Revolutionaries - A Queensland TL
- Thread starter BlackMage
- Start date
Yet again, so far, so good!
So, when will Mark dump Samantha, or vice versa?
Tch. Why so pessimistic? I write stories with happy endings all the time. From the beginning of this, I wanted to write a romance (actually, no, I didn't; I wanted to write a romance, then changed my mind to write a TL, then ended up writing a romance by accident.) Just because they're both somewhat detached from reality doesn't mean they can't find happiness together.
Of course, that certainly doesn't mean they will.
Interesting question. The Permanent Vigil outside Parliament House has dwindled to a small assortment of semi-permanent local residents, who often leave the fort unattended for days at a time. The Greens (not far left, I know) polled very well during the Mackenroth leadership, in response to his 'small-target' strategy, but Beattie (who recognises they'll lose more votes by cosying up to Hanson than they gain) will cut into their support. The Coalition against Racism, the primary anti-Hanson organisation, lost a lot of momentum after her victory in 1999, but will ramp up activities now that the High Court have capitulated. The major focus of non-parliamentary left activism is the death penalty, and the ongoing farce of the Anthony Magnus trial.
RKO General
Banned
With all these defeats in the High Court wouldn't the ethnic communities across Australia push for Constitutional Amendments?
Constitutional amendments are very, very difficult in Australia. You need strong support from one party to even get a referendum on the ballot, and bipartisan support to get them passed. The Beazley government are currently drafting a 'racial discrimination' amendment, to squelch Hanson once and for all, but it's a difficult process.
Currently studying hard for exams, in a few weeks, so you can understand why this has been a bit quiet lately. New updates reasonably soon, if intermittent.
Believe me, it's even more difficult. In Canada, you just require assent from half the legislatures. In Australia, you need assent from a majority of people in a majority of states. It doesn't sound so difficult, until you realise Australians hate referendums, often voting against them just for spite. Of 44 proposals to change the Constitution, only 8, all really minor, have passed. Any proposal to expand Commonwealth power, or to enact socially progressive measures, will automatically fail in Western Australia and Queensland; from there, you just have to fail in one more state and then you're toast. It's intentionally set up to defeat change.
New entry, featuring yet another of my patented 'street march' scenes. I write a lot of those, so I made this one slightly different. Change is good.
Day 727...
They ate chicken and chips in a Brisbane park. Samantha wiped her greasy hands on the grass; Mark sipped a Diet Coke, conscious, for the first time in his life, of his weight and appearance. He waved his hand, vaguely, to indicate the skyscrapers.
‘It’s astonishing, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The idea that we could build this, in just a few generations. It’s more incredible than the Pyramids, or the Vatican – it’s a living, thriving city, sustaining millions of people. I mean, the scale of it!’
‘Hmm,’ said Samantha, politely. ‘Government and private enterprise, working together. Not communism or capitalism but something better. An Australian system.’
Mark grinned, happy to see his ideas parroted back to him. ‘Exactly. Every other party’s tried to make our economy more American, more unequal, more pro-corporate, but not One Nation. We’re the only Australian party left.’
She leaned against him, happily. Nearly all their conversations were like this – he would say what she thought and she would say what he thought, and they would talk until they’re exhausted their talking points. She glanced up, lazily, until she saw a poster against a telegraph pole standing near where they sat. Her eyes widened.
‘Hah,’ she spat. ‘The TWU strike. Look at that rubbish.’
Mark glanced over, diffidently. Advance a Fair Australia in bold black letters against a yellow background. Support The Strike – Help Keep Equal Employment.
‘They have every right to strike, you know,’ Mark said, indifferently. ‘Unionism is the bulwark of a fair society.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Samantha. ‘They’re an ethnic power group. No different from any other Chinese or Indian lobby. They’ve been stacked with migrant workers, some of whom aren’t even citizens, and they’re trying to brutalise our government. No one voted for them. No one would vote for them. But they’re trying to play God, anyway.’
He placed a hand across her back. ‘They’re not going to change our policy,’ he said, comfortingly. ‘They’ll strike. They’ll finish striking. And we go on.’
‘The entire city will freeze,’ said Samantha. ‘Train services cancelled. Bus services cancelled. Toll booths closed. It’s economic terrorism to support minority interests.’
‘Yes, well...’ Mark looked uncomfortable. ‘Samantha, you know I support Hanson, and our policies, and our government, and...’
‘Spit it out.’
‘Are we sure that re-introducing New Nationalism is the right thing to do? At this point? I mean, we’ve just started getting our political capital back, we’re ahead in the polls – couldn’t we spend our efforts on something more, well, productive?’
Samantha tilted her head. She blinked. She disentangled herself from Mark, and drew patterns with her fingers on the grass.
