Pauline Hanson is back, but Pauline Pantsdown isn’t sure we need her voice

PAULINE Hanson has returned, but the political satirist who created Pauline Pantsdown isn’t sure the world needs his version resurrected just yet.

“I Don’t Like It” was a hit for Simon Hunt’s political parody character Pauline Pantsdown, but he’s unsure it she needs resurrecting. Picture: News Corp

PAULINE Hanson has turned Australian politics on its head with her re-entry into the fray, but the political satirist who created Pauline Pantsdown to parody her in the late 1990s isn’t sure if the world needs his version resurrected just yet.

Hanson appears to have been re-elected to the Senate and her One Nation party may score as many as six seats, as counting continues from Saturday’s poll.

Simon Hunt, now in his mid-50s and a University of NSW media lecturer and LGBTI activist says the demand is there — he’s fielded many inquiries since Saturday when Australians went to the polls — but he’s in two minds about whether to resurrect the parody character.

“I pretty much thought she (Hanson) had fallen to rest — I didn’t think we needed to deal with her any more, but here we are again,” Hunt told news.com.au today.

In the late 1990s, Hunt’s Pauline Pantsdown struck a nerve after he painstakingly cut together clips from Hanson interviews to create two singles, “I Don’t Like It”, and “Backdoor Man”.

“I Don’t Like It” shot up the ARIA music charts and was played on mainstream radio.

Ms Hanson sued the ABC for defamation over “Backdoor Man” when it was played on youth radio station Triple J — claiming the song implied she was both homosexual and a transvestite. She eventually won, and the song wasn’t played again.

Hunt’s Pauline Pantsdown character was pretty much retired when Hanson’s political profile and influence all but petered out in the early 2000s.

He flirted with reviving it again when Hanson stood for the Senate at the last election in 2013, but opted instead to set up what he calls “virtual Pauline Pantsdown” on Facebook and Twitter, running “a few social justice campaigns and getting a few things down rather than the usual armchair stuff you do on Facebook”.

Didn’t like it: Pauline Pantsdown (Simon Hunt) outside court after the Queensland defamation lawsuit which found the “Backdoor Man” song was defamatory. Picture: News Corp

In 2014, Hunt told News Corp he was reluctant to reprise the character.

“I think we forget that she actually did hurt people with her views ... anything I do with Pauline Pantsdown will give her oxygen. If I did a new song, it’d keep Hanson in the limelight,” he said.

And despite the many pleas he’s had since Saturday to resurrect Pauline Pantsdown, Hunt remains reluctant for a few reasons — including thinking there are now a few people perhaps more qualified to “pull on the polyester”.

“Perhaps (controversial Queensland Liberal Party MP) George Christensen — he’s already doing some strongly anti-Muslim things so maybe he might want to whack on the polyester dress and go for it,” Hunt said.

Hunt is unsurprised at the new support for Hanson, having watched the campaign over the past couple of months and seen a media-savvy Hanson at work.

“I think we all saw this one coming, but it’s also very much a rebadging of some old ideas of hers, except it’s not Asians now, it’s Muslims,” he said.

“But she’s got more bedfellows now who know the power of xenophobia, so she’s had to get more extreme. She’s not really as unique as she was.

“But look back to when it began ... we didn’t get swamped by Asians, they didn’t form ghettos, they actually all assimilated. It’s a pity that nobody sort of questioned her about why she was wrong back then.”

“So am I going to come out and put the dress on and cut up another song? I’m not really sure that’s what the world needs. We are all sort of waiting to see how that Senate balance comes out.”

If he was to resurrect Pauline Pantsdown, he doesn’t think he’d update her look to Pauline 2016.

“Her wardrobe is more subtle these days, but in some ways I wouldn’t want to change her that much. Her ideas come from pre-1998 so we might as well keep the same clothes.”

Originally published as Pauline Hanson is back, but Pauline Pantsdown isn’t sure we need her voice