PAULINE Hanson claims she was able to forgive Tony Abbott for causing her to be jailed for electoral fraud because she has walked a similar path to Nelson Mandela which taught her to “let go”.
Ms Hanson once detested the former Prime Minister and blamed him for her brief stint in jail in 2003 before her conviction was quashed.
“Heaven help this country if Tony Abbott is ever in control of it. I detest the man,” she once said.
But the hatchet appeared to be buried when Mr Abbott this morning launched the One Nation leader’s latest book in Canberra. Pauline: In Her Own Words contains a collection of Ms Hanson’s often infamous Senate speeches — on topics including immigration, Islam, farmers and autism. Among them is a reference to her maiden speech in which she heralded her political comeback by warning Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Muslims”.
Ms Hanson, also a Senator for Queensland, said she asked Mr Abbott to launch her book as a “cheeky” gesture. According to her, the public is “sick and tired of seeing fighting and wants grown-ups in the room”. And holding grudges is counter-productive to what she wants to achieve in parliament, she said.
“Everyone knows (Mr Abbott) set up a slush fund and he doesn’t deny that,” Ms Hanson told news.com.au.
Mr Abbott was behind a trust fund set up to fund civil cases against One Nation in the 1990s, when the party posed a threat to the Liberal Party. Ms Hanson and One Nation co-founder David Ettridge served 11 weeks of a three-year jail sentence after being convicted of electoral fraud in 2003. The convictions were later overturned on appeal.
“I can’t change what’s happened in the past,” Ms Hanson said.
For Ms Hanson, letting go has been a process, but she’s not the first politician to be faced with the dilemma.
Ms Hanson said there were similarities between her and former South African president Nelson Mandela, who was known as the “father of the nation”, after he spent almost 30 years in jail as a political prisoner.
“Nelson Mandela, after he was in prison 28 years, he forgave and forgot,” Ms Hanson said.
“We’re both members [of that club].
“You can’t wallow in self pity about what’s happened.”
Mr Mandela was jailed for fighting against the South African apartheid government’s shocking human rights abuses against black South Africans. He was released from prison in 1990 and became the instrumental figure in the abolition of apartheid four years later, then went on to serve as the country’s president from 1994 to 1999. He died in 2013.
While Ms Hanson is now prepared to engage in jovial exchanges with Mr Abbott, she has completely ruled out the prospect of a friendship between the pair, with her output of forgiveness strictly limited to a professional capacity, according to her.
“There’s no social aspect whatsoever,” she said.
In a 2016 documentary, aired on SBS after her re-election, Ms Hanson reflected on her jail time and said one court case after another was thrown at her.
“It took me a long time to get over it. I blame Tony Abbott (and) John Howard for my imprisonment and no one will ever change my opinion about that.”
But their relationship has thawed in recent years and Mr Abbott made headlines when he stopped by Ms Hanson’s parliamentary office to welcome her back to parliament in 2016.
“He came to my office after I got re-elected, had a cup of tea, sat down and spoke about different issues and about what’s in the past,” Ms Hanson told news.com.au.
The occasion was filmed and the footage was posted on Facebook.
The cover of the new book features the One Nation leader peeking out from beneath a burqa.
It’s a nod to the controversial stunt when she wore a burqa into the Senate chamber in August last year.
She later said she did it to spark a debate about security challenges posed by the burqa, adding she was able to walk into the chamber without being challenged. She wants the burqa and other full face coverings banned in public.
The stunt drew a stinging rebuke from then attorney-general George Brandis, who said mocking religious garments was an appalling thing to do.
But Ms Hanson said she’s not yet finished what she started.
“I believe I have something to offer and a lot of people that support me,” she said.
Mr Abbott was perhaps once one of her most unlikely supporters but he is now making it his mission for the Government to preference One Nation below themselves and above Labor and the Greens.
“Her willingness to let the past be the past is a sign of decency which is all too rare these days in our public life,’’ Mr Abbott said. pic.twitter.com/vrnbOiCeDR
— Malcolm Roberts (@MRobertsQLD) March 27, 2018
He agrees with many of Ms Hanson’s ideas — namely scaling back immigration, building more coal-fire power stations, dams and recognising “we do have a problem with Islamism”.
Ms Hanson yesterday visited Australia’s largest Muslim suburb in western Sydney’s Lakemba for the first time on an episode of A Current Affair.
“Lakemba and all around Bankstown and those places — a lot of Australians don’t want to go there,” she told news.com.au.
“I’m not the only one. Even the police have spoken over the years (about how) they have concerns going to these areas themselves.
“I’m not going to deny ... do I like Lakemba? No.”
Ms Hanson said there were “a lot of other” places in Australia she doesn’t like and wouldn’t care to live in because of ethnic minorities.
“I think a lot of these places have become so un-Australian because of the culture around them,” she said.
“A couple of Aussie women [who I recently spoke to, were] looked down upon because of the way they were dressed.
“They felt like wouldn’t want to go back again, even though they were from migrant backgrounds, and that was un-Australian.”
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