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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1017 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I am happy to share those with members so that we can discuss these sorts of issues. It will be very interesting to see how long it is before Pauline Hanson joins the rest of the Citizens Electoral Council and comes up with that particularly antidemocratic process of citizens-initiated referenda - an issue that no doubt will be dealt with in this chamber at another time.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (11.01): I have to say that I think the comments that Mr Moore made are very sensible. There is certainly no doubt that Ms Hanson's views are developed from misinformation and from ignorance, but they are also based, as Mr Moore and Mr Wood said, on a lot of deeply held views or prejudices that many members of the community obviously have. Unless we see in our society some very real leadership to encourage people to think intellectually about what Ms Hanson is saying rather than just feel emotionally about the sorts of comments she makes, we, as an Assembly or as people in the community that have some level of leadership, at least have failed in our jobs, in my view. As much as I think Mr Moore is right in that we have to be out there at dinner parties and other places making it very clear that Pauline Hanson's views are based on misinformation and ignorance, that all people in our society do not start equal or, for that matter, finish equal and that the same level of work and input into society does not produce the same outcomes for every single person and so on, I believe, as an Assembly, we have failed.

I think the views of Pauline Hanson are certainly damaging our social cohesiveness; they are causing hurt in our society, particularly amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, amongst Asians and amongst many people who have chosen Australia as the country that they will live in. Many have taken up citizenship and had their children here. It would be a tragedy, Mr Speaker, if those views did unsettle those people, if those views did move Australia away from our region and made our region much less part of our future. I think every Federal government has realised that our future, whether it be social or economic, is in our region; it is with Malaysian, Chinese and Vietnamese people - people of Asian descent. I think that is important. I think that is something that we should embrace, not move away from.

Comments that John Howard has made about Ms Hanson are also true, but it is all very easy for somebody to stand up and play on people's prejudices or people's fears. There are a few very notable people who have done that. Adolf Hitler is probably a very good example. I am not for a moment suggesting that Pauline Hanson is the same; but, for all of that, a lot of the success of Hitler's campaign was based upon Hitler using people's fears, people's prejudices, to achieve his own ends. The only reason that he could go ahead was that there was not leadership and at that stage there was no-one prepared to stand up and say, "Hey, this is not all right; this is simply not acceptable". I think that is our role. I think John Howard is right when he says that Pauline Hanson has made comments that might play to people's prejudices, but he is also right when he says that Pauline Hanson has not come up with any ideas. She has not come up with any ideas whatsoever, Mr Speaker.

It is all very well to make the comments she has made and not say what she would do about it or how she would chart the future of our country in the region. We all know that Australia's future is with our region, but we also know that reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is of fundamental importance to the future of

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