Pauline Hanson's One Nation
Jan. 24th, 2021 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
b_auspolPauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON)
https://onenationwa.org.au/
Oh no it’s time for the far right whackjobs that actually have a chance at parliamentary seats.
One Nation was formed by Pauline Hanson in 1997. Do I really need to cover the history of this? Hanson’s reinvigoration of the party in 2016 was a dark spot for everyone. Half their wikipedia page is just a list of scandals. There is a long-running study that shows that the likelihood of a One Nation politician staying a member of the party for a full term AND getting re-elected is almost nil.
At present the WA Legislative Council has 2 PHON members. They started with three, all elected for the first time in 2017, but Charles Smith resigned in 2019, became an independent, then joined the Western Australian Party in May 2020. For anyone who tracks PHON politicians, the trajectory of Charles Smith is more common than the other two!
In what may be the only good news this election, I suspect the fact that the WA border is still closed to Queensland may actually assist with a decrease in the PHON vote, as Pauline Hanson won’t be able to come over and help campaign.
Given One Nation’s policies shouldn’t be any surprise to someone reading this, I’m going to go through their WA election material more than an in-depth assessment of the national policies position.
They have three topics on their policy page: Education, Law and Order and Health.
Under Education, they want to “remove political indoctrination from the curriculum”. Oh, One Nation. Are you complaining about Safe Schools again, or climate change in science, or history actually dealing with the issue of invasion v. settlement and the violence that followed? I’m going to assume all three. They also want “specialised learning areas” in all schools to assist children with learning difficulties, which I think is a much better policy than the previous one, as additional support would be good for both students and teachers. Thirdly they want an Infants early intervention program for children with behavioural issues, which again is something I have no issue allocating additional funding to. The earlier inventions that kids get, the better the long term outcomes. Oh! Another interesting policy I found on a flyer, not their website: suggesting a $200 rebate per child for parents for school costs.
Really, aside from the “stop indoctrinating our students” idiocy, their education policies look like they’ve been formulated by parents who care about their kids. And who may have some ‘difficult’ children.
Law and Order I suspect we will not see nearly as eye to eye. One Nation wants: a sex offenders register (sigh); mandatory drug rehabilitation for drug addicts; and tougher sentences and mandatory sentencing “for select crimes”. Drug rehab is fine, though I always have some concerns about WHAT programs they’re approving as drug rehab – there are particularly some religious based shockers out there that don’t use any sort of evidence based program. Sex offenders registries irritate me. They’re unduly punitive in terms of the goal of criminal rehabilitation, plus we’ve seen instances of things like teenagers ending up on them because the age gap between a couple was too big: nearly 16 year olds with just 18 year olds, etc. I understand the impulse to know that people who have previously offended are not in your community, but also people are most likely to be sexually assaulted by an acquaintance, friend or family member, rather than The Unknown Stranger. Worry more about your creepy uncle/your sister’s controlling partner and less about the fact you don’t know if there’s a sex offender in the neighbourhood. Tougher sentencing and mandatory minimums also frustrate the hell out of me. Stuff like that is how we ended up with the IDIOTIC “Needles in Strawberries” crime being punishable up to 10 years, while plenty of variations of assault have lower maximums. Again, this is one of those problems where the community forgets or dislikes that one of the stated aims of sentencing is rehabilitation and reintroduction into the community for people at the end of their sentences.
Health encompasses: reduced waiting times for ambulances (ramping); more medical specialists in regional areas; and, I quote “Support people's right to make informed choices in regards to medical treatment and vaccinations”. I have no issues with the first two as goals: they both sound important for WA. The third is clearly a massive dogwhistle for antivaccination and other opting out of healthcare. Not this year, people. Vaccination is more important than ever. And I only just saw today that we have finally have over 95% of 5 year olds fully vaccinated (and 97.5% of Indigenous 5 year olds).
They have a candidate list! And I can tell their expectations of getting candidates in in various districts via the fact that their North Metropolitan candidate, Tyler Walsh, is all of 22.
