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Deconstructing Pauline Hanson’s ACA Interview

After the latest political embarrassment to engulf her party, Senator Pauline Hanson went on A Current Affair for what Junkee media aptly called ‘a giant sook’. All of a sudden, the great ‘keepin it real’ and ‘no-one cares about your feelings’ candidate became the very social justice warrior she decries. Whether it was playing the victim, poor me, overly emotional, conspiracy theories you name it; she did it. I want to look at selections from the interview and deconstruct this incoherent woman’s victim complex along with the other crap she spewed.

The Background: The Resignation of Steve Dickson and Other Clowns

Now former One Nation candidate Steve Dickson tendered his resignation after footage of him groping an exotic dancer and making wildly inappropriate comments about women came to light. What is worse, he actually used the excuse that he was drunk when he said and did those vile things. No excuse, genius. Indeed the phrase in vino veritas (truth in wine) comes to mind. At least he had the good sense to resign.

Dickson joins a long list of truly well-vetted candidates, including a homophobe, a conspiracy theorist and one genius who threatened to murder an employee. Clearly, Senator Hanson, who acknowledged that she is the leader of the party and thus the buck stops with her, does not vet her candidates. These candidates are examples of what John Doyle once called ‘any half-baked dickhead who string two sentences together’.

The Interview, Part One: Muh Feels!

The resignation of Mr Dickson seems to have been the last straw for Ms Hanson, who went on the intellectual powerhouse that is A Current Affair to get her rantings out to the base.

Speaking to Tracey Grimshaw, Hanson opened with this gem:

I’m just so upset, Tracey. I’ve worked for this for twenty-three years, since I was first elected to parliament in 1996. I’ve had my ups and downs with this, and I just feel I’m getting kicked in the guts time and time again … this was a sting three years in the making to discredit One Nation and pull us down. This [footage of Steve Dickson]was done last September. Now it comes out now, just on the cusp of an election?

Oh, cry me a river. Getting kicked in the guts? You chose terrible candidates to run for office, seemingly without doing basic research. The fact that people point out what horrible candidates (and human beings) these individuals were is not kicking you in the guts. You are not the victim here. Indeed, your incompetence is on glaring display. Despite the actions of the Liberal Party, we live in the information age. The entirety of human knowledge is in the palm of the average person’s hand. Candidates must, like Caesar’s wife, be above reproach. The fact that your candidates turned out to be violent and bigoted nuts does not make you the victim. Next.

Ms Hanson then proceeded to criticise the fact that Channel Nine played the tape from Al Jazeera without permission. Grimshaw explained that it was a leak, and that is how leaks work. Hanson’s response is quite similar to other politicians’ reactions to leaks that make them look foolish: ignore what is in the source, criticise the fact that it was reported in the first place.

The Interview, Part Two: The Circus Roles On

Hanson then asked:

Why is everyone so frightened of myself? Why is everyone so frightened of One Nation? And it’s quite evident in this election now, because the Lib[eral]s are preferencing One Nation below the Labor Party.

First of all, the pronoun you seek is ‘me’, not myself. The question is ‘why is everyone afraid of me’?, but even that is wrong. What you see Ms Hanson, is not fear, but unrestrained contempt. People are afraid only of the lunatics you inspire with your hateful rhetoric; they are not afraid of you or your party per se.

In perhaps the only true thing that she said, Ms Hanson added:

At the end of the day I am leader of this political party, I don’t care what Steve Dickson goes over there and says. I am the leader of this party.

Correct. As the leader of the party, you, and not Dickson, speak for it. Just how much that helps your party in light of all the crazy nonsense you yourself have said and done is not clear, but I digress. She was quite right to say that she leads the party and not Mr Dickson. A broken clock, as the saying goes, is right twice a day.

The Interview, Part Three: Deflection

Senator Hanson then attempted to throw the audience off when she spoke of other instances of corruption. Specifically, she said:

I cop all this shit all the time, and I’m sick of it. Kevin Rudd goes to a strip joint. You’ve got Craig Thomson using the credit card of the unions in a brothel. You’ve had corruption, you’ve had Eddie Obeid, you’ve had paedophiles, you’ve had everything. But they just sail through it. No, let us give Pauline Hanson a kick in the guts

Ok, in order: Rudd went to a strip club; that is true. Despite the moral outrage bile from the Murdoch press, that is not a crime, even if a Labor politician does it. This is also a false comparison since, unlike Mr Dickson, Mr Rudd did not grope a dancer and say vile things about women! Dickson was not decried because he went to a strip club! He was decried because of what he did in the club! Hanson is known neither for her intellectual rigour nor her grip of the facts, but that was a hard fail even for her.

