Culture

Pauline Hanson Has Finally Found Some Immigrants She Supports… They Just Happen To Be White

What a strange coincidence!

by Osman Faruqi  1 March 2017

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The one thing everybody knows about Pauline Hanson is her stance on immigration. She’s made it the core part of her political identity. When she was first elected in 1996 she declared Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Asians”. Last year she called for a complete “halt” on all immigration into the country.

So yeah, Pauline Hanson isn’t a big fan of migrants. Except, it turns out, for these guys:

stones

Meet Angela and David Wilson-Stone. The couple, along with their teenage daughter, are migrants facing deportation for not fulfilling the conditions of their visa. They’ve lived in Australia since 2011, but haven’t been able to secure permanent residency. That’s because one of their visa conditions required them to work in a regional area for a year. Turns out they’d moved to a suburb in Ipswich, Queensland that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection didn’t classify as regional enough.

But even though they’re migrants who’ve failed to meet visa requirements, they’ve somehow managed to secure the support of the most anti-migrant politician in Australian parliament: Pauline Hanson. Why? I don’t know for sure but it might have to do with the fact that they’re white and from the UK.

“I just don’t think it’s justified,” Hanson said of the Wilson-Stone’s impending deportation. She drew a distinction between the Wilson-Stone’s predicament, describing it as “heart-wrenching”, and “All the ones in those gangs who are not Australians on the streets of Melbourne, I’d round them all up, put ’em on a plane and deport them out of here.”

(FYI I’m pretty sure “gangs who are not Australians” is Hanson’s way of saying “people who aren’t white”.)

The Wilson-Stone’s situation is another sad reminder of how ruthlessly bureaucratic our immigration system is. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been living in the country, or how much you’ve contributed, if you’re not a permanent resident there’s a always a risk you could be deported.

But Hanson doesn’t have any consistency in exposing “heart-wrenching” migrant stories like this one. When a 16 year old girl with autism was facing deportation last week, Hanson was nowhere to be seen. Why? It might have to do with the fact the girl was from Bangladesh.

And when it comes to migrant experiences, there’s nothing more heart-wrenching than the stories of the refugees we have indefinitely trapped on Manus Island and Nauru. At least the Wilson-Stone’s know what is happening to them, and the worst case result is being deported back to the UK. Refugees seeking a better life in Australia have been left in limbo for years, and face continual uncertainty regarding their future.

Pauline Hanson doesn’t care about the plight of hard done by migrants, she cares about white people. She should just own up to it.