No, Pauline Hanson. ‘Freedom’ doesn’t excuse blatant offence

The blatant hypocrisy shown by conservatives like Lyle Shelton and Pauline Hanson towards Uluru this week exposes just how flawed their argument for freedoms in this country really is, writes Justin Smith.

So, Pauline Hanson can’t understand why we shouldn’t climb Uluru.

This is no surprise. The list of things that Pauline doesn’t understand — or at least, doesn’t want to understand — has been growing like a Kardashian’s bum since her maiden speech of 1996.

She’s started with Nine’s Today, with the rising sun behind her back.

“I can’t see the cultural sensitivity, when people have been climbing the rock all these years, and now all of a sudden they want to shut it down,” she said in a clipped and frustrated tone.

“I don’t get it. I really don’t get it.”

To be fair to Pauline, she doesn’t always get it wrong. Her desperation for popular opinion can sometimes lead into the territory of common sense.

But on this one, her insulting ignorance is in neon and glowing with hypocrisy.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the One Nation leader was siding with rugby player Israel Folau over his right to religious free speech — showing that she does believe in faith-based freedom, provided we’re talking about Christianity, that is.

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If it’s concerning the spirituality of Australia’s Indigenous people, then she has no problem trampling on it.

The owners of the land are the Angangu people, and Uluru was given back to them in 1985. They didn’t ban the climb, but requested that people respect their wishes and stay at the bottom. Then in 2017, they decided that asking for respect just wasn’t doing it, so announced the closure of the climb, but gave a two-year countdown.

Pauline Hanson says she “doesn’t get” why Indigenous Australians have asked tourists to stop climbing Uluru. Picture: AAP/Sam Mooy

And after the climbs end in October this year, people from all around the world are still able to go there. They can walk around it. They can watch the sunset change it’s colours. And they can drive away knowing they’ve just seen one of the most magnificent objects on earth. Not a bad way to spend the day, you’d think.

But people like Pauline are treating the Angangu people as though they’re the nation’s biggest spoilsports, just because they don’t want Uluru climbed on like play equipment at McDonalds.

Their patience should be commended, not condemned.

Pauline went even further in an interview with Ben Fordham on radio 2GB, demanding that we should be able to climb Uluru because it’s a national icon — just like the pyramids, she said.

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She’s going to be in for a shock if she ever visits Egypt. You can’t climb the pyramids either, Pauline. And the locals are very bloody serious about it, too — deportation or jail awaits you if you try.

The argument put forward by Hanson and Shelton is deeply hypocritical. Picture: Marc Hendrickx

But Pauline is not the only hypocrite in this.

Lyle Shelton — a tedious zealot, formerly of the Australian Christian Lobby and the disbanded Australian Conservatives’ party — has been launching petitions and carrying on about the right to climb Uluru for longer than Pauline.

And, without surprise, he’s also been vocal about the religious rights of Israel Folau.

He has also screamed against anything that is non-Christian. Same-sex marriage being just one issue.

As a nonbeliever, I find every religion equally silly and often destructive. But I get particularly annoyed when people cannot see past their own faith to understand someone else’s.

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These type of people have no problem believing in virgin births and holy ghosts and the need to cover the face of women in public, yet they show insulting surprise when an Indigenous person considers a rock culturally scared.

Sadly — with the help of people like Lyle and Pauline — religion has always been like this. And people like me long for the day when the human race grows up and starts treating each other with respect and reality.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other things they can climb. And they’re welcome to stay up there as long as they like.

Justin Smith is a broadcaster on the Macquarie Radio Network and Rendezview columnist

@justinsmith3AW