Opinion: Attacks only make Pauline stronger

FORMER premier Peter Beattie says personal attacks on Pauline Hanson only increase her support - but there is a way for the major parties to defeat her.

PAULINE Hanson hates me with a passion. She blames me for her stint in jail in 2003 and will never forgive me.

Indeed, I have done everything I can to oppose her politically and keep her out of Parliament. In 1998, I successfully argued that One Nation be put last on Labor how-to-vote cards and, even when the LNP did the same, that still did not finish her.

Today, I am soberly realistic about her tenacity and determination which underpinned her political revival last Saturday.

SENATE: 114 votes could have stopped Hanson

Hanson has again won a seat in Federal Parliament, 20 years after her first success in 1996. Again, she is being dismissed by the major parties and commentators as a racist and a bigot with little to contribute to the public debate.

That is a serious mistake. Every time there is a personal attack on Hanson her support increases.

What the political elites fail to understand, particularly in Sydney and Canberra, is that she is a representative of a substantial group of angry Australians driven by job insecurity and fear of the future.

They do not trust the major political parties. Many are struggling blue collar workers who are not beneficiaries of the new economy and fear being left behind. Others are farmers who are not reaping the benefits of Australia’s recent bundle of free trade agreements and who have become protectionists out of insecurity and fear.

To them the future is grim, particularly in a post mining boom Australia.

Both major parties need to start wooing her supporters with sound job creating strategies or she will have a significant influence on state and federal elections over the next 10 years; indeed until she is well into her 70s.

Her political strength lies in regional Queensland and Australia and in a ring of seats around Brisbane.

Green preferences will influence the outcome of a handful of inner-city Brisbane federal and state seats but One Nation preferences could well determine who wins the next Queensland state election, especially now that Queensland has compulsory preferential voting.

Her more than 100,000 followers on Facebook will follow her every word.

By way of example, at last Saturday’s federal election, almost 30 per cent of voters in the electorate of Flynn did not vote for either of the major two political parties.

In the country booths in Flynn there were swings of more than 10 per cent away from the LNP but many came back to the LNP in preferences.

One Nation preferences could well determine who wins the next Queensland state election. Picture: Liam Kidston

This is an ominous sign for Labor for the next state and federal elections.

Hanson’s Senate win, and the four staff that come with it, gives her an organisational base to launch future campaigns.

Any additional One Nation Senate positions will only strengthen her position both inside and out of the Parliament.

A Turnbull minority government will have no choice but to negotiate with her to get bills through the Senate.

She is far from being politically dead.

The only way the LNP and Labor can defeat Hanson and One Nation is to solve the problems concerning her supporters.

Words mean nothing; it is all about jobs and a secure future.

This means ensuring there are jobs in the old economy until the transition to the new economy is complete.

That demands the delivery of infrastructure projects in areas of high unemployment, supporting regional mining services companies to grow by selling their services globally, arranging real deals in new markets for our farmers and supporting the growth of new industries in regional Australia.

It also means a serious engagement with Hanson supporters by repeated personal contact to discuss and respond to their problems and issues. It means a lot of hard work but that is what good government is all about.

One Nation won 23 per cent of the primary vote at the 1998 state election and 11 Parliamentary seats.

Within a handful of years its MPs were gone because of internal divisions, a lack of discipline and my government’s determined strategy to engage with One Nation voters and listen and respond to their problems.

That strategy will work again but personal abuse will not. Good policy always means good government.

Peter Beattie AC is a former Queensland Premier

Originally published as Opinion: Attacks only make Pauline stronger