Aboriginal land rights was matched by the unwillingness of Israeli politicians to acknowledge the property rights of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were expelled during Israelis war of independence in 1948. And while no Australian public figure, not even Hanson, attempted to deny the great injustices that Aborigines suffered in the course of our history, it is still very risky for any Israeli politician to acknowledge the similar wrongs that have been inflicted on Palestinians during the past 50 years. Brunton said that unfortunately, the Australia/Israel Review's offensive and counter-productive action against ON is an example of a more general phenomenon. Members of other ethnic groups are also frequently angered and embarrassed by statements supposedly made in their name by self-serving and unrepresentative spokespeople. It is the price we ethnics pay for the debased and politicised forms of multiculturalism that have taken hold in Australia.
Similar strong criticism appeared in other Murdoch papers, but criticism of the Gotcha article in Fairfax papers was by comparison muted. Another Jew who is a Holocaust survivor (AJN, 17/7/98) said that "Pauline Hanson has never said anything anti-Semitic. Why are we attacking someone who has never attacked us?" Prominent Jews such as Justice Marcus Einfeld were scathing in their criticism of the release of the list of ON members. The release of the ON list did more to promote anti-Semitisim in Australia than any other factor in recent years. Michelle Grattan, FR, 11/7, said that the publication of the list indicated an anything goes mentality among some of Hanson's critics.
Disruption of Meetings
The hysteria generated by The Age in Melbourne and to a lesser extent the SMH in Sydney contributed to the anti free speech climate which led to the disruption of some One Nation meetings and to some ON supporters being assaulted. Some articles seemed to amount to virtually an incitement to violence and were particularly repugnant coming from sections of the media which preened themselves about their tolerance and adherence to democratic principles. The abandonment of a ON meeting at the Hawthorn Town Hall to be addressed by Pauline Hanson in July 1998 led to trenchant criticism in the Murdoch Herald Sun of the demonstrators who stopped the meeting and assaulted some people trying to attend. The Herald Sun published a feature article attacking those causing the cancellation of the meeting and another feature article by the convenor of ON in Victoria criticising the police for their failure to ensure the meeting could proceed. Nothing comparable appeared in The Age which, although an excellent newspaper in most respects has probably the worst record of any major newspaper in Australia in defending freedom of speech.
The Age, unlike the Herald Sun, refused to publish any material from any civil liberties group, in relation to the dangerous precedent set at the Hawthorn Town Hall. The Herald Sun published a letter from the ACLU which pointed out that the democratic process requires that political leaders be enabled to hold meetings and that citizens not be prevented from attending such meetings.
Both these fundamental principles were breached on 19th July when demonstrators through their violent and intimidatory behaviour prevented many people entering a Hall in Melbourne to hear Pauline Hanson, the leader of One Nation. "In more than thirty years as a civil liberties activist attending demonstrations as an observer outside meetings I have never observed such a concerted attempt, including the use of violence, to prevent people attending a meeting".
Such mob control of access routes to meetings must be countered to allow freedom of speech and assembly to thrive. Would the police allow a meeting to be addressed by Mr Howard or Mr Beazley to be thwarted in this way? Some of the people wishing to attend the meeting but prevented from doing so were Asians who had come by bus from Ballarat. The support for ON by some Asians is seldom mentioned in the media. I made similar comments on several occasions on ABC radio in Melbourne, and 2GB and 2UE in Sydney.
Fear of Reprisal. Frank Devine (Australian, 5/6/97) referred to an earlier article by Nicholas Rothwall, who stated that nearly everyone who spoke favourably of Hanson refused to divulge his or her name for fear of reprisal. Devine comments "Fear of Reprisal? For expressing a political opinion? In Australia? Good Grief". Devine noted that opponents of Hanson, not her supporters, were responsible for violence at meetings such as a meeting addressed by Hanson in Newcastle in June 1997 which led to the bizarre and comical paradox of 300 policemen, not to defend Asians and Aborigines against the savagery of Hansonites but to stop the rampant politically correct from scragging 1400 reputable citizens who paid to hear her speak.
