‘We cannot be a multicultural society’: Hanson
Hanson says Australia must be “monocultural” and calls multiculturalism a “failed policy”.
She tells the press club that according to the 2021 census, 23% of people in Australia spoke a language other than English at home – the most common being Mandarin. Arabic. She asks how Australia can “generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language?” (Might point out here that just because a different language is spoken at home. doesn’t mean the person can’t speak multiple languages.)
double quotation mark At the centre of this crisis is the utterly flawed policy of multiculturalism. We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.
Hanson particularly targets Muslims.
She points to the Bondi terror attack. the return of women and children from Syrian detention camps as events that have led to One Nation’s support sky rocketing.
double quotation mark I am not frightened and nor is One Nation. There is no room for hate preachers in this country.
Guardian reporter asks Hanson about appointment of daughter to adviser role
My colleague Sarah Martin, who’s reported extensively on Hanson, asks her about her daughter, Lee Hanson.
double quotation mark Taxpayers are paying more than $160,000 a year for your daughter to seemingly campaign full-time in Tasmania. while employed at a political adviser for a New South Wales senator. Did you have any role in appointing her to that position?
Hanson looks livid to see Martin there,. goes on a personal attack against her telling her that she’ll be banned from any future press conferences and refused any interview requests.
Hanson accuses Martin of having an “obsession” with her, her party and Gina Rinehart.
double quotation mark You will put out lies about me, well, I’ve had enough of that.
You can read a few of Martin’s recent works here, here and here.
To Martin’s question, Hanson says that her daughter was hired on her merits.
double quotation mark I didn’t get her that job. She got the job on her own merits, by someone who actually wanted to employ her. Her abilities, her skills in HR, her abilities in working for the Tas University eight years. was head of a department down there. So my daughter is very capable of doing it.
Martin asks her again to clarify that she had no role in the hiring,. Hanson says that she’s already answered the question.
Foreign aid should be ‘well spent’
Hanson says foreign aid should be well spent, but that Australia should “clean up our own back yard first”.
One Nation’s website promises to “redirect and reduce foreign aid spending, saving up to $3 billion annually.”
Hanson says she’s concerned that money is going to countries where there’s “corruption”. are taking money from China at the same time.
double quotation mark I’ve got 130,000 Australians living in poverty who can’t get a roof over their head. we’re giving foreignaid to countries that don’t respect it and corruption happening there, that needs to change.
My concern is they [Pacific nations] are still accepting from China. If China is our biggest concern, we need to look at at the relationship they have with China. how it’s going to impact on us.
Will Hanson support her previous policy of a flat 25% income tax rate?
Asked if she will take to the election her previous idea of a flat 25% income tax rate, Hanson won’t say,. does believe Australia’s taxes are too high.
She says she wants to introduce income splitting – an idea that’s been around for a while. would encourage mothers to stay at home with children.
double quotation mark I’m not going to give you where my head’s at the moment for tax policy – I intend to speak to those experts. the economists, the people that I trust who have a good understanding of our tax system.
She tells the government to rein in its spending to afford it.
On to industrial relations
Hanson is asked about her previous positions having criticised minimum wage increases, opposed same job, same pay, voted against casual workers’ rights, wage theft criminalisation,. workplace protection for the gig economy and you’ve argued recently again for more powers for bosses to sack workers.
Hanson, who famously once ran a fish. chip shop, counters the question and says that we should think about the small business owners. She says one business person told her the latest increase (to what she doesn’t specify – perhaps wages) is going to cost him $50,000. that he would need to find $100,000 or let people go.
double quotation mark So it is of great concern. You need to look at the other the ledger – can businesses afford and pay that?
She backs an industrial relations overhaul and doubles down on her argument for bosses to sack workers:
Businesses also tell me you can’t sack people these days.
double quotation mark They’re on their phones, they don’t work, they don’t turn up, they actually are lazy,. businesses are tied to it. They’ve had enough.
Hanson is asked if she will front up to daily press conferences in front of all media.
Hanson says she won’t be a “football” and has already banned the Guardian and ABC from One Nation events.
She won’t explicitly say whether she’ll do daily conferences and allow everyone inside the tent:
double quotation mark I’m not going to be anyone’s football to kick around when you want to. I want truthful, honest reporting from the media. You will have access to me.
Connell pushes back and asks if that access will include all media, Hanson replies:
double quotation mark Let’s see how it goes between now and the start of the campaign. If you want to keep bashing me around, I don’t forget.
I’m like a bloody old elephant.
Tom Connell tells Hanson to hurry up. go to her summary, to which she replies “I’ve only got a few pages left”, and then skips a couple.
She shifts to AI. says it shouldn’t be left to self-regulation, then she gets to her final page and says she has a few words to the mainstream media.
She tells the media to lay off:
double quotation mark I’m an elected representative, and I should be scrutinised. That doesn’t give you the licence to pile on. It doesn’t give the licence to delegitimise my party.
Then she announces the future of public broadcasting under her leadership – promising to scrap multicultural public broadcaster SBS. (She says this while SBS live broadcasts the Fifa World Cup being watched by millions of Australians).
double quotation mark There will be big changes if One Nation is given the chance. The SBS will be gone. There’s no need for it any more; the internet has overtaken the need for it. The ABC will still exist, but in a very different form. Taxpayers will still fund some of the ABC’s operations in regional, rural,. remote areas where there is a lack of commercial media. But in the cities which are already saturated with media outlets across the political spectrum. the ABC will only be a subscription service.
