ABC stained by link to Al Jazeera sting of Pauline Hanson

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson faces the media on Thursday. Picture: Getty

Mocking Pauline Hanson and One Nation is neither difficult nor original. And it has proven to be counter-productive over the past 23 years.

Sure, it can be fun; it is a folly I have slipped into myself at times. But it merely confirms the us versus them, insiders versus outsiders and Canberra bubble versus the mainstream dynamic that fuels the popularity of fringe parties or even anti-establishment politicians such as Donald Trump.

Remember “Please explain?” and how the political/media class denigrated Hanson for not knowing the word xenophobic? The word has little relevance in the daily lives of mainstream Australians but is drummed into undergraduates — or certainly was in the 70s and 80s — as they are instructed in the Manning Clark version of Australian history.

If commentators and politicians insist on ridiculing One Nation as fools there is every chance they play into their hands. Voters will watch the Al Jazeera tapes and make up their own minds about the hypocrisy and gullibility of what James Ashby, Steve Dickson and Pauline Hanson were caught doing and saying.

For all the silliness of Hanson entertaining Port Arthur conspiracy theories it is the offensive that cuts through most. The idea insults the victims, our country and the intelligence of anyone listening to her.

The rush from many who should know better in the media to endorse the entrapment practices of Al Jazeera is a worry. There is no doubt the One Nation team was lied to, deceived, set up and entrapped.

This is a disgraceful style of gotcha journalism that is certainly unethical and possibly illegal. Yet senior journalists at the ABC and elsewhere have effectively been saying that the ends justify the means — that anything goes when it comes to attacking One Nation.

Again, this runs the risk of galvanising their support as the anti-establishment party.

It should be possible to maintain our condemnation for the hypocrisy, poor judgment, transactionalism and foolishness of One Nation while also objecting to the practices that have exposed this. Al Jazeera perhaps spent all their time and money hoping to snare a bigger prize, but One Nation stumbled along.

It was a sting, where they set up a false organisation and then facilitated meetings so that the mistakes the political players made were in response to artificially created situations. It doesn’t excuse their behaviour but it explains much of what went on.

And if Al Jazeera was prepared to do this, what else about its reporting ought we be wary about? Many of us have argued for years that is wrong for the ABC to have formal content sharing arrangements with Al Jazeera. It is not good for our public broadcaster to be associated with this episode.