‘Look. Everything we have – this city you’re so proud of, all your bush socialism stuff – that doesn’t come from where we are. That doesn’t come from our political structures, or our trade patterns. That comes from who we are. We’re Christian. We’re English and Irish. We’re British, we have been for two hundred years, and we owe everything we have to it. Now, the Canberra politicians may be OK with changing the demographics of this country – to some kind of Chinese-Indian mix, or whatever, they’re not picky – but that’s because they’re stupid. Australia isn’t ‘multicultural’. Multiculturalism didn’t build this city. It didn’t give us anything but race crime and division.
‘We’re not just ‘one culture among many’ in this country. We are the culture in this country. It should be the same in every country. You can’t separate Australia from the Australian race. You just can’t. You either become what we are – you assimilate, you breed in, you learn our language and religion – or you ship out. No multicultural country has ever been united, or powerful, or long-lived. Rome fell because of multiculturalism. Africa’s a mess because of multiculturalism. America’s imploding because of multiculturalism – although they’re getting back on the right track, thanks to Jack Cunningham. [1] And if we can’t restore the supremacy of the white race in this country, and if we can’t let the world know that we’re a single nation, with a single culture, and a single dominant race, then we’re finished. We disappear, and so does everything we’ve built here.
‘The barbarians are at the gate, Mark. We don’t have much time before British culture in this country is gone forever. You’ve got to pick a side, and you’ve got to fight for your side.’
She finished, seemingly surprised at how far she had gone, how much she had said. Mark looked uncomfortable. A piece of chicken cooled in his hand. He placed it back in the box.
‘I just don’t think the policy is politically sensible,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s all.’
She smiled, and knocked him playfully down onto the grass. ‘Well, look at you. Mr Sensible. Don’t worry about it, Mark. We don’t need to worry about ‘sensible.’ We’re revolutionaries.’
[1] See The Redemption of the Fifth Hamlin (which itself had a reference to The Lunar Dream). Keep in mind, though, that different American presidents make no difference to this timeline’s proximity to ours. You can excise that half-sentence from your personal canon for comfort, if you like.
(Although why would you have a personal canon of my stories?)
Day 730...
The trains stopped.
Picket lines outside Brisbane Central kept scab labour off the trains. The drivers and the station workers were more heavily unionised than most professions; those who weren’t unionists were kept out by solidarity and fear. Every train in the system had shut down at midnight. Every bus had been returned to terminal, with sullen workers keeping guard outside.
The strike wasn’t uniform across the state. In Gladstone, bus-drivers stubbornly kept working, with the local TWU branch endorsing Hanson’s policies. In Toowoomba, the trains stayed on time. But in Brisbane, the system shuddered to a halt.
Every road was choked with traffic. Cars, bumper to bumper, for kilometres. Every road in the city was a parking lot. The pavements were crowded, from shop to curb, with people. Irritated, flustered people, wearing overheated suits and over-applied deodorant. There was shoving, gesticulating, shrill cursing. The social fabric frayed.
Mark walked, deep in the throng, listening to the deafening horn blasts and sniffing the almost overpowering fumes. The strike clearly had to be resolved. Three more days of this and there’d be scuffles in the street. A week more of this and they’d be brewing babies over campfires.
But how could they? Samantha would never compromise on New Nationalism, and she had Hanson’s ear on this. They could try to break the strike – send in police to pull down the picket lines, send in a wave of sympathetic workers to man the engines until the beaten drivers finally gave in, even criminalise the strike – but...
The idea gave Mark shudders. You didn’t break a picket line. It was drilled into him, even though he’d never even joined a union. Workers should be allowed to organise, and withdraw their labour if they wanted. Ideally, you constructed the social order so they shouldn’t have to – you build a system where men were paid well, rewarded for labour, and treated fairly and—
Equally. Well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? The strike was all about the right not to treat people equally. To create a gradation of Australians: you had real Australians, the true-blue ocker fair-dinkum right-as-rain roo-shootin’ drovin’ ute-driving Australians, and then you had the rest. The rest could fake Aussie accents if they wanted, they could be as crude and rude and lewd as any other Aussie, but fundamentally they would never be Australian. That, ultimately, would be a matter of birth.
Mark had never tried to work out how such a system could be compatible with his utopia. He chose to close his eyes.
The Escalating Emergency
The vote on the Traditions and Values (Equal Opportunities) Bill was scheduled for July 12. Labor were obviously opposed; the National Liberals (a misnomer, given that they were based entirely in Queensland) were pulled into opposition by Kennett and the federal Coalition. But even by the end of July 5, it was apparent that the transport strike was proving highly damaging, to Brisbane and the government.