Next, Craig Thompson resigned! He literally lost his seat in parliament! Thompson did not, as Hanson put it, sail through that affair. He resigned! Wow, this woman is ignorant. Finally, Eddie Obeid is in gaol. He, too, did not sail through his scandal. I would ask you, Senator, not to speak about topics about which you know nothing, but then your entire life would be silence!

Conclusion: The False Victim Narrative

Senator Hanson is, in a supreme irony, attempting to play the victim in order to distract from the fundamental political incompetence that she displayed in selecting her candidates. The media exposing these clowns as unfit for office is not, contrary to your victim narrative, kicking you in the guts. This rant was clearly not thought through (like much else that she says) and is even wrong on simple facts.

Three more years of this? Senate voting changes now!

 

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30 comments

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  1. Patagonian

    The mystery is why Hanson would think that men who are racists would not be misogynists too. And lest we forget her own comments on domestic violence – and she wonders why she attracts stinkers like Dickson, Ross MacDonald and the charming Mark Thornton, one of her candidates who owns a sex shop linked to graphic online domestic violence posts.

    https://www.qt.com.au/news/pauline-hanson-claims-women-make-frivolous-dv-comp/3043038/

    Basically she’s not very bright and these blokes know it, and all they have to do is flatter her and indulge her lunatic conspiracy theories and she’s putty in their hands. I can’t wait to see the havoc Latham will wreak on One Neuron. I have no doubt he sees himself as a future PHON leader. If I was Hanson I would be watching my back very, very closely.

  2. paul walter

    How on earth would a person “deconstruct” that sort of blither.

    More success unscrambling a broken egg.

  3. Alcibiades

    Yup, Pauline is as sharp as a box of hammers. Yet, just like Abbott, is ‘clever’, in the base manner of manipulative rat cunning, ‘clever’. Ashby has long established himself as the ventriloquist who controls One Notion. And all key staff & appointments are personally loyal to or fearfully submissive to … him. Pauline cares nought as long as the money printing business flows.

    Remarkably she publicly decries the Libs(not Nats) for mostly preferencing ON last. “But we always vote with the Coalition!“, she cries in betrayal.

    The Coalition that, via the black ops squad, Abbott, Pyne et al, had her imprisoned in gaol. With Brough & others recruited & control(?) Ashby … the baton now passed to the likes of Andrew Hastie & Ian Goodenough. Which seeks to focus all MSM attention to a single public encounter, distracting & diverting from the alleged secret meetings/directives in WA, QLD & VIC …

    Am awaiting the eventual replacement of Pauline with another, as you say, perhaps Latham down the track, yet with Ashby still pulling the levers behind the ON curtain, on behalf of others.

    The Coalition(comprising Lib, Nat, LNP, CLP), If it were not for the outer-ring of the , the ‘Front’ group comprising One Notion, Cori’s Conservatives, Lib Democrats(IPA), former Family First, etc, et al, along with Liberal, then lifelong QLD National/LNP, Clive shunting disaffected & fringe second & third preferences their way, the so called Coalition would barely be more than a largish Minor party ‘grouping’. Only in combination with the overwhelming dominance of the partisan legacy media propaganda of Murdoch & the corporate MSM does it even approach being competitive. sigh

  4. Alcibiades

    Oh, re Steve Dickson & vetting, was he not a previously elected Liberal party Member(2006-2009), then an elected LNP Member(2009-2017) ? In fact a serving Minister in the LNP State government of another crank, ex-Major with ‘Da Plan’ man, Campbell Newman for three years(2012-2015) ? Why do the LNP & Liberals get a free pass given this lads antecedents ?

    If Dickson’s character, ethics, morals & values are so fundamentally flawed(they are) for suitability re Elected Office, why was he ever an LNP State Minister ? If he was good enough for the Libs/LNP, then he was more than suitable for ON, heh ? Er, ’cause he merely just moved on to one of the outer-ring of Coalition parties ?

  5. Alcibiades

    Leader of the Notionals impersonator, Elvis(?) McCormack ?

    http://i63.tinypic.com/mlp4i9.jpg (Image)

    Oh, & Dickson & Ashby traveled to the US to chat with the NRA on official One Notion party business, with Pauline’s full approval/authority … ON footed the bills …

  6. Baby Jewels

    “Hoist on her own petard” comes to mind.