Although comments have been made that ON policies could lead to Auschwitz and that we must be sure the horrors of the Holocaust don't happen again, those with tactics most reminiscent of the hooligan intimidation tactics of the Nazi brownshirts were to be found in the ranks of the anti-ON demonstrators. One demonstrator having knocked an elderly ON supporter to the ground at Echuca said ominously "we know where you live". The publication of the list on ON members including the suburb in which they lived was also intimidating.
Michael Duffy (Daily Telegraph, 1/8/98) said that it's disturbing to see the sort of thing that worries us these days - and the sort of thing that doesn't. This selective outrage is a particular feature of the Hanson phenomenon.
Duffy said that some of the anti-Hanson demos have prevented Hanson from speaking. This is an outrage to Australian tolerance, democracy and free speech. "Never before, to my knowledge, has the leader of a mainstream political party with over 300 branches and representatives in two Australian parliaments been prevented from speaking in public. This raises questions vital to the health of Australian democracy". Duffy asked why there were no demonstrations against the Marxist group Resistance which organized many anti-Hanson demonstrations. "Are the parents and teachers who encourage children to protest against Hanson as keen when it comes to educating them in the basic principles of a free and democratic society?"
It's time for Resistance "to stop hiding behind the word racist which is used so often to describe ON, and come out into the open and justify their absurd hatred of Pauline Hanson. In Europe the headquarters of right-wing political parties are staffed by young skinheads with criminal records. In Australia at ON offices and meetings you meet ordinary-looking Australians, pretty typical of all of us except they're a bit older and more Anglo Celtic".
Duffy reported the violence directed against old people and young women by demonstrators at the Hawthorn Town Hall and said that "it was Australian democracy 1900s style, typical of what many people have had to put up with to hear Pauline Hanson speak during the past 18 months". He said that Jeff Kennett's police did a deal with the demonstrators, and the meeting was called off in return for the physical safety of the people who had come to hear a federal politician speak. "It was a black day for Australian democracy. It's difficult to know who deserves more of our contempt - the thugs who are now using physical force to repress free speech, the politicians and police who are letting them get away with it, or the moral posturers who, with their spurious outrage about ON racism are condoning increasing levels of violence and repression".
The Free Speech Committee referred to the ugly face of censorship and said that it is the right of the people to assemble and express their opinion in meetings and demonstrations. It is a fundamental right of all people, regardless of their opinion, that they should be free to speak what is on their minds. Obstructing entry to a hall and shouting down speakers are forms of censorship which are not tolerable in this society. It is important that the principle of free speech and tolerance be safeguarded at all times, and never more so than when dealing with intolerance. The demonstrators in Hawthorn, obstructing entry to the ON meeting may have been well motivated, but their tactics were misjudged and indefensible.
Michael Barnard (Sunday Herald Sun 2/8/98) said that it is the anti-Hanson, anti-ON demonstrations which enshrine a consistent new low, and that records illustrate that throughout the ON saga, the woeful incidents of violence - including intimidating women and bashing elderly men - come from a hooligan fringe into which students and school children are drawn; preventing people entering a lawful meeting to hear a duly elected member of Federal Parliament is the antithesis of democracy.
He said that the saboteurs bear placards accusing their victims of being Nazis merely enhances the air of unreality, as does a letter to a newspaper from one demonstrator explaining how it was not his fellows who were violent- the trouble was caused by One Nation supporters trying to exercise their right of access! That police have been reduced, in cases, to negotiating capitulation to this new terrorism, is a withering indictment of the system. Robyn Spencer, ON Leader in Victoria, rightly questions police adequacy, just as she rightly labels the saboteurs as thugs.
