OPINION: Pauline Hanson, the 'fraud' emerges

This week, we saw the real Senator Pauline Hanson emerge.

Pauline Hanson. Picture: Patrick Woods

This week, we saw the real Senator Pauline Hanson emerge.

For months, she's been running around Queensland, telling us she's the only politician standing up for battlers.

But this week, Senator Hanson showed she's the worst kind of politician. The kind who tells battlers one thing at home and then sells them out down in Canberra.

Because this week, when she actually voted in Canberra, we saw Senator Hanson return to her roots, as a failed LNP candidate.

For someone who says she's not a politician, she spends a lot of time doing political deals.

Fresh from swapping preferences with the Liberals in Western Australia, Senator Hanson returned the favour, flying in to Canberra and selling out those who support her.

First, Senator Hanson voted with the LNP to stop building companies, their workers and unions from restricting the use of overseas temporary workers.

Let's be clear. Senator Hanson could have voted with Labor to stop this change going through. But by backing Malcolm Turnbull's LNP, building companies will now be free to retrench local workers, before overseas ones. So much for Aussies first.

Pauline in pictures

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The One Nation-LNP coalition also voted to stop building workers from insisting on Australian-made safety gear. And to remove any limits on casual or daily building work, or to require big builders to employ apprentices.

How will any of that help the battlers Senator Hanson says she stands for, especially in regional Queensland?

But it got worse. Senator Hanson also flagged that she'll vote for huge LNP cuts to pensions, family payments, and unemployed people in their 20s. Again, how will that help the battlers Senator Hanson says she stands for?

Finally, she did something too extreme even for her LNP Coalition partners, voting against legislation to increase jail time for illegal gun traffickers. That's right, Senator Hanson sided with bikies and other gun runners, over families wanting safe streets.

The more we see of Senator Hanson, the more we know that nothing's changed.

She's no battler's friend. Instead, she's the battler's fraud.

The good news is that battlers can rely on one party. The party that delivered Medicare, fair workplace laws, superannuation, the NDIS and fairer school funding. That's the Labor Party - and unlike Senator Hanson, we won't let you down.

Murray Watt is a Labor Party Senator for Queensland
 

Originally published as OPINION: Pauline Hanson, the 'fraud' emerges