  7. Keitha Granville

    agree with all of the above.
    However, she is dangerous in that a vast swathe of like minded morons are now feeling sorry for her. Thanks ACA for giving her a bunch of free airtime, she needs less of it not more. I hope Mark Latham takes over, that will be the death of the party. He is not stupid enough to attract a following and all his previous baggage weighs him down.

    I have always been in favour of independents in the Senate but . . . . guess it’s like Forrest’s box of chocolates.

  8. New England Cocky

    Now, now Alcibiades, mind your blood pressure. Enough of the rational analysis of James Ashby’s Only Nutters Parley.

    Tim Jones: You take perfectly reasonable outbursts from one of the monumental fakes of Australian politics and put those outbursts to forensic testing against known historic evidence to form conclusions that any AIMN reader could reasonably conclude were correct.

    Why do you take such actions when the MSM are prepared to accept without question the veracity of every utterance from the painted lips of St Porelean who was politically martyred by Little Johnnie “Flakjacket” Howard for producing less fair immigration policies than LIarbral think tanks?

    I dunno, when you have to abandon the MSM to get quality journalism on independent outlets like AIMN then Australia is in real cow manure. Thank you Rupert et al.

  9. RomeoCharlie29

    Hoist to her own petard. But yes. However I suspect the contradictions pointed out in this article will be missed by the masses who will see only the tear-streaked face and trembling lips and go “aw, those bastard men, and yeah even the Labor blokes”. I described her elsewhere as thick as two short planks and still think so. But she’s cunning and I bet she gets a poll bounce, so stupid are her followers.

  10. Kaye Lee

    In 2004, Andrew Denton interviewed Pauline Hanson on Enough Rope about some of her ON colleagues during her first stint in parliament.

    ANDREW DENTON: One Nation MP Jeff Knuth said, “It would be better “if the Aborigines went back to the pastoralists and said, ‘Can we just… We’re not going to take your land. We’ll just live on it and work for you if you’ll give us a bit of meat.’”

    Your Health spokesman, Ray Danton, actually publicly questioned the statistics on Aboriginal infant mortality as though they might have been made up for some other reason.

    PAULINE HANSON: There were some radicals that tagged themselves to me. They saw me come along and, you know, this woman came along and they thought there was their platform to go and say whatever they wanted to.

    ANDREW DENTON: But he was your Health spokesperson.

    PAULINE HANSON: Oh, look, I wouldn’t even know… I don’t even know who he is. I know Jeff Knuth actually won his seat.

  11. Kaye Lee

    August 2016……

    Meet Brian Burston: One Nation’s power behind the throne

    One Nation’s first NSW senator says the party will change the face of Australian politics and is here for the long haul.

    He said the new One Nation team was a world away from the rabble who won 11 seats in Queensland in 1998, imploded and took Hanson down with them.

    “They ran dopes, unemployed, inexperienced, not all that intellectual … we’re more cohesive than the previous bunch,” Burston said. “We’re a more intelligent bunch for a start.

  12. Klaus Petrat

    The mystery is why Channel 9 offered her a stage??

    And yes, who watches the shit? Channel 9 provides a standard and this interview acts as a preview of future Age/SMH journalistic brilliance.

  13. Alcibiades

    Let us not forget Liberal Senator Arfur SeeNoDonors, on behalf of Malcolm, arguing One Notion was “a lot more sophisticated, they have clearly resonated with a lot of people.” when defending the Liberal preference deal with ’em prior to the WA State election rout:

    Arthur Sinodinos says One Nation ‘more sophisticated now’ – ABC interview, 11Feb2017 (Youtube 4m 58s)

    Groundhog Day ?

    Hasn’t aged well … lessons not learned ? Gonna have to beat the Libs with a larger DID, methinks.

  14. whatever

    Watching ABC news and its the same formula – Scotty promises hundreds of millions for something or other (why didn’t you just put it in the Budget, Scotty?) and this is presented without a trace of analysis or context –
    While anything Shorten says is immediately costed and questioned as though they have suddenly become concerned about Federal spending.
    Why do they think that everyone won’t notice this?

  15. Kerri

    When will it dawn on poor, pathetic, paranoid Pauline that she is the condom of right wing politics.
    They put her on when they want to f**k the rest of us and discard her when the fun is over.

