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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1036 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

You hear all of this sort of language coming from people who want to politick around these remarks. There are the comments we hear about political correctness; what an outrageous thing it is to be politically correct in your language - that is, to not use racist slurs or slurs against any other minority group in the community. These are the sorts of things that have surrounded the emergence of Pauline Hanson and it suited some people for some time just to let it happen. But, when it became a bit of a threat to their own political base, they, all of a sudden, started to get a bit agitated about it.

Mr Speaker, here in the ACT we have seen some examples of this politicking around issues and loony groups attaching themselves to slogans. I recall, as everybody here would recall, the Abolish Self-Government Coalition, as they described themselves. I think it was a one- or three-person band, depending on which day it was. Of course, attached to them were all the loopy right-wing groups that you could think of from around the country who used the same conservative slogans about those on the progressive side of politics to try to denigrate them. Luckily, in the ACT, that sort of stuff would not develop any legs, but in other parts of the country it does.

Because of the headline nature of some of the things that are being said, the media in many ways helps to promote these people. Unlike the days of the early developments of pre-war fascism, the media is a little bit more sophisticated and certainly is not controlled by the powers that be. Hopefully, some positive messages will get through to the community. If that is the case, in due course the community will reject Pauline Hanson. There is no question about that. But it is going to take some leadership from people in higher places, and we have not seen sufficient of that leadership yet. We certainly have not seen it from the States. In fact, the Queensland Government's performance has been absolutely outrageous. Why do they not admit that the issue about land rights in Queensland is not about a grab for land rights by Aboriginal people? (Extension of time granted) It is a grab for land by pastoralists. That is what this whole thing is about. It is about pastoralists who want to extinguish native title so they can do what they wish with land that has had restrictions on its use for many years.

Mr Speaker, it is about an attack on small groups for a hidden purpose. Pauline Hanson has taken advantage of that and the people that back her have taken advantage of it. I will bet that there are a few pastoralists behind Pauline Hanson, in the same way as there are pastoralists giving Borbidge a nudge in Queensland and in the same way as there are pastoralists and their supporters pushing John Howard on this issue, because they want to grab the land. They do not want the natives to express any rights at all about it.

Mr Speaker, this debate today is not just about Pauline Hanson. It is about the views that have been enunciated, at various times in the history of this nation, by conservative racists, and those views need to be suppressed immediately. The only way they will be suppressed is by parliaments like this endorsing, unequivocally, motions such as the one which has been put forward by Mr Wood. But, most importantly, what has to happen is that leaders in this country - people who have sat idly by in many cases for some time on this issue - have to come out full-on and destroy this sort of ideology before it develops any further.

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