Politics

Pauline Hanson Is Getting Roasted For Launching A “Battler Bus” With A Bottle Of Bubbly

She's also been accused of plagiarism.

by Osman Faruqi  6 November 2017

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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson loves to portray herself as the hero of the downtrodden Aussie “battler”.

Even though she’s spent the last couple of decades as a professional politician and has more recently used her party’s clout in the Senate to vote for decidedly anti-battler policies like cutting welfare and family support payments, and voted against proposals to improve housing affordability, Hanson loves to style herself as the hero of ‘ordinary’, salt of the earth Australians.

This morning, just to really highlight how much One Nation loves battlers, Hanson launched the “Battler Bus”.

The bus, which features Hanson’s face and the awkward looking hashtag “PeopleB4Politics”, will travel around Queensland as part of One Nation’s campaign for the upcoming state election. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the bus’ launch.

Given Hanson’s track record on things like welfare payments, her previous support for cutting penalty rates, and her endorsement of the government’s anti-union industrial relations agenda, it’s fair to say that One Nation is more likely to throw battlers under the bus than actually represent them.

The concept of the bus also drew criticism from Labor senator Sam Dastyari who accused Hanson of lifting the idea from Labor.

In Hanson’s defence (not a phrase I expected to write, but there you go) I don’t think it’s fair for Labor to take credit for the concept of the campaign bus, they have been around for a while.

Hanson also copped from people pointing out that in addition to the bus, she also owns a private plane:

But the highlight of the launch was definitely Hanson’s decision to christen the Battler Bus with what appeared to be a bottle of champagne.

It’s a pretty jarring image… a bus designed to campaign on behalf of the humble battler being sprayed with champagne wielded by a politician earning $200,000 a year.

Upon closer inspection it turns out the bottle of bubbly was a Yellowglen Pink, which retails at Dan Murphy’s for a cheeky $6.85.

So it’s not quite the same as spraying around a bottle of Cristal, but is it really the most Aussie battler way of christening your new vehicle? We’re not convinced.

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Feature image via Sarah Motherwell/Twitter