  16. Stephengb

    Just a reminder folks

    It is called the Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) party.

    Pauline Hanson is its life president.

  17. Vikingduk

    Vote one nation. She cares about her people and her country.

    Vote one nation and landslide this election Pauline you are a gem.

    I voted for you last election. I be voting for you again this election. You’re a rock for so many Pauline. Stick it to them.

    A small sample of obviously lobotomised supporters on Sunshine Coast daily’s Facebook feedback page.

    Though quite a few aren’t sucked in by this waste of space, even one of their typists has written an article headed no tears for Pauline here. By Scott Sawyer, his first para “Pauline hanson’s Crocodile tears are almost funny if they weren’t so cynical.

    This rag recently became part of news corpse—where the truth goes to die.

    Further examples of barking mad batshit crazy disease, seeping through the population aided and abetted by a traitorous msm.

  18. Ill fares the land

    An appalling public display, but then it does sum up PH – it’s never her. It’s always those in whom she places her “trust” that turn on her and let her down. Of course, as other note, because she has no insight into herself, she lacks insight into those around her. She is a “politicial prostitute” – as long as you put the money down, you are in. But when, as it always has, go pera-shaped, she then needs to construct a new reality around why she made a bad choice – so the broad theme with PH is that she made good choices and they turned against her, when in truth, she made bad choices (or, in effect, apoorly nuanced choice) and the nincompoops behaved according to type. One issue, as I see it is that only the “stupid” and deeply flawed are drawn to PHON – granted some have professional qualifications, but that is no barrier to holding utterly bizarre views. If you are a nut job, your intellect won’t, as a rule, save you.

    Her inability to understand her own limitations brings to mind many quotes on the broad theme that it is only the intelligent who doubt themselves, whereas a stupid person is always confident they are right – one I really like is that “egotism is the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity” (why that shouldn’t be applied in equal measure to Morrison escapes me at the moment). Put another way, the stupid are generally too stupid to ever realise how stupid they are. Worse, PH has, in her mind, risen to “power” and as the feeble tend to do, she craves subservience from her minions (a trait also seen in the puerile and narcissistic Trump and to a degree Morrison, who seems to be unable to take consultation) because, I think, that reinforces her perception that she has power.

    The one gift, if you want to call it that, of the Hanson’s of the world is the ability to constantly shift position and find new ways to articulate their stupid ideas, but it is all in defence of their monumentally stupid and indefensible ideas – this is how a moron like Roberts can frustrate the substantially smarter Brian Cox (when they appeared together on Q&A and Cox challenged Roberts’ bizarre climate change views). When Dickson “lets her down”, she flees to the ‘I’m a victim here” argument, blubbering on the one TV show that is itself pathetic enough to stoop to interviewing PH. When the prize snake Ashby turns, as he will, because PH’s cohort always does, she will flee to the same rationalisation – she chose the right person, but they let her down. I imagine this has long been a feature of all of PH’s relationships as for her, this is the foundation of her psyche.

  19. Phil

    This THING should get an academy award. Although having said that, I am now convinced more than ever, the women is barking mad. Every time I clap eyes on or, hear this THING, I realise just how gullible and sick a lot of Australian voters are. She is dangerous and in the propaganda stakes, she is only something the good Dr Goebbels could only dream about. I don’t know who I loath more her or that effeminate soapy arse that thinks he’s ‘ The Blue Max ‘. We have lost the collective plot in this country, aided and abetted not just by the media but, by our own class who are too PC scared to call out a shit bag went it is crystal clear that it is indeed, a shit bag.

  20. Lambert Simnel

    roflmao Kaye Lee 7.48 am.

  21. Cool Pete

    I can remember Hanson going on the other intellectual powerhouse, 60 Minutes, and decrying the notion that the party was racist because some of the male party members had Asian wives. Well, I came across a One Notion supporter with an Asian wife who could not have been more of a dickhead if he’d tried, and I’m, NOT talking about John Kingston. I’m talking about a dickhead who claimed to have spent four years in Japan and was not fully accepted as Japanese. This dickhead also made the claim that the Japanese traded with the Mayans, which is ancient history and cannot be verified by any learned source I’ve consulted, AND, is akin to saying that 1997-2004 Toyota Camry vehicles were full trade between Thailand and Saudi Arabia. The taillights of those vehicles were imported to Australia from Thailand, where they were fitted to vehicles, some of which were shipped to Saud Arabia. Some Mayan artifacts made their way to Japan along the Spice Route, but that is not the same as saying they traded with the Mayans. And, also, trade in Japan was regionalised at that time! To say that the party is not racist because some male members have Asian wives is a nonsense as some of them are just as racist as any others! And yes, Rosa Lee Long was the widow of a Chinese man, but her performance was lacklustre!
    The simple fact of the matter is, Hanson’s party agenda attracts such poor quality candidates it would be laughable if it wasn’t serious!

