Michael Duffy, author and publisher.
Courier Mail Perspectives, 3rd August 1998
It is 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.
Recently a number of people including Henry Tsang, the Deputy Mayor of Sydney, has supported the anti-Hanson demonstrations of high school pupils organised by the socialist group Resistance.
Resistance is an Australia-wide organisation which draws its inspiration from the works of Karl Marx. The ideas of Marx formed the basis of communist regimes which have killed more than 100 million people, many of them on the grounds of race and nationality.
Many Australians are refugees from communism; many other Australians died fighting it. Resistance thinks Cuba is a better country than Australia. Presumably the recent demonstrations in nine cities will attract new young members of Resistance.
Some of the anti-Hanson demonstrations 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 party (with more than 300 branches and representatives in two Australian Parliaments) been prevented from speaking in public. Some of the intellectual thugs who have achieved this seem proud of it. Do they not understand the difference between protest and suppression? Or do they care?
This raises questions vital to the health of the Australian democracy. Why is this all of such little concern to Hanson's critics? Why are there no demonstrations against Resistance? Are the parents and teachers who encourage children to protest against Hanson as keen when it comes to educating them in the principles of a free and democratic society?
It's time for Hanson's enemies to stop hiding behind the word "racist", which is used so often to describe One Nation, and come out in the open and justify their absurd hatred of Pauline Hanson.
In Europe, the headquarters of right-wing political parties are staffed by skinheads with criminal records. In Australia at One nation offices and meetings you meet ordinary-looking Australians pretty typical of all of us except they're a bit older and more Anglo-Celtic. Just what do the critics fear from these people? It's time they let us know. Only 3% of Australians want more immigration. Are the rest of us racist?
This week Tsang announced that "Australia is on the verge of a national crisis". Author Tom Keneally joined many intellectuals a while back when he said, thanks to Hanson, we're on the train to Auschwitz. Are they serious? Have these people booked their tickets out so they can escape before its too late? If so, maybe they'd like to provide the rest of us with a scrap of evidence to support their wild claims first.
On Sunday, July 19, at hawthorn Town Hall in Melbourne, there was a demonstration against a One nation meeting. People were spat on and hit with soft drink cans as they entered the hall.
Clothes were torn and old people and women were punched. In one particularly disgusting incident, a 15 year old girl was chased down the road by an imposing demonstrator threatening her with physical violence. Elsewhere, spectacles were broken and one old man had to be rescued from the mob by police and taken to hospital.
It was, in other words, Australian style democracy 1990s style, typical of what many have had to put up with to hear Hanson speak during the past 18 months.
But all this was nothing compared with the actions of Jeff Kennett's Victorian police, supposedly the upholders of law and order. Hanson was told not to attend the meeting.
A police inspector then mounted the stage inside the hall and told the people who had come to hear Hanson, "There are a number of people here who are rather elderly. Running them through an angry mob does not help those people particularly. On speaking with the organisers outside, they have given us an undertaking that, if the meeting does not proceed, they will let us take you people out, under escort."
So Kennett's police did a deal with demonstrators and the meeting was called off in return for the 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 One nation "racism", are condoning increasing levels of violence and repression.
According to Resistance, another round of anti-Hanson demonstrations is planned for August 28. It will be interesting to see how the police, and those who claim moral superiority, act on that occasion.