Bracks is Opposition Leader in Victoria. Denis Napthine is Premier. Jeff's popularity in Victoria was declining, which was a motivating factor behind jumping ship to the federal government. At the moment, Beazley enjoys a slim lead in the polls over Kennett, with One Nation voters serving to permanently depress Kennett's primary vote (and drawing upon disillusioned Liberals who can't stand Jeff.)
Your wish is my command...
Infiltration
The initial One Nation candidates were unique in that they were largely drawn from outside politics. They were policemen, vets, local businessmen, and workers – people who gained political strength from their disgust for ‘politics as usual’, drawn to One Nation and kept in check once elected by Hanson’s charisma and dominance of the organisation. Exit polls indicated that One Nation’s voters, rather than being driven by race and land rights, were often more motivated by unemployment and economic issues. These issues were similarly influential for many of One Nation’s candidates; that the party had a discrete economic agenda during its first term was crucial in giving stability and popularity to the party. Even most of One Nation’s political advisers were relatively new to politics.
This changed, however, with the 1999 election – ironically as One Nation’s electoral ‘base’ expanded rapidly. Many of the newly-victorious candidates (with One Nation’s parliamentary numbers increasing from 26 to 48) were long-standing members of the Queensland far right, a more influential movement than in any other state. Recruited and funded by Steven Mann, they were less interested in industrial development, investment schemes and targeted welfare payments than the ‘old guard’ of the party. Instead, they carried the legacy of decades of right-wing ideology, centred on anti-socialism, the Protestant work ethic, Puritanism, and American libertarian ideals. Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland’s long-serving Premier, was a major inspiration for many of these new candidates, with his constant bromides against ‘socialism’ and low levels of per-capita spending on social welfare. What the candidates failed to notice was that Bjelke-Petersen had, at the same time, exorbitantly funded subsidies and capital works projects for regional areas, to an extent known as ‘bush socialism’. Right-wing rhetoric has always proved far more popular than right-wing policy.
Through his influence in government, Steven Mann appointed many of these ideologues to senior posts. His charm and personal wealth allowed him to win over much of the Cabinet to his personal ideals. That their ideas had very little electoral currency, and would have the greatest effect on One Nation supporters, was of no consequence; Mann’s followers were zealots, determined to completely reshape Queensland’s economy in the same way One Nation had already reshaped its society. It was known, in the abstruse, conspiratorial world of far-right newsletters and discussion boards, as ‘the second revolution’.
Mann seems, however, to have badly underestimated the resolve of those within One Nation committed to ‘bush socialist’ ideals...
Day 548...
They ate lunch on the fifth floor of a swanky Brisbane restaurant, with long windows allowing for a panorama of the city. They may have been ‘common people’, plucked from obscurity for preselection, but they were prepared to indulge themselves once in power. They saw no glory in squalor.
‘Two years ago, I built tables,’ said Wayne Robinson, at the head of the table. He vigorously ripped his steak to shreds with fork and knife. ‘I was a bloody good salesman and a bloody good carpenter, but I was a little guy. Now I’m Treasurer of the bloody state. All this,’ he swept his arm, to indicate the city behind him, ‘is my territory. People live and die by whether my calculator’s working or not. Ain’t that something?’
‘One Nation lifts up the common people,’ said Mark gravely, sitting by Wayne’s side. ‘We’re the only true party of the people.’
‘Well, you can’t lift up everyone by making them Treasurer, mate,’ said Wayne. ‘But I appreciate it. I really do. And I’m not gonna go back to sawing logs in half just cause Mann’s too thick to know how unpopular his ideas are. Right, boys?’
There were murmurs of assent down the table.
These were Mark’s chosen candidates. Some had been his staffers, imported into seats in 1999; some had been prominent members of their local communities, who he’d courted and swayed over to his vision. He’d spent the last two years building them into a faction, a personal fief he could trade and barter to all the other courtiers for their support. Through horse-trading and intellectual superiority, he’d built impressive legislative accomplishments. Now, gazing at the world from behind his spectacles, he was to use his bloc to destroy Steven Mann and all his works.
‘How much sway does Steven have?’ asked Frank Patrick, one of Mark’s former staffers, now the youngest MP in Parliament. Short, very near-sighted, and slumping, he thought only along the lines Mark set for him.
