‘Swamped by Asians’: How Pauline Hanson got it wrong

Pauline Hanson, Independent MP for Oxley, delivers her maiden speech in 1996

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• First published September 19, 1996

Now that Pauline Hanson has got all that stuff about Aborigines and Asian immigrants off our chests … (as well as her own), we begin to realise how hollow and foolish the unsayable sounds almost as soon as it is said.

A number of people, including radio talkback hosts, have commended Hanson for expressing publicly what many Australians have been thinking. Up to a point this is justified. That doesn’t mean these “many Australians” are thinking straight, however, only that the silences imposed by the storm-troopers of political correctness have prevented them from acquiring information and listening to arguments that might broaden their perspectives.

As a manifesto for change, Hanson’s maiden speech has the weight of a whisper.

For instance: “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians … They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.”

I think Hanson puts a tricky spin on “assimilate” as defined by The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary: “Absorb and incorporate … absorb into the system; absorb and make one’s own (ideas, influences etc); take in and understand fully.”

Hanson imposes a solitary obligation on Asian immigrants to absorb contemporary Australian ideas and influences … understand them fully, and incorporate them in their own way of thinking and acting. That is beyond any immigrant’s capacity if there is no intent by the host community to absorb and incorporate them.

This is too hard for us to accomplish with Asians? I don’t believe it.

How could anybody attribute such incompetence to a country that has nearly doubled its population in 50 years by absorbing (migrants) and their descendants?

The commonplace signs of historical flow are all around us – steak and eggs (vale and alas) giving way to fresh pasta, and on to sushi and the wok; Footoo-scry, mythical home of Con the Fruiterer and Luigi the Unbelievable, turning into an Indochinese enclave pulsating with vitality in central Melbourne.

“They” have their own culture and religion. Who hasn’t? After a rather prolonged exclusion, those adhering to mine are to be allowed to marry heirs to the throne of Britain and Australia.

“They” form ghettos. Of whom do we speak? Dwellers on the Peak in Hong Kong or residents of the Azabu district of Tokyo?

Ghettos formed voluntarily are usually places of transition.

Of Aborigines, Hanson says: “Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, monies and facilities available only to Aborigines … Reconciliation is everyone recognising and treating each other as equals, and everybody must be responsible for their own actions.”

That is very plausible.

However, Aborigines really are different. Their culture is a national treasure, and their social and physical circumstances a national disgrace. National goodwill has been eroded by a politically correct embargo on discussion of the means by which Aborigines might regain dignity.

Hanson, proclaiming that she does not represent even the Aborigines of Oxley, contributes nothing but mischief.

This is the edited text of the original article that appeared on the Opinion page.