Out of fascination I have looked at Tyler Walsh’s official advertised social media and the latest post on his twitter is: “How come the independent fact checkers on Facebook aren’t doing anything about people who falsely claim that [Trump] incited yesterday’s riots?” Well that says it all really. He is also a fan of Nigel Farage, anti-trans, anti-reduce emissions due to Climate Change, and has the obligatory pictures of himself standing next to a cutout of Pauline. What a charmer. On the upside, the store on his website (which I am now being tentative at looking at after Health Australia Party) is only for donations, not dubious health products.
Oh! Apparently the Chinese Communist Party is spreading its influence in WA and One Nation are the only ones willing to stop it! From reading between the lines, it appears the reason they think this is: both Labor and Liberal are engaged with a community organisation and their concerns in the Chinese-Australian community of a marginal electorate. So that sounds right on brand for One Nation. Awesome. Wow. Also anti-Chinese land ownership.
It’s actually interesting to me that WA One Nation is still busy agitating against China (and some coded agitation against Indigenous kids) rather than the targets it has in other states of Muslim and African communities. This is some 1997 fish and chip shop flashback messaging.
There’s plenty of Australia Day is Australia Day messaging, eurgh. And fearmongering about gangs and teen gangs.
Any Predictions?
We did not make any predictions around One Nation. It appears, however, that they are showing slight antivax tendencies. I didn’t see anything about borders (though I suspect One Nation is mostly fine with them being shut – they’re a party of Close The Border/Send Them Back after all).
Is this party trying to kill me?
None of One Nation’s outlined policies are out to kill anyone, aside from that antivax dogwhistle.
Is this party trying to harm me?
I really don’t like the implications that they are just fine with removing Safe Schools and their likely-antivax position. I’d say both of these policies are harmful to the community, particularly queer kids, non-white people and everyone likely to affected by climate change.
Conclusion:
Look it’s One Nation. The bigger concern is they won three seats last time around and have every chance of doing it again. Most of the big horrors of their platform are nicely hidden in dogwhistle and they just want more accountability and common sense in politics, right? Right!
Some of their health and education policies could get bipartisan support, but the others are horrible.
I wouldn’t vote for this mob, but they’re still marginally better than the outright conspiracy theory lunatics of the right who want guns. I’d still make sure they were low down my ballot, below pretty much every other party likely to get a seat, to try and prevent them from getting in.
https://onenationwa.org.au/
Oh no it’s time for the far right whackjobs that actually have a chance at parliamentary seats.
One Nation was formed by Pauline Hanson in 1997. Do I really need to cover the history of this? Hanson’s reinvigoration of the party in 2016 was a dark spot for everyone. Half their wikipedia page is just a list of scandals. There is a long-running study that shows that the likelihood of a One Nation politician staying a member of the party for a full term AND getting re-elected is almost nil.
At present the WA Legislative Council has 2 PHON members. They started with three, all elected for the first time in 2017, but Charles Smith resigned in 2019, became an independent, then joined the Western Australian Party in May 2020. For anyone who tracks PHON politicians, the trajectory of Charles Smith is more common than the other two!
In what may be the only good news this election, I suspect the fact that the WA border is still closed to Queensland may actually assist with a decrease in the PHON vote, as Pauline Hanson won’t be able to come over and help campaign.
Given One Nation’s policies shouldn’t be any surprise to someone reading this, I’m going to go through their WA election material more than an in-depth assessment of the national policies position.
They have three topics on their policy page: Education, Law and Order and Health.
Under Education, they want to “remove political indoctrination from the curriculum”. Oh, One Nation. Are you complaining about Safe Schools again, or climate change in science, or history actually dealing with the issue of invasion v. settlement and the violence that followed? I’m going to assume all three. They also want “specialised learning areas” in all schools to assist children with learning difficulties, which I think is a much better policy than the previous one, as additional support would be good for both students and teachers. Thirdly they want an Infants early intervention program for children with behavioural issues, which again is something I have no issue allocating additional funding to. The earlier inventions that kids get, the better the long term outcomes. Oh! Another interesting policy I found on a flyer, not their website: suggesting a $200 rebate per child for parents for school costs.
Really, aside from the “stop indoctrinating our students” idiocy, their education policies look like they’ve been formulated by parents who care about their kids. And who may have some ‘difficult’ children.