‘He’s got his own rat pack, about 10 MPs hand-picked,’ said Mark. The comparison with his own nine zealots was left unstated. ‘Two are ministers. The real threat comes from the converts. Ken Turner, Harry Black, Shaun Nelson...’
Wayne grimaced. ‘It’s gonna be hard to cut them from the ministry. They’ve got friends in caucus. They’ve been with us since the beginning. It’s gonna be damn hard to cut them; easier just to—‘
‘They are followers of Steven Mann,’ said Mark, coldly. ‘They would, if they could, destroy everything we’ve achieved. Thousands would lose their jobs. Rural poverty. Inequality. Economic rationalism. They must go.’
‘I agree,’ piped up Frank Patrick.
Wayne glared contemptuously at Frank, then appealed for support down the table. He looked over Mark’s cadre – academics, unionists, teachers – and decided not to risk a scuffle. He threw up his hands.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We go to Pauline. We make the hard sell. Anyone who’s sympathetic to Mann goes – we build our own little iron curtain around the ministry. But we’re gonna need support in caucus, anyway. How do we sell this?’
Mark, in response, took sheets of paper from his briefcase, and spread them across the table. Electoral maps, graphs, and tables.
‘We use the Trust,’ he said. ‘Any project in any vulnerable MP’s electorate they want funded, we give. We have hundreds of millions in discretionary spending. The people benefit from the projects. The people benefit from the new ministry. Everything we do is for the people.’
There was an uncertain hush. Mickey Kessel, a schoolteacher from northern Queensland and the Education Minister, was first to speak.
‘Jeez, Mark,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘Isn’t, uh, the Trust an independent body?’
‘I appointed the chairman. He serves at the pleasure of the Treasurer. Mr Robinson.’
‘It’s corrupt,’ said Carl Lall, a heavy-set, bloodhound-looking former train driver, poached from a union post. ‘It stinks of it. You’re takin’ tax payer money and you’re usin’ it to buy votes.’
‘The alternative is not an option,’ said Mark, in a certain serenity born of moral clarity. ‘Steven Mann cannot be allowed to implement his policies. Sacking him is not enough. Every trace of his sentiments must be purged from the movement.’
‘One Nation is supposed to be a broad church,’ said Mickey. ‘I mean, we’re all in this for Australia, right? That’s the name, One Nation, right?’
‘Precisely,’ said Mark. ‘One Nation. Mann’s policies would divide and destroy this nation. I will not let moral squeamishness destroy the only government dedicated to a fair economy in this country. It is not an option.’
Wayne had not yet spoken. He slumped over his meat, playing at wilted salad with his fork. He looked up at Mark, who continued to press for the Trust scheme, and looked back down to his meal. He stabbed into the meat and chewed it, without tasting.
‘It’s probably the only way,’ he mumbled, mouth full. ‘He’s a clever bastard, Steven Mann; he’s been waiting for us to try and move against him, and he’ll have reinforced his position. But we’ve got the purse strings and he doesn’t. Doesn’t feel right, though.’
Mark showed no compunction over this. ‘$10 billion for education. $10 billion for health. In Steven Mann’s Queensland, $10 billion would be the entire budget. We cannot show anything less than total opposition to his plans. This is not corruption. This is politics. Grow up or shut up.’
Education under One Nation
It is instructive, at this point, to assess the extent of Mark Vass’s achievements in education policy. Although there were two teachers in the One Nation caucus – one elected in 1998, the other in 1999 – the party’s policies were relatively vague on education, vowing merely to ‘restore a traditional curriculum’ and to restore funding to rural schools. As a former education adviser to Paul Keating during the 1993 election campaign, Mark swept in to fill the vacuum.
Under One Nation, Queensland’s schools were better funded than at any time in history. Thirty-one new schools, disproportionately in regional areas, were built by One Nation; technology and resources in existing schools were dramatically increased; and, although an ambitious plan to introduce school vouchers was judged, by late 1999, unsuccessful, the A+ scheme was introduced in late 1998. A+ allowed for schools and teachers to be ‘graded’, based on the average test scores in surrounding areas, comparative performance of different classes in the same school, and student feedback forms. One Nation’s Education Minister, Mickey Kessel, was one of the better-performing One Nation ministers, implementing otherwise-contentious reforms through consultation with teachers’ unions and parent lobby groups.