  22. wam

    I saw two women floundering.
    The interview was so awful that I wondered how much they paid hanson?

    The sting made me uncomfortable as dozens of politicians would fail such scrutiny on their attitudes to women, violence and alcohol?? Imagine the rabbott but the one I’d like to see filmed is hastie he make my flesh crawl. I would love to read the history of the people he met.
    .

    I am with you ‘whatever’ when o’brien destroyed the rabbott over peak download and how he uses lies to avoid pressure. Old red disappeared and any semblance of fair opinion disappeared with him. We have had a claytons commercial feed ever since. They are too uncertain so any criticism of scummo is immediately followed by anti-labor but not vice versa. The constant call for selling the ABC because of left wing bias. Is the best example of right wing ignorance but the ABC and the old fairfax are pretty well rooted now.

  23. HannibalatPortus

    I still believe she is a grand mistress of rat cunning, playing the ‘woe is me’ card with that voice constantly on the verge of tears whenever anything that might resemble an investigation of her party is raised. But she’ll keep doing it because she’s been smart enough to realise there’s a bloody good earn in it for her. In addition to the wage and all the perks of staff, travel, accommodation, etc, Hanson has worked out quick smart the potential for earning just by achieving a certain number of votes. It amazes me how many people who tell me they vote for Pauline (“to keep the bastards honest”) are completely ignorant of the value of federal election payments. The 2016 election earned PHON a cool 1.745 million bucks and she’s on track to improve on that result in 2019. And she earns dosh for every vote she gets in a state election, too. Here in Victoria, it’s valued at $6 per every lower house vote and $3 for every upper house vote. Look past the act and follow the money; Poorlean and her makes are making a motser…

  24. andy56

    well it is called PHON. As such, she makes the rules and she calls the shots, she makes the policy decisions. You really have to wonder why she cant see the obvious problem. She has been promoted to her level of incompetence. The only idiots who would tow the line are equally narcisstic and incompetant. Really, she should have quit all public life a while ago. Dare i say, when the Al Jazeera tapes came out. Most normal people would have been destroyed by the revelations. She just keeps plodding along as if her lame excuse was enough. Her only positive is that there are equally as stupid people everywhere.

  25. New England Cocky

    @Andy56: Uhm … the rule is “promoted above their level of incompetence” and given her appalling choice of males in any context it would be reasonable to assume that the money generated from AEC election costs refunds is a primary inducement for this cheer choice.

  26. DrakeN

    From my dictionary:

    “phon | fɒn |
    noun
    a unit of the perceived loudness of sounds.”

    All noise, then?

    Watching a replay of the ACA melt down was a bit like the standard claim to victimhood which religious acolytes maintain.
    A look at the comments on the facebook account of the National Secular Lobby gives an indication of the commonly held delusions of their kind.

    As I often reiterate: “Facts are just so-o-o-o inconvenient!”

  27. Lady Jane Grey.

    DrakeN, once too often to the well for me. She has tried that stunt too many other times when cornered.

  28. Frank Smith

    How long is Mark Latham going to adhere to Party Leader PoorLean’s dictums”? Latham is in for 8 years!

  29. Lambert Simnel

    He needs a mother figure to do his thinking for him

  30. Bradley

    And in defence of Kevin Rudd’s Visit to a strip club; it was accidental, brief and without incident.
    Even the owner of the club acknowledged his good behaviour.
    https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2007-08-21/rudd-in-strip-joint-oh-no-this-wont-do/645778
    “Mr Rudd, Labor MP Warren Snowdon and the New York Post’s Australian editor Col Allan went to Scores during a night out in Manhattan in September 2003.

    Scores boss Elliot Osher says Mr Rudd behaved like a gentleman throughout the brief visit.

    And he says neither Mr Rudd, Mr Snowdon or Mr Allan touched the dancers or were thrown out of the club.

    Mr Osher said it was Mr Rudd who asked his group to leave.”

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