The Courier-Mail Monitor February 6th 1999
Peter Charlton
With one Nation imploding, what happens to its supporters? National
affairs editor Peter Charlton reports on a party with serious internal
problems
Comment:
Charlton is the reporter discredited as a "Murdoch lackey" in the recently released book "Murder by Media, Death of Democracy in Australia by author Scott Balson.
You will notice in this article how he states, exact quote: "The Courier-Mail which concentrated on the parties policies and the quality of its candidates is a clear exception - which explains the animosity shown to it by One Nation officials."
As you will see in the article this is why he claims:
What the "Murder be Media" book does demonstrate, quite clearly, is that Charlton epitomises an "intellectual prostitute" as deined by a well-known New York Times Chief-of-staff in the 1950s.
For the record, One Nation policy was the basis of the first 6 (six) Private Member Bills introduced into the Queensland State Parliament when it re-convened after the June 1998 state elections.
The rest of the article is full of half-truths and comments aimed at belittling the people's party, but what else could you expect from a proven intellectual prostitute?
The 2% Easytax was always presented as a discussion document to be tabled and modified by Treasury. It was the basis of One Nation's tax policy - and is, interestingly, the basis of a lengthy investigation into a new tas policy in the USA.
The article starts below the line:
In the state election last June, one in four Queensland voters cast their first-preference vote for a One Nation candidate.
They did so for a range of reasons: a sense that the major political parties had failed them; a feeling that some groups - particularly those in the big southern cities - received preferential treatment; a feeling that they were being ignored by Brisbane and Canberra; a concern that the changes they had experienced in their lives, from the end of permanent employment to the closure of the local bank and post office, were all for the worse.
Since 1983, politicians from both the major parties had told them how to think and how to vote - and tried to convince them that economic rationalism was good, that globalisation was inevitable and that pain endured would be worthwhile in the end. After 13 years they have had enough. In 1996, they voted out the Keating Labor government. Soon they had conservative governments in Brisbane and in Canberra - and still the pain remained.
In such fertile soil, watered by discontent, One Nation simply had to blossom, led by Pauline Hanson, the typical Aussie battler fighting for her fellow battlers.
For those people, casualties of the information revolution, One Nation's success in the Queensland poll held out some hope. Here, at last, was a party that cared, and its Queensland MPs promised salvation.
Now, with a flurry of resignations, the party is in disarray. Few tears will be shed in the major parties; the hardheads such as Nick Minchin always believed that many One Nation voters were disgruntled former Coalition voters who would soon return to their roots.
The events of last October 3 - as One Nation preferences went to the Coalition candidates in the federal poll - seemed to bear out the truth of that observation. And so neither of the major parties seemed to do much to address the underlying factors that had made One Nation initially so attractive.
The Federal Government pressed on with its plans for the full sale of Telstra; leading Labor figures such as Lindsay Tanner warned that the party could not wallow in nostalgia.
None of this was particularly comforting for One Nation supporters who had seen their main hope - Hanson - fail to win the seat of Blair.
Out of Parliament, Hanson has been just another former MP, and not a particularly interesting one at that.
With a NSW election due on March 27, this latest crisis in Queensland could not have come at a worse time. And certainly not for David Oldfield, long time regarded as the political brain of One Nation.
Formerly Hanson's adviser, he is top of the Upper House ticket for the party in the NSW poll. Even before this week's turmoil, One Nation had no hope of winning a lower house seat.
"It's a great disruption, and it could have been handled better," Oldfield told ABC Radio from Coffs Harbour, on the NSW mid-north coast, where he had been campaigning with Hanson. "But we will deal with these things. The sun will come up, we'll keep going and I believe One Nation will go on and these issues will be resolved."
"These issues", however, have been around since the party's formation in 1997. And they derive not from the ambitions of individual members, but from the markedly undemocratic nature of One Nation.
Previously, party powerbrokers, most notably Oldfield, have been able to expel dissident party members, explaining away their dissent as "teething pains of a new party". After yesterday, Oldfield will find such explanations virtually impossible.
The party, unlike others, does not yet have a constitution, and candidates have been handpicked by a small group, with Oldfield wielding the most power.
Sydney MP and Cabinet Minister Tony Abbott, who employed Oldfield before the latters defection to Hanson in 1997, has described the party structure as a dictatorship.
Former members and officials have constantly questioned the party's financial structure. The key to that dissent has been the continued existence of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Limited, with three directors: Hanson, Oldfield and David Ettridge.
None of the directors can be removed without the approval of the other two; all would therefore, appear to be safe. A company owned by Ettridge has supplied this company with financial services; Ettridge also owns the rights to a photograph, a regular feature at One Nation meetings of Hanson draped in the Australian flag. Ettridge has received at least $42,000 of taxpayer funded money for his One Nation efforts.
Since the concerns started to appear last year, Oldfield has been under pressure to produce a constitution and have it voted on at a national convention.
Although such state conventions have been held, and a national conference promised for February 28th, there was little expectation much would change. Already the national conference has been postponed on several occasions. Oldfield fobbing off questioners with the line that the need was to concentrate on the NSW poll.
That proved too much for the Queensland MPs on Wednesday, Their open rebellion, simmering for months, was inevitable.
But the chief One Nation spin doctor, Scott Balson, tried his hardest: the self-styled "Webmaster" for the One Nation Internet home page said yesterday on his on-line news commentary that the Queensland MPs had shown a "remarkable lack of political nous".
Clearly the party peaked at the Queensland election and has been indecline ever since.
It enjoyed a number of advantages which it no longer has. First, and easily the most important, was the decision by the Liberal and National parties to put it ahead of the ALP in the preference race.
That decision saw the election of about nine of the eleven original state members; One Nation's failure to win a House of Representatives seat on October 3 reflects the party's position on the how-to-vote cards of the major parties.
The second advantage One Nation had was its political freshness. It also received strong support from regional newspapers.
The third advantage the party has had has been the near-adulation showered on its leader by some regional newspapers, and the paucity of scrutiny of its policies by many media outlets.
(The Courier-Mail which concentrated on the parties policies and the quality of its candidates is a clear exception - which explains the animosity shown to it by One Nation officials).
After the Queensland State Election, it was clear that One Nation would be subject to closer scrutiny.
The October federal election, and the preceding campaign, proved its undoing. Organisationally, One Nation was a shambles, a one-member personality cult masquerading at an election campaign.
In policy terms, it was hijacked by a number of single interest groups, including the Brisbane businessmen behind the 2% cascading flat tax (Easytax).
Heralded as a major tax reform, it fell apart under its own inherent contradictions and the clear inability of Hanson to explain how it might work.
What electoral credibility One Nation might have had disappeared.
From there it was all downhill.