Law and Order I suspect we will not see nearly as eye to eye. One Nation wants: a sex offenders register (sigh); mandatory drug rehabilitation for drug addicts; and tougher sentences and mandatory sentencing “for select crimes”. Drug rehab is fine, though I always have some concerns about WHAT programs they’re approving as drug rehab – there are particularly some religious based shockers out there that don’t use any sort of evidence based program. Sex offenders registries irritate me. They’re unduly punitive in terms of the goal of criminal rehabilitation, plus we’ve seen instances of things like teenagers ending up on them because the age gap between a couple was too big: nearly 16 year olds with just 18 year olds, etc. I understand the impulse to know that people who have previously offended are not in your community, but also people are most likely to be sexually assaulted by an acquaintance, friend or family member, rather than The Unknown Stranger. Worry more about your creepy uncle/your sister’s controlling partner and less about the fact you don’t know if there’s a sex offender in the neighbourhood. Tougher sentencing and mandatory minimums also frustrate the hell out of me. Stuff like that is how we ended up with the IDIOTIC “Needles in Strawberries” crime being punishable up to 10 years, while plenty of variations of assault have lower maximums. Again, this is one of those problems where the community forgets or dislikes that one of the stated aims of sentencing is rehabilitation and reintroduction into the community for people at the end of their sentences.
Health encompasses: reduced waiting times for ambulances (ramping); more medical specialists in regional areas; and, I quote “Support people's right to make informed choices in regards to medical treatment and vaccinations”. I have no issues with the first two as goals: they both sound important for WA. The third is clearly a massive dogwhistle for antivaccination and other opting out of healthcare. Not this year, people. Vaccination is more important than ever. And I only just saw today that we have finally have over 95% of 5 year olds fully vaccinated (and 97.5% of Indigenous 5 year olds).
They have a candidate list! And I can tell their expectations of getting candidates in in various districts via the fact that their North Metropolitan candidate, Tyler Walsh, is all of 22.
Out of fascination I have looked at Tyler Walsh’s official advertised social media and the latest post on his twitter is: “How come the independent fact checkers on Facebook aren’t doing anything about people who falsely claim that [Trump] incited yesterday’s riots?” Well that says it all really. He is also a fan of Nigel Farage, anti-trans, anti-reduce emissions due to Climate Change, and has the obligatory pictures of himself standing next to a cutout of Pauline. What a charmer. On the upside, the store on his website (which I am now being tentative at looking at after Health Australia Party) is only for donations, not dubious health products.
Oh! Apparently the Chinese Communist Party is spreading its influence in WA and One Nation are the only ones willing to stop it! From reading between the lines, it appears the reason they think this is: both Labor and Liberal are engaged with a community organisation and their concerns in the Chinese-Australian community of a marginal electorate. So that sounds right on brand for One Nation. Awesome. Wow. Also anti-Chinese land ownership.
It’s actually interesting to me that WA One Nation is still busy agitating against China (and some coded agitation against Indigenous kids) rather than the targets it has in other states of Muslim and African communities. This is some 1997 fish and chip shop flashback messaging.
There’s plenty of Australia Day is Australia Day messaging, eurgh. And fearmongering about gangs and teen gangs.
Any Predictions?
We did not make any predictions around One Nation. It appears, however, that they are showing slight antivax tendencies. I didn’t see anything about borders (though I suspect One Nation is mostly fine with them being shut – they’re a party of Close The Border/Send Them Back after all).
Is this party trying to kill me?
None of One Nation’s outlined policies are out to kill anyone, aside from that antivax dogwhistle.
Is this party trying to harm me?
I really don’t like the implications that they are just fine with removing Safe Schools and their likely-antivax position. I’d say both of these policies are harmful to the community, particularly queer kids, non-white people and everyone likely to affected by climate change.
Conclusion:
Look it’s One Nation. The bigger concern is they won three seats last time around and have every chance of doing it again. Most of the big horrors of their platform are nicely hidden in dogwhistle and they just want more accountability and common sense in politics, right? Right!
Some of their health and education policies could get bipartisan support, but the others are horrible.
I wouldn’t vote for this mob, but they’re still marginally better than the outright conspiracy theory lunatics of the right who want guns. I’d still make sure they were low down my ballot, below pretty much every other party likely to get a seat, to try and prevent them from getting in.
