Politics

One Nation Is Tearing Itself Apart And Pauline Hanson Had A Cry About It On TV

Sad face :(

by Sam Langford  1 June 2018
pauline hanson

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One Nation is absolutely tearing itself to pieces, and no one is sadder than party leader and founder Pauline Hanson, who choked back tears on Sky News last night as she talked about backstabbing and her noble mission.

Speaking about the recent decision of One Nation senator Brian Burston to ditch the party line and support the government’s corporate tax cuts, Hanson opted to escalate the drama by claiming Burston has now tried to defect from One Nation to join the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party — a claim Burston has denied.

Burston’s attempted defection has been widely reported by other media outlets, and confirmed by the Shooters party itself. The party says it declined Burston’s offer, which should give you some indication of Burston’s calibre. When the shooters party doesn’t even want you, you’ve got problems.

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“This isn’t the first time Brian’s stabbed me in the back, and that goes back a long time ago,” Hanson said, fighting back tears. “And this hurts me. It hurts me deeply, because it means so much to me, what I’m trying to do.”

“For him to turn around and do this to me, it’s hard. But I’m going to keep going, and I’m going to get good people in that Parliament besides me, because it means so much to me to help the people who need help, who feel like no one’s listening to them. They’re sick of politicians, because they don’t do anything.”

“I’ve worked myself to the bone because I believe in what I’m doing. I’m sorry to the Australian people that this has happened again,” she said, saying the people who’ve backstabbed her over the years didn’t have the “intestinal fortitude” required, which definitely doesn’t mean what she thinks it does.

Anyway, we can’t say people are particularly surprised by One Nation tearing itself to pieces, given that it’s far from the first time this has happened. Racism and random baffling hatred isn’t the most solid of foundations on which to build a political movement, after all.

If Burston does leave One Nation, it will mean all three of Hanson’s colleagues who were elected to the Senate with her in 2016 will have ditched the party. Rod Culleton was the first to go. He left the party, before being booted from Parliament altogether under Section 44 of the constitution. Malcolm Roberts was also booted under Section 44, and his replacement, Fraser Anning, left the party before he’d even had a chance to sit in the Senate. So, things are going well.

There’s further backstory in this case. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the lead-up to this latest beef. For starters, while Hanson is claiming Burston has backstabbed her out of nowhere with his decision to back the government’s corporate tax cuts, it’s worth nothing that supporting those cuts was One Nation’s policy until just last week. Given that context, Burston hasn’t so much backflipped as remained consistent while his party flip-flopped around him like a dying fish.

Hanson’s tantrum on Sky News was also preceded by a very amusing press conference debacle earlier this week, where she marched away from the cameras without letting her fellow Senator Peter Georgiou know she was making a dramatic exit.

When one of the reporters politely pointed out to him that she’d left, he looked embarrassed and said “actually I did not realise she walked away, so I think I will be walking away too, now”.

That’s actually probably the best call a member of One Nation has made this week.