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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1013 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

That is very illuminating. But, to Pauline Hanson, the Aborigines can continue to pay for something that happened 200 years ago; they can continue to pay for it, suffer and stay in the dreadful state they were brought to. It is all so one sided. They can suffer the dispossession, the disease, the death and the degradation brought about by circumstances over which they had no control at all; and she resents that we should do anything to adjust, accommodate or change that circumstance.

Pauline Hanson says she is "opposed to discrimination in favour", but she has no difficulty at all with discrimination against. Therein lies the racism that is so much a part of what she says. In other times, I have spent a great deal of time amongst Aborigines and in Aboriginal communities, and it is ignorant and offensive for Pauline Hanson or anyone to talk about privileges that Aborigines enjoy. That is arrant, prejudicial, racist nonsense.

She rants against not only Aborigines but also migrants and people on welfare. But if she is against positive discrimination, as she says, what about pensioners? What about the disabled? What about a whole host of other positive measures we take to help people who are disadvantaged? I do not hear her ranting against pensions. But that was a recognition, a long time ago now, that people needed help. In this country, in this century certainly, we have acknowledged that people who are in difficult circumstances, who are downtrodden, need assistance. Does Pauline Hanson talk about taking away pensions? Of course not. What Pauline Hanson wants is everything she has, that she has no doubt worked for, and every opportunity everybody else has, regardless of their disadvantage. It is the politics of envy, the politics of greed. In this book, The Truth, so called, there is no compassion and there is no humanity; there is only division, tension and bigotry.

Pauline Hanson is also vehemently against migration. She says:

All immigration must cease immediately.

A further quote is:

A truly multicultural nation can never be strong or united.

Well, I look at Australia. Australia is a multicultural nation, working well. I thought it was an example of strength and, generally, of unity. Pauline Hanson is trying to change that and is stirring up resentments. But I think we have to remember one thing: Polls are showing some support for that lady, for that Federal member of parliament. But I think the overwhelming number of Australians do not support her. Let us focus not on the 5, 10, 20 or perhaps 25 per cent in certain places of the polls that may at this stage indicate some support; let us focus on the up to 80 per cent of people, Australian citizens, who do not support that. Let us keep that in mind. There is a clear and large majority in Australia opposed to Pauline Hanson.

I grew up in that period of the history of Australia when it had its strongest immigration program. Of course, Australia has been built on immigration. From the day that the first European settlers came and changed the face of the nation, it has been built on immigration. In the last century people from Asia, Europe and the Americas came to Australia. Migration is nothing new. Migration in large numbers is nothing new.

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