Barnard said that "Yet, in the main, a strange silence pervades. Imagine the outcry if angry farmers disrupted a meeting of the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Commission, or if some other group, screaming Nazism, sabotaged a convention of multicultural bureaucrats. The Clever People, as always, are slow to learn the lesson, in this case, being that one can not honourably tailor fundamental principles of democracy to personal (or group) likes and dislikes. To his credit, the Prime Minister finally grasps at least part of the nettle. The bashing of an 84-year-old man is absolutely disgusting and yelling abuse, throwing punches, shouting obscenities and engaging in mindless chants is not the way. A few follow at half-mumble. But it is all late in the day.
In despair, one looks at the printed record and finds a broad strand of hypocrisy - or is it blindness? - running through weeks of political utterance and media commentary. Yes, one discovers, the excesses of the demonstrators, have been lamented to a degree. But not, first, because the violence and intolerance are simply and plainly wrong in themselves, but because they will help increase sympathy and support for Mrs. Hanson. Great! Perhaps that is the best we can expect as television brings us the new school-age democracy, with its leaders holding forth, in the best of their remedial English, against the racist bastards up in Queensland (Sydney demonstration) or proclaiming, We know Pauline Hanson's full of s--- (Melbourne) Charming! The ultra-left radicals behind the scenes have done their job well. Helped, through silence, by the Clever People."
The Age for instance did not publish even one feature article about the dangerous precedent set by the mobs which prevented Hanson, then the leader of the third largest political force in Australia, from addressing meetings in Hobart and Melbourne.
The Grand Anti-Hanson Alliance
The claim that Hanson was racist, and the hysteria caused by and reflected in the anything goes approach of the media, led to violence and intimidation, directed against ON supporters and the cancellation of Hanson's meetings. It also led to private security guard costs incurred by ON of over $30,000 covered to some extent by supporters of free speech who were not necessarily supporters of ON's often anti civil libertarian policies. Headmasters of some schools, caught up in the hysteria, refused to allow ON spokesmen to address students.
But the main result of the anti-racist hysteria created by the Australian media was to create the climate where every man and his dog, either explicitly or implicitly, got onto the anti-ON bandwagon, ranging from the President of the USA to a group of Australian surfers.
Bill Clinton's speech to the Australian Parliament in which he attacked racism and supported multiculturalism was widely regarded as being in part an attack on ON. The United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, issued a thinly veiled warning about the dangers the ON party poses to the Australian image abroad (SMH, 28/7/98) A US State department spokesman, James Foley, expressed disapproval of the rise of ON (Australian, 7/6). The Government of China expressed concern about the rise of ON and its racist propositions but did not refer to the Chinese policy of racial homogeneity or suppression in Tibet. (FR, 12/8). European Community Vice President Leon Brittan said Australia must ignore the ON party style of assault against free trade. (Herald Sun, 28/6). The Prime Minister of Malaysia, one of the most racist states in Asia with its policy of Bumipatra, said Australia had to rid itself of ON.
The Governor General Sir William Deane, described by Professor Geoffrey Blainey as the Shadow minister for social welfare, was reported as going into bat for multiculturalism and immigration. "Although there was no reference to Pauline Hanson or ON, the timing was significant" (AJN 10/7). The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr George Pell, who had not responded to requests for copies of any statements he had made condemning Asian racism, condemned ON racist policies and described ON as "political opportunists and adventurers" (SMH, 6/7).
A news item headed Former PMs unite against racism (Age, 1/9) said that four former Liberal and Labor MPs united to write an open letter urging all Australians to avoid voting for racists in the Federal election. Malcolm Fraser was behind this idea, which was aimed at ON. Pauline Hanson said former PMs were upset because of the ON policy to end their special taxpayer funded entitlements. Quite a few former PMs are millionaires. Fraser also called for a Liberal-Labor Alliance to prevent ON wielding the balance of power in Parliament (Age, 24/7)
A news item headed Anti Hanson Alliance said that the leaders of the Business Council of Australia, the ACTU, the Australian Council of Social Service, and senior representatives of the Anglican, Catholic and Jewish faiths gathered at the Melbourne Town Hall to issue a plea for Australians to remain an open and tolerant society. They denounced ON's campaign for zero net immigration and reduced foreign investment. The Alliance did not mention surveys which indicated that only 2% of Australians supported an increase in immigration while 64% of Australians wanted fewer immigrants. (Australian, 6/7/98)
Sections of the Jewish community had their say. According to the FR, (17/6), the powerful Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council wrote to Mr Howard asking him to put ON last. The Ethnic Coalition of Australia did likewise. The B'nai B'rith Anti Defamation Commission said ON could lead to an unprecedented rise of fascism (Age, 16/6) while the AJN (19/6) said the success of Pauline Hanson's ON party with Queensland elections was "shameful and shocking in every sense of the word. It was a day of infamy". Similar statements appeared in The Age, the most anti-Hanson newspaper in Australia, edited by Michael Gawenda.
Getjil Djerrkura, the chairman of the publicly funded ATSIC, speaking at a United Nations forum, said "evil has crept into the body politic. It is fuelled by a cocktail of anger, fear and ignorance. It is called ON". (Age, 27/7/98) One way or another, directly or indirectly, a huge amount of taxpayers' money was used in the campaign against ON.
The Citizens of Ballarat and the 1998 Melbourne Festival, both partially taxpayer funded, were not to be left out in the witch-hunt directed against the witch from Ipswich. An open letter to the citizens of Australia from Ballarat was published in The Australian, (14/8), urging Australians to reject simplistic views with connotations of racism, while The Age reported that the 1998 Melbourne Festival program is a statement against racism. The director of the Festival (Age, 17/7) said she has sworn not to mention Pauline Hanson but "makes no bones about the aims of the Festival".
Schools and universities, supposedly core institutions for the defence of free speech, and the right to know, were in some instances caught up in the ganging up anti-Hanson hysteria comparable in some ways to the Salam Witch Hunts. The University of Southern Queensland refused to allow ON speakers to hold meetings on campus. Melbourne's exclusive Wesley College barred ON speakers from addressing its students. The Headmaster acknowledged he was guilty of gagging a legitimate debate (Age, 18/7) The head of St Michael's Grammar defended the right of his students to attend anti-ON rallies wearing their school uniforms, but turned down an approach by a ON representative to attend his school to address the students. "There is a risk that they will implant ideas which may be difficult to remove". Some schools not only encouraged their students to attend anti-Hanson rallies but allowed anti ON propaganda to be distributed in the school and discussed in the classrooms. However, Robyn Spencer, the convenor of ON in Victoria, gave a talk to a large group of students at Melbourne High School. Her comments were well received without any interruptions, and she was photographed with a group of Asian and Melanesian students who later showed her around the school. This reception did not fit into the get the witch policy of much of the media and went unreported.
The expatriate Australian author Germaine Greer (Herald Sun, 8/8/98) in this "anything goes" atmosphere said that Pauline Hanson is nobody's fault except her parents. "If only they hadn't had sex on that particular night". The anti Pauline Hanson satirist Pauline Pantsdown, who ironically was being heavily promoted by the ABC at the same time the ABC was trying to censor Your Rights for its claim of ABC bias, inferred that Hanson was a homosexual, prostitute, transvestite and member of the KKK (Herald Sun, 29/8).
Almost all politicians got on the anti-ON bandwagon knowing their comments had a good chance of being reported without any pressure from the media to justify their comments. Mr Howard, having alleged without any evidence that Hanson had links with the Klu Klux Klan, then claimed that some of her policies were "deranged". Alexander Downer, the minister for foreign affairs, claimed during a visit to Indonesia that ON was divisive, regressive and heartless (WAustralian [West Australian], 10/7) and called on ON to repudiate a letter from a ON supporter published in the Bangkok Post. However, he has not replied to a letter asking what steps he took to ascertain whether it was an authentic letter with a name and address and phone number attached, and whether the Bangkok Post checked its authenticity. He also did not answer queries whether he proposed to respond to bizarre allegations of racism in Australia published in the Oriental Daily, and whether he had ever criticised the racist Malaysian policy of bumipatra or the racist policies of China and Japan documented in previous editions of Your Rights. Mr Downer provides a good example of the new white racism - applying different standards to whites and Asians.
The politically savvy leaders of the National Party tended to avoid over the top attacks on Pauline Hanson and ON, knowing that ON support leapt in Queensland before the Queensland elections when John Howard said some of Hanson's policies were deranged and other coalition MPs berated her.
Despite all the hysteria and ganging up directed against ON there was no evidence that the existence of ON led to a dropping off in trade, tourism or entry of students or that it led to an increase in complaints of racial vilification (Australian, 5/6/97; 27/12/97)
Although the media had to some extent ganged up on ON prior to the election of October 1998, the ganging up intensified in the last weeks of the campaign with the suggestion in the Murdoch press to "kill the cow' and the publication in New Idea (Murdoch) of a claim by Hanson's son that his mother had neglected him, and in Woman's Day (Packer) that Hanson and her chief advisor David Oldfield had been lovers.
The federal Treasurer Peter Costello had left the impression that printing $150 million to finance ON's proposed Peoples' Bank making loans at 2% to regional businesses was anti-Semitic as well as economically unsound. Kenneth Davidson in an article in The Age pointed out that in one month the Reserve Bank printed twice as much as that required for a whole year for the Peoples' Bank while the Private Bank's lending contributed $22 billion to the money supply. A leading economist said that the solution to Japan's crisis was to crank up the printing presses. "I think printing money is the solution for Japan". No one said he was anti-Semitic.
The most important reason for the well-funded institutional hysteria directed against ON was that it was the only party to consistently oppose globalization, privatisation, the foreign takeover of Australia, and the reduction in tariff protection for Australian industry. Its policies in these respects were left wing and reflected old style ALP policies which were supported by the ALP before it was taken over by middle class trendies. The allegations that ON was racist and right wing were smokescreens to divert attention from the main objection to ON reflected in the headline of the only pro-ON feature article in The Age (written by Kenneth Davidson) Only ON Defends the Nation State.
John Bennett
[From the introduction to Your Rights 1999]
This pamphlet has been prepared by John Bennett, an honours graduate in both law and arts who was Secretary of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties from 1966, when it was established as an offshoot of the NSWCCL, to 1980 and has been President of the Australian Civil Liberties Union since 1980. He worked for the Legal Aid Commission and its predecessors from 1974 to 1996. While very care has been taken to ensure the advice is accurate there is no substitute for obtaining legal or other professional advice on the facts of each particular case. The law is often complex and it is difficult to express it adequately in a pamphlet. Failure to seek advice will often be to your detriment. If you require legal advice but cannot afford a solicitor, approach a Legal Aid Service. You can obtain general advice on your rights from social workers, clerks of court, C.C.L.'s Citizens' Advice Bureaus, and organisations listed in Chapter 1.
Councils for Civil Liberties and the A.C.L.U. investigate and take up matters involving arbitrary government actions, police conduct, freedom of speech, freedom of association and invasions of privacy: give general advice on citizens' rights; campaign for law reform; and give assistance in court proceedings.
To promote Civil Liberties join the Australian Civil Liberties Union by forwarding the membership fee of $20 to the A.C.L.U., Box 1137 Carlton, 3053 Melbourne. The A.C.L.U. is a voluntary, non-political, non-profit and independent organization which depends on public support - your support. Join now or send a donation.
"Your Rights" is for distribution through newsagents and booksellers in all States. A limited number of free copies will be made available by the A.C.L.U. to free legal services, teachers, social workers, and pensioners. Copyright is claimed for the pamphlet as a whole, but since one aim of the A.C.L.U. is to advise citizens of their rights, individual chapters may be reprinted elsewhere. Foreign language newspapers or journals, etc., are at liberty to translate and publish the whole or parts of the pamphlet in other languages. It is especially important for migrants to be aware of their rights. The pamphlet may be useful for Legal Studies courses at High Schools and Universities.
Source: John Bennett. Your Rights 1999, Australian Civil Liberties Union, Carlton, Victoria, 1999, p. 80-93
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