Sunday Mail, 27th December 1998 - Terry Sweetman
No matter how you look at it, no matter what sort of spin you put on it, everyone in 1998 was dazzled by the sixpenny skyrocket of One Nation.
In the form of one term wonder Pauline Hanson, it sat in the bottle fizzing away, mesmerising the nation as it watched and waited for something to happen.
Every now and then a sulphurous spark made people rock back on their heels in expectation and the more craven to seek the shelter, to curry favour with preference deals; yet still we waited.
The waiting ended in the Brisbane Convention Centre in June when we saw an extraordinary eleven One Nation names go up on the winner's board in the state election.
That was as good as it got for Hanson as she was swept into the tally room with her smirking office boy at her heels to throw her weight around.
Yes, One Nation had come to town like antipodean Orange Men beating their drums and it was going to make us all sit up and take notice.
And Queensland and the nation took notice. They listened to extraordinary outbursts ranging from misplaced idealism to youthful naivety, outright crackpotism and plain stupidity as One Nation skilfully avoided all those "real issues" on which it promised so much action.
They listened so closely that federally they comprehensively rejected One Nation, tossing out Hanson on her well funded ear and putting just one other person, the whining Heather Hill into the Senate (and even that's a bit in the air).
It was a vote of confidence that was rejected in the Mulgrave by-election, necessitated by the departure of the strange and obsessive Charles Rappolt, where its support declined from 33% to the low teens.
Yet in the meantime it had shattered the Queensland Nationals, corrupted the Liberals and given Labor a hell of a lot to think about.
Federally, the Nationals stood firm and rebuffed the Hansonites. In Queensland, the Nationals responded by lurching further to the right to claim the mavericks who had deserted them.
Tragically, they have become something of a one tune band as they concentrate on law-and-order issues that pnder to the waverers but neglect the real problems that confront their rural electorate.
The Liberals, who sold their preference souls in the hope of salvation, did nothing but disgust many urban Liberal voters and paid the price of being reduced to an even more derisory political rump.
That they will remain until they truly establish their own identity, something that has been promised but is hardly apparent in their acquiescence to some of the National's zanier bits of redneckery.
Labor, doubly chastened by its isolation from the electorate that led to the demise of the Goss government and then by the rise of the neglected ones in One Nation, has responded by taking the course of least resistance.
Dependent on Peter Wellington for minority government, it rightly or wrongly turned its back on many of the policies that once made modern Labor the well-spring of political initiative in Australia and went about its business nervously looking over its shoulder at the electorate.
However, I expect big things of the Labor government in the New Year now that it has thrown off the shackles of indebtedness.
There are some big feet just waiting to be inserted in predictable mouths and the party is now free to indulge in that factional fratricide which we have come to love and admire over the decades.
The past year - with the rise and spectacular fall of One Nation - has demonstrated the weaknesses and the strengths of our system and tested the common sense, the resolve and the principle of both politician and citizen. By and large the citizens have passed the tests with flying colours, with the basic good sense and tolerance of the Australian people prevailing.
The political parties have not performed nearly so well, but who's surprised.