The one thing that makes Pauline Hanson cry
SHE’S known for her determination and strong convictions but a rarely seen emotional side to Pauline Hanson has been revealed.
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IN A week where she has been the subject of protests, widely pilloried again as racist and attacked as divisive, and still hasn’t taken a backward step, a new documentary reveals the one thing that makes controversial senator Pauline Hanson cry.
“I’m still here. They haven’t got rid of me. Last person they want to see on the floor of Parliament is me,” says Hanson in the opening of new SBS documentary Pauline Hanson: Please Explain.
The feature-length offering looks at Hanson’s impact on multicultural Australia since her explosive entry into politics and her maiden speech to parliament in 1996, following her on the road as she hit the hustings in the build-up to the federal election.
It’s a fascinating and often confronting history lesson and insight into the rise and fall of One Nation, the woman herself, and her 20-year fight to find a place in Australian politics.
Love her or hate her, there’s no doubting Hanson’s endurance, passion and steel.
There are confronting moments as Hanson relives the death threats, politicians turning their back on her in Parliament, having to be in police protection, failing to win a seat in Senate, being humiliated by the media, betrayed by David Oldfield and losing control of the political party she founded.
But the most startling moment is not Hanson on the front foot, unapologetic and passionate.
It’s the moment she cries, angrily brushing tears away as she relives her first night in jail on suicide watch after being sentenced to three years’ prison for electoral fraud in 2003.
It’s not so much the jailing that prompts the tears — it’s reliving the moment she watched her daughter on television, vowing to get her out.
“I just felt everything was stripped away from me and how the people perceived me … but I think what was more important is what my kids went through,” Hanson says as the tears threaten.
“These are kids … they had no one. They didn’t have their fathers. Here’s their mum, you know, trying to fight, fight everyone in the whole bloody country, for their future,” she continues as she starts to lose her private battle against the tears escaping. The footage switches to images of her daughter of her daughter on a TV news bulletin saying “hang in there, we all love you and we’ll get you out soon” as she swallows tears of her own.
The memory is too much.
“And I saw my daughter there in New Zealand …” Hanson manages, before her face crumbles, and she brushes fiercely at her face, stands, and strides out of the frame with a quiet but insistent “no”, suspending the interview to compose herself.
It’s a rare chink in the armour in a documentary that features many of Hanson’s critics, opponents, advisers and commentators.
They include former prime minister John Howard, former One Nation adviser David Oldfield, her media adviser and former Peter Slipper staffer, James Ashby, former and current federal MPs, including the first indigenous female lower house MP Linda Burney, and media commentators Margo Kingston and Alan Jones.
Hanson ultimately served 11 weeks in jail, with the conviction overturned on appeal.
Of her return to politics — which is now a reality — she says: “It would be nice to go back to that house, walk in that door and say ‘I’m back, and I have six years to make a difference.”
The doco also revisits the infamous interview in which journalist Tracey Curro famously asked Hanson “are you xenophobic?”. The question left Hanson humiliated when she replied “please explain?”, not knowing what the word meant.
Today, Hanson is characteristically frank, and defiant.
“Everything’s racing through my mind,” she says.
“Do I bluff my way through it? Do I know what the word is? What do I do?
“I think it was about 90 to 95 per cent of the public didn’t know what the word xenophobic was. “The more they bashed me, the more public support I got.”
On her relationship with former Tony Abbott staffer David Oldfield, she renews her claim — still denied by him — that they had an affair.
Recounting their first meeting, she says: “He just said his name was David, he wouldn’t tell me his last name for reasons who he works for. He came over to the motel I was staying in and we had dinner and he stayed the night … he left the next morning.”
Oldfield’s reply today is: “There was no romance in that sense.”
Later in the documentary, Hanson address the infamous video where she addressed Australia saying “fellow Australians, if you are seeing this I have been murdered”.
Oldfield labelled the release of the video as a political stunt, but Hanson says: “This is the same man who actually lied in a polygraph. When I said that we actually had a relationship together he denied it. So who do you believe. Him or me?”
Critics are brutal in their assessment, and warn of the dangers of Hanson’s rise.
There’s a cringe-worthy moment when she asks a young production crew worker in the lead-up to a television interview, “You’re not going to tell me you are a refugee, are you James?”
He replies with a dignified “no, Aboriginal”. Hanson replies: “Really. Wouldn’t have picked it. It’s good to see you’re … you know, taking up this and working.” It’s a moment which will again make her cannon fodder.
And there are lighter moments — not least when Oldfield reveals the Australian flag Hanson famously draped herself in for the launch of One Nation came from Tony Abbott’s office — while Oldfield was still working for him.
“It became the picture of One Nation … thanks, Tony, for the loan of your flag,” Hanson says.
Pauline Hanson: Please Explainairs on Sunday, July 31, at 8.35pm on SBS.
Originally published as The one thing that makes Pauline Hanson cry
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