The curriculum was extensively reformed under the ‘New Nationalism’ policy. ‘Australian values’ became a key focus of teaching; in high schools, ‘Civics’ became a compulsory subject from years 7 to 10, stressing positive aspects of Australia’s history, ‘personal moral behaviour’, and respect for authority and family. Although it was only taught for a brief period of time, it has become emblematic of the Hanson years as a whole. The depiction of Civics by popular stand-up comedian Wil Anderson (‘First you lie down. You take a deep breath. And then Edmund Barton f***s you’), although vulgar, has become a part of Australian popular culture.
The history syllabus was also reformed, controversially. Mickey Kessel was a follower of controversial former Marxist Keith Windschuttle, who published The Fabrication of Aboriginal History in 2000. His thesis was that any massacres of Aborigines in Australia had been widely exaggerated; although this was already a part of the revised curriculum, history teachers in Year 10 were required to teach students from the text, and to assess students based upon it. This was highly controversial; left-wing historians accused Hanson of ‘Holocaust denial’, and many teachers, angered by Windschuttle’s ideological stance, vexatious attacks on other historians, and right-wing politics, refused to cover the text extensively. History marks for Queensland students in 2000 were the worst in Australia.
Overall, Mickey Kessel and the Queensland Department of Education made important strides towards redressing the widening gap between public and private schools. Routine One Nation attacks on ‘economic rationalism’ allowed for extravagant funding, unjustified infrastructure projects (unjustified based on need, rather than support for local communities), and a high level of spending per student. All this was lost, however, in the political turmoil of 2000...
Day 565...
A cabinet reshuffle cost seventy million dollars.
A new industrial complex in Bill Feldman’s electorate. Ten million dollars for roads construction in Heather Hill’s electorate, just to gain her support – not even to dump her from cabinet. Hand-outs for business friends of ministers. Investment in new agricultural research, largely junk science motivated by contempt for real science. To use the Trust for political ends was like using a hammer to perform heart surgery – it could be done, but it wasn’t subtle and it was very dangerous.
But it could be done.
Mark had written Pauline’s speech announcing the reshuffle. Samantha stood behind the leader while she read out the blacklisted names. She had given tacit support to the tactic – fearful, perhaps, that Steven’s vaunting ambition may have led him to target her job. He would remain in the bureaucracy, personally; his funds and contacts were too valuable to lose needlessly. But anyone who had thrown their allegiance to him, anyone with a trace of unfettered free market sentiment would be gone. In their place, Mark had appointed his closest allies and trustworthy sycophants, who knew where real power rested.
It hadn’t been easy convincing Pauline of the changes. She was largely a figurehead, but with theoretically unchecked power. She tired of the endless, childish bickering between her advisers, and her constant use as a blunt instrument to bludgeon factional enemies. Only Trust-bought colleagues had brought her around. That, and $5 million additional funding for businesses in her electorate.
They’d stitched up a new ministry, by foul means and fair (mostly foul). But it was only ever a transient victory.
Health under One Nation
As a party overwhelmingly based on the votes of the elderly, One Nation gave special attention to health care issues. Early attempts to return control of hospitals to ‘hospital boards’ were quietly smothered, given Health Minister Dr John Kingston – a noted opponent of economic rationalism – intended to exercise central control to the greatest degree possible. The number of ‘base hospitals’ increased to 100. [1]
Retired individuals were given priority in healthcare provision, with a sliding scale of fees. In one of the most popular initiatives of One Nation’s tenure, benefits for military veterans were substantially increased. Although this trespassed on a primarily Commonwealth area of responsibility, the popularity of the measure – and the dire political consequences of being responsible for its abolition – encouraged the federal government not to challenge the measures.
Rural health services were substantially increased. Queensland’s traditional free hospital system was improved substantially, providing the infrastructure for the most comprehensive universal health care system in Australia. Free dental treatment was provided to children under the age of 7; mandatory health checks took place in remote areas, with reduced fees and waiting times for rural children with chronic conditions; and, on the lobbying of Deputy Premier Heather Hill, funding for community services and the treatment of children with birth defects was substantially improved.
Although disability pensions were traditionally covered by the Commonwealth, Queensland increased funding for their assistance. This was partially in compensation for extensive cuts to workers’ compensation, a move intended to satiate the small-business base of the party. However, even for working-class citizens, improved health clinics in industrial cities served as a major improvement on the poorly-resourced, inadequately funded free hospitals of previous decades.
While rural, elderly and middle-class voters benefited, however, Aboriginal health underwent a sharp and dramatic decline. Although the studies are controversial, and issues of sampling error exist, it has been alleged by researchers at the University of Queensland that average Aboriginal life expectancy fell by four years during the period of the One Nation government. With the demolition of the northern settlements in 1999, Aborigines gained greater access to healthcare resources in major population centres; however, the loss of community and employment contributed to a rise in obesity, exposure-related conditions and child mortality.
[1] Base figures from http://www.abc.net.au/health/healthmap/qld/.
Day 570...
Brisbane was silent outside. Police patrolled the streets, enforcing a rigid curfew on ‘youth’ (defined by police, not the youth). It was after one am – even the traffic had stopped.
Samantha emerged from the bedroom, bleary-eyed, to find Mark still in front of the computer, text scrolling past his eyes. Occasionally, he tapped out a few cursory notes. Mostly, he stared and absorbed.
‘Mark, come to bed,’ she murmured, barely awake enough to stand up. ‘You have work tomorrow. We have work tomorrow. This can wait.’
Mark didn’t respond. His fingers blurred as he worked through numbers and programs in his head. Samantha spun around his chair.
‘Go to bed,’ she hissed.
‘Mann’s sent in his budget estimates,’ said Mark. His face was flushed, his knuckles white – he was furious. ‘Hanson agreed to them.He’s going to cut all my projects. Especially the wage subsidies – the basis of my entire goddamn program! And she just sat there, by the look of it, grinning.’
Samantha sighed. ‘You’re being an idiot. You’re forty years old and you’re acting like a four-year-old. Both of you need to grow up.’
‘She agreed to them,’ Mark repeated, insistently. ‘I tried isolating her. I thought we could keep Steven in the loop but without influence – just a sack of money. Didn’t work. She’s just a goddamn Liberal – always a Liberal at heart. Nothing but a human face on an economic rationalist. Nothing—‘
‘She is the leader of this party and you are very tired,’ snapped Samantha. ‘This is 1 am speaking, not you – you’re smarter than this.’
She dragged him to bed, but Mark couldn’t sleep. He’d learned about the budget meetings, held in secret (the idea was infuriating), accidentally, from a careful analysis of Steven’s timetable. He’d obtained the documents from one of Steven’s advisers, terrified of his career prospects if he crossed the Policy Director. Steven had wormed his way into Hanson’s confidence and reshaped his agenda in a pragmatic guise – not a plan for social reform but moderate, sensible economic reform. All Mark’s efforts had come to nothing. Big business, the conservatives, the capitalists always won out in the end.
He couldn’t sleep.
The next morning, Mark marched into the Queensland parliamentary lobby, fired up by three hours’ sleep, scalding coffee and pins and needles all down his legs. He saw Steven, chatting to a backbencher, across the hall.
‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Mr Mann!’
Steven looked up, smirking, as the angry little bureaucrat puffed his way across the lobby.
‘Mr Vass,’ he drawled. ‘How are you? Did you sleep well?’
‘You got to Hanson,’ Mark snarled. ‘You dripped your poison in her ears. You bastard.’
‘Bit emotive, aren’t we?’ asked Steven. ‘Don’t take it so personally, Mark. I’d ruffle your hair if you had any.’
‘You’re finished, Mann,’ shouted Mark. ‘This is not your party. Get out!’
‘Make me,’ replied Steven.
Melanie Taylor was an ABC reporter.
Anti-One Nation, of course, but a good enough reporter to make friends in the movement. She had used Mark for stories in the past, and he’d used her for propaganda. The press and politicians live in a symbiotic relationship, dominated by a de facto quid pro quo; a brutal story must be matched by soft-focus and vice versa. Even One Nation had fallen into the equilibrium after a while; modern journalists had lost their ability to find their own stories, atrophying into remora.
And so it was that when Mark turned up in Melanie’s office, and threw The Freedom Future on her desk, and recommended that the people of Queensland might like to know about it, she recognised her role instinctively.