The next two days saw much the same behaviour. A sympathy strike was announced by the Maritime Workers’ Union, with the ACTU and AWU in full support. Mass demonstrations, unseen since Hanson’s re-election the year earlier, once again took to the streets. With only a few days’ organisation, the July 8 march saw an estimated crowd of 35 000 march through Brisbane, addressed by Beattie, the leaders of the strike, and, via a televised message, Beazley. Polls showed that a solid majority (61%) wanted Hanson to negotiate to end the strike, by moderating the bill if necessary.
However, the public misjudged Hanson’s response. Although the most overtly anti-union elements had been removed through the defenestration of Steven Mann, One Nation as a whole was not a party sympathetic to collective action. Attempts to change parliamentary policy through industrial action were premised as anti-democratic, extremist, and a threat to parliamentary sovereignty. Hanson, in particular, was affronted by the strike, which threatened her personal authority. A faction in favour of negotiation in the caucus was overridden; the One Nation party room gave its full support to any measures Hanson saw as necessary to restore public order.
It was hence that, when Parliament was called back for a special session on July 9, Hanson announced her intention to declare a state of emergency to restore order. The strikers would be dispersed from picket lines by police. Emergency labour would run the trains and buses. And protest marches would require special authorisation from the Police Minister and the Premier – authority that was highly unlikely to ever be granted. The state of emergency would not be subject to judicial or parliamentary review, with police powers of detention and dispersal expanded.
A state of emergency was not new to Queensland. Joh Bjelke-Petersen had used a similar measure to break the 1985 electricity strike, and even to maintain order during the 1971 Springboks tour. But with the eyes of the world upon Australia in the lead-up to the Olympics, and with the measure seemingly used to steamroll Hanson’s way towards enacting racially discriminatory laws, the measure aroused public outrage. The citizenry were polarised; Hanson’s supporters were inspired to even greater fervour, while Hanson’s opponents were more driven than ever to deny the legitimacy and authority of her government.
Debate on the state of emergency was guillotined. Former Treasurer Wayne Robinson was the only One Nation-aligned MP to vote against the measure. His speech, interrupted seven minutes in, was inarticulate and hastily drafted, but widely quoted. The measure was enacted in a routine party-line vote, 47 votes to 40 (one abstaining).
Wayne Robinson’s Speech
This government doesn’t much care for public debate. Fanatics never do. I joined One Nation because I thought they would be the party of common sense. Not left or right but forward. They’d look at situations with new eyes, the eyes of regular people, and act based on that.
I was stupid. I was wrong. This party is the most ideological in the country. This government is the worst Australian government since federation. They don’t care for facts, or debate, or common-sense. They care for winning the argument, by any means necessary. They’ll fudge facts, lie to ministers, break strikes, break protests – anything to keep our puffed-up Premier in power.
When I quit this party, I was accused of being over-emotional. Of making a personal choice out of resentment, because I was sacked. I’ve never been prouder of leaving this party than I am now. And I’ve been prouder of no vote in this parliament than I will be to vote against this stupid, anti-democratic, totalitarian state of emergency.
Day 736 – the Black March...
It was an astonishing feat of communication. The information moved virally, through phone calls, home-made posters, talkback radio, and email. Anyone who wanted to know knew. No one knew who thought up the idea. It seemed to have emerged, naturally, from the increasingly manic state of Queensland political consciousness.
They would march silently. Duct-tape could be placed over the mouth, if they really wanted to, but the silence was the main thing. No idiotic chants. No screaming at cameras. No costumes. Simply ordinary people, from every background, from every party, walking, through inner Brisbane. Their footsteps would be the only sound. They would not shout. They would not screech. They would simply march, and be seen.
Andrew Middleton marched. He was a civil servant, so he wore sunglasses, in a childish bid not to be recognised. He’d been horrified by Hanson from the start, and his disgust had merely grown. He’d played a vital role in Mark’s concealment of the deficit, choosing to go along to get along, and then had scurried to the razor-gang in Treasury once the bubble burst. For the first time, he chose to rebel against his government. He’d stomached an awful lot, in 25 years. He’d even been on the front lines of the last state of emergency. But Hanson’s perverse caricature of affirmative action, for Christian white males, was more than he could bear.
David Knight marched. His clothes were less refined than they had been when he worked for the Aboriginal Legal Service. He worked in middle-management now; he determined production quotas and standards for a manufacturing company. He’d tried to retain his idealism, but as Hanson’s government grew worse than even his horrified imaginings it had been blunted. The hope for a new Australia seemed to recede daily; Hanson’s majority government was entrenched, flooding the airwaves with supporters, making decisions without checks or balances. He’d been infected with a particularly voracious cynicism; his dull and undemanding job made things worse. His entire generation had been turned against the political process by a government that seemed implacably opposed to their beliefs. Rather than be inspired to opposition, they were crushed into depression. But still, he marched.
Danh Jao marched. Work had grown harder for him, as with many other Queensland immigrants. He’d been arrested twice, for walking after curfew, but he was a taxi driver; didn’t they understand that? The insