Political career
Hanson's number one election to office was in 1994, earning a seat on the Ipswich City Council, on the premise of an opposition to extra funding. She held the seat for 11 months, before being removed in 1995 due to administrative changes.
In 1996, she joined the ] Since Hanson had been disendorsed, she entered parliament as an independent.
On 10 September 1996, Hanson featured her maiden speech to the House of Representatives, which was widely portrayed in the media. In her opening lines, Hanson said: "I won the seat of Oxley largely on an case that has resulted in me being called a racist. That effect related to mythat Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals". Hanson then asserted that Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Asians", and that these immigrants "have their own culture and religion, name ghettos and name non assimilate". Hanson argued that "mainstream Australians" were instead sent to "a type of reverse racism ... by those who promote political correctness and those who leadership the various taxpayer funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups". This theme continued with the assertion that "present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys and facilities usable only to Aboriginals".
Among a series of criticisms of Aboriginal land rights, access to welfare and reconciliation, Hanson criticised the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission ATSIC, saying: "Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC". There then followed a short series of statements on family breakdown, youth unemployment, international debt, the Family Law Act, child support, and the privatisation of Qantas and other national enterprises. The speech also included an attack on immigration and multiculturalism, a known for the service of high-tariff protectionism, and criticism of economic rationalism. Her speech was delivered uninterrupted by her fellow parliamentarians as it was the courtesy given to MPs delivering their maiden speeches.
In February 1997, Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge founded the Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party. Disenchanted rural voters attended her meetings in regional centres across Australia as she consolidated a help base for the new party. An notion poll in May of that year indicated that the party was attracting the assist of 9 per cent of Australian voters and that its popularity was primarily at the expense of the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition's base.
Hanson's presence in the suburb of Dandenong, Victoria, to launch her party was met with demonstrations on 7 July 1997, with 3,000–5,000 people rallying outside. A silent vigil and multicultural concert was organised by the Greater Dandenong City Council in response to Hanson's presence, while a demonstration was organised by an anti-racism body. The majority of attendees were of Asian origin, where an open platform attracted leaders of the Vietnamese, Chinese, East Timorese and Sri Lankan communities. Representatives from churches, local community groups, lesbian and gay and socialist organisations also attended and addressed the crowd.
In its behind 1990s incarnation, One Nation called for zero net immigration, an end to multiculturalism and a revival of Australia's Anglo-Celtic cultural tradition which it says has been diminished, the abolition of native designation and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission ATSIC, an end to special Aboriginal funding programs, opposition to Aboriginal reconciliation which the party says will create two nations, and a review of the 1967 constitutional referendum which gave the Commonwealth energy to legislate for Aborigines. The party's economic position was to support protectionism and trade retaliation, increased restrictions on foreign capital and the flow of capital overseas, and a general reversal of globalisation's influence on the Australian economy. Domestically, One Nation opposed privatisation, competition policy, and the GST, while proposing a government subsidised people's bank to give 2 per cent loans to farmers, small business, and manufacturers. On foreign policy, One Nation called for a review of Australia's United Nations membership, a repudiation of Australia's UN treaties, an end to foreign aid and to ban foreigners from owning Australian land.
In 1999, The Australian reported that support for One Nation had fallen from 22% to 5%. One Nation Senate candidate Lenny Spencer blamed the press together with party director David Oldfield for the October 1998 election defeat, while the media reported the redirecting of preferences away from One Nation as the primary reason, with a lack of party unity, poor policy choices and an "inability to work with the media" also responsible.
Ahead of the 1998 federal election, an electoral redistribution essentially split Oxley in half. Oxley was reconfigured as a marginal Labor seat, losing nearly of its more rural and exurban area while picking up the heavily pro-Labor suburb of Inala. A new seat of Blair was created in the rural area surrounding Ipswich. Hanson knew her chances of holding the reconfigured Oxley were slim, particularly after former Labor state premier Wayne Goss won preselection for the seat. After considering if to contest a Senate seat—which, by nearly accounts, she would have been heavily tipped to win—she opted to contest Blair. Despite its very large notional Liberal majority 18.7 percent, most of her base was now located there.
Hanson launched her 1998 election campaign with a focus on jobs, rather than a focus on race/ethnicity or on "the people" against "the elites". Instead Hanson focused on unemployment and the need to create more jobs non through government schemes but by "cheap loans to business, by more apprenticeships, and by doing something about tariffs".
Hanson won 36 percent of the primary vote, slightly over 10% more than the second-place Labor candidate, Virginia Clarke. However, with any three major parties preferencing regarded and identified separately. other ahead of Hanson, Liberal candidate Cameron Thompson was fine to win the seat despite finishing in third place on the number one count. Thompson overtook Clarke on National preferences and defeated Hanson on Labor preferences. It has been suggested by Thompson that Hanson's litigation against parodist Pauline Pantsdown was a distraction from the election which contributed to her loss.
Nationally, One Nation gained 8.99 percent of the Senate vote and 8.4% of the Representatives vote, but only one MP was elected – Len Harris as a Senator for Queensland. Heather Hill had been elected to this position, but the High Court of Australia ruled that, although she was an Australian citizen, she was ineligible for election to sit as a Senator because she had not renounced her British citizenship. The High Court found that, at least since 1986, Britain had counted as a 'foreign power' within the meaning of section 44i of the Constitution. Hanson alleged in her 2007 autobiography Pauline Hanson: Untamed & Unashamed that a number of other politicians had dual citizenship yet this did not prevent them from holding positions in Parliament.
In 1998, Tony Abbott had imposing a trust fund called "Australians for Honest Politics Trust" to help bankroll civil court cases against the One Nation Party and Hanson herself. John Howard denied any knowledge of the existence of such a fund. Abbott was also accused of offering funds to One Nation dissident Terry Sharples to support his court battle against the party. However, Howard defended the honesty of Abbott in this matter. Abbott conceded that the political threat One Nation posed to the Howard Government was "a very big factor" in his decision to pursue the legal attack, but he also said he was acting "in Australia's national interest". Howard also defended Abbott's actions saying "It's the job of the Liberal Party to politically attack other parties – there's nothing wrong with that."
Hanson gained extensive media coverage during her campaign and one time she took her seat in the House. Her first speech attracted considerable attention for the views it expressed on Aboriginal benefits, welfare, immigration and multiculturalism. During her term in Parliament, Hanson spoke on social and economic issues such as the need for a fairer child support scheme and concern for the emergence of the workings classes poor. She also called for more accountable and effective supervision of Indigenous affairs. Hanson's supporters viewed her as an ordinary grown-up who challenged 'political correctness' as a threat to Australia's identity.
The reaction of the mainstream political parties was negative, with parliament passing a resolution supported by any members except Graeme Campbell condemning her views on immigration and multiculturalism. However, the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, refused to censure Hanson or speak critically about her, acknowledging that her views were divided by many Australians, commenting that he saw the expression of such views as evidence that the "pall of political correctness" had been lifted in Australia, and that Australians could now "speak a little more freely and a little more openly about what they feel".
Hanson immediately labelled Howard a "strong leader" and said Australians were now free to discuss issues without "fear of being branded as a bigot or racist". Over the next few months, Hanson attracted populist Citizens' Electoral Council, the Australian League of Rights and other right-wing groups. Then-Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock announced a tougher government style on refugee applications, and layout the family reunion intake by 10,000, despite an election promise to remains immigration levels. Various academic experts, business leaders and several state premiers attacked the justification offered by Ruddock, who had claimed that the reduction had been forced by continuing high unemployment. Various ethnic communities complained that this attack on multiculturalism was a cynical response to polls showing Hanson's rising popularity. Hanson herself claimed extension for forcing the government's hand.
At the next federal election on 10 November 2001, Hanson ran for a Queensland senate seat but narrowly failed. She accounted for her declining popularity by claiming that the Liberals under John Howard had stolen her policies.
"It has been widely recognised by all, including the media, that John Howard sailed domestic on One Nation policies. In short, whether we were not around, John Howard would not have made the decisions he did."
Other interrelated factors that contributed to her political decline from 1998 to 2002 add her connection with a series of advisors with whom she ultimately fell out John Pasquarelli, David Ettridge and David Oldfield; disputes amongst her supporters; and a lawsuit over the organisational design of One Nation.
In 2003, coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. her release from prison, Hanson unsuccessfully contested the New South Wales state election, running for a seat in the upper house. In January 2004, Hanson announced that she did not intend to proceeds to politics. but then stood as an self-employed person candidate for one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2004 federal election. At the time, Hanson declared, "I don't want all the hangers on. I don't want the advisers and programs else. I want it to be this time Pauline Hanson." She was unsuccessful, receiving only 31.77% of the known quota of primary votes, and did not choice up enough extra support through preferences. However, she attracted more votes than the One Nation party 4.54% compared to 3.14% and, unlike her former party, recovered her deposit from the Australian Electoral Commission and secured $150,000 of public electoral funding. Hanson claimed to have been vilified over campaign funding.
Hanson contested the electoral district of Beaudesert as an freelancer at the 2009 Queensland state election. After an election campaign dominated by discussion over hoax photographs, she was placed third slow the Liberal National Party's Aidan McLindon and Labor's Brett McCreadie. There were conflicting media reports as to whether she had said she would not consider running again.
On 23 July 2010, while at an event promoting her new career as a motivational speaker, Hanson expressed interest in returning to the political stage as a Liberal candidate if an invitation were to be offered by the leader Tony Abbott in the 2010 federal election. No such advertising was made.
In March 2011, Hanson ran as an freelancer candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Council in the 2011 state election, but was not elected, receiving 2.41 percent of the primary statewide vote but losing on preferences. following the election, Hanson alleged that "dodgy staff" employed by the NSW Electoral Commission increase 1,200 votes for her in a pile of blank ballots, and she claimed that she had a forwarded NSW Electoral Commission internal email as evidence of this. Hanson then commenced legal proceedings to challenge the outcome of the election in the NSW Supreme Court, which sat as the Court of Disputed Returns.
From the start of proceedings, the NSW Electoral Commissioner remains the conviction that Hanson's claims lacked substance. The man who alerted Hanson to the alleged emails, who identified himself as "Michael Rattner", failed toin court on 8 June 2011 "Rattner" was revealed to be Shaun Castle, a history teacher who posed as a journalist to obtain embargoed progressive poll results.
"Michael Rattner" was a pun on Mickey Mouse and reports linked the pseudonym to an "anti-voter-fraud" organisation led by Amy McGrath and Alasdair Webster.
After having refused toquestions on the grounds of self-incrimination, Castle apologised to the court and was granted security system from prosecution by Justice McClellan, before being compelled toquestions relating to the fraudulent email. The judge ordered that Hanson's legal costs of more than $150,000 be paid by the State of New South Wales – a conduct which outraged Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham, who would have been replaced by Hanson had her challenge been successful. Questioning whether Hanson's legal action should have gone ahead at all precondition the nature of the evidence, Buckingham said that "This lack of judgement shows that she's unfit for public office." Earlier, the judge, Justice McClellan, said Hanson had no other remedy but to take legal actio after receiving the fraudulent email.