She accuses the ABC of political bias from top down.
‘Every attempt has been made for years to silence me’
Voters are now “finding the courage to embrace One Nation” says Hanson,. believes Australians have “woken up” to support her rightwing party.
Hanson’s popularity has soared this year, and this month overtook Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister.
double quotation mark Every attempt has been made for years to silence me. There are always some people. usually a lot of people, who get offended by what I say or do, even offended by my very existence. I don’t fear it. I embrace it. But many people aren’t like me.
In Australia today, in our democracy, the real tragedy is people are frightened of what will happen to them if they just speak up,. now they are finding the courage to embrace One Nation.
Hanson has a go at the budget, saying it will leave young people worse off,. that “more than 40,000 18 to 24-year-olds will lose out to Chalmers capital gains tax.”
But modelling by Treasury shows 90% of young Australians will be better off:
This has got to be one of the longer speeches at the press club. It’s already 1:10pm (normally speeches end by 1pm) and there’s still a substantial chunk of the address to go.
Hanson is eating into her question time.
One Nation will back nuclear and stop ‘propping up’ renewable energy
Renewable energy, as we know, is also on Hanson’s policy hitlist, though she says she’s not completely opposed to it –. that everyone should “share the wealth that is under our feet” (i.e mining).
She says the government should stop “propping up” renewable projects. other projects like hydrogen (which the government has been scaling back on).
She also says. One Nation will back nuclear (which – though not new – is somewhat interesting seeing how the policy backfired against the Coalition at the last election).
double quotation mark Our energy crisis is a product of failed energy policy;. this policy was supported years ago by major political parties and the big media giants. I have always opposed it. Ford and Holden closed their factories more than a decade ago, for one simple reason, the cost of production.
One Nation says. the energy transition has been devastating to the country – read this from my colleague Adam Morton:
And how does nuclear stack up cost wise?
The CSIRO. the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) have assessed the cost of different electricity sources and found that solar and wind backed by storage energy, new transmission lines and other “firming” – what the country is building now, in other words – were the cheapest option. Have a read of more on that here:
Pauline Hanson’s address interrupted by protesters
double quotation mark I opposed a pay rise for workers, while I took a $100,000 pay rise for myself.
Hanson turns to the rising cost of living
One Nation leader cites survey data from the Salvation Army. found that 19% of those surveyed said they’d eaten food from rubbish bins in the past 12 months while 60% said they’d eaten expired or spoiled food.
Just a note here, the Salvation Army surveyed 4,400 Australians seeking emergency relief support from the charity.
But she pins the blame on the high cost of energy and renewables.
We’re already 20 minutes through her address. just halfway through her speech (which was dropped to the media a few minutes before she began). It means that there won’t be as much time for questions from journalists.
She promises to slash any support for the renewable energy industry:
double quotation mark Because individuals. businesses are suffering from this net zero nonsense, the government shovels out millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money just to justify their failing energy policy. Let me make no apology.
One Nation will end this renewable energy bribery – grants. tax incentives, concessional finance, even the government underwriting anything that sponsors the whole net zero hoax.
Pauline Hanson ’s address to the National Press Club has been disrupted by a banner. called out One Nation’s opposition to an increase to the minimum wage for Australian households.
While the One Nation leader was speaking, the banner appeared behind her on the stage in an apparent stunt.
It read: “I opposed a pay rise for workers”
Press Club staff tore the banner down while Hanson continued with her speech.
‘Other political parties are simply following me’
Hanson claims credit for the Coalition’s focus on immigration, and says other political parties are following her.
double quotation mark The press might consider reflecting on this. better consider why more Australians trust One Nation on immigration policy than anyone else. The story is simple, my views haven’t changed. Other political parties are simply following me.
She promises to tackle “radical Islam” and calls it “incompatible with Australian values and our way of life.”
It looks like some protesters have gotten into the club – we’ll have details from Tom McIlroy who’s in the room in a second.
‘We cannot be a multicultural society’: Hanson
Hanson says Australia must be “monocultural” and calls multiculturalism a “failed policy”.
She tells the press club that according to the 2021 census, 23% of people in Australia spoke a language other than English at home – the most common being Mandarin. Arabic. She asks how Australia can “generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language?” (Might point out here that just because a different language is spoken at home. doesn’t mean the person can’t speak multiple languages.)
double quotation mark At the centre of this crisis is the utterly flawed policy of multiculturalism. We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.
Hanson particularly targets Muslims.
She points to the Bondi terror attack. the return of women and children from Syrian detention camps as events that have led to One Nation’s support sky rocketing.
double quotation mark I am not frightened and nor is One Nation. There is no room for hate preachers in this country.
Hanson begins address by attacking immigration and the housing crisis
Pauline Hanson begins saying don’t expect a “divisive welcome to country” from her, setting up the tone for her address. She acknowledges veterans, Australians born here and those who have arrived.
“The public are sick and tired of being ignored,” Hanson says, and says the problems are: immigration and housing.
No surprises here, immigration is Hanson’s bread and butter issue, and has been since she first joined parliament in 1996.
double quotation mark Unsustainable demand is being driven by several factors, but the biggest is high immigration.
Net overseas migration in the first three years under this Albanese Labor government has totalled 1.27 million people.
Undeniably immigration or immigration policy has our country in the state of crisis.
Let’s do a quick fact check here. Hanson speaks a lot about unsustainable immigration or mass migration. So what is net overseas migration, and what are the actual number? You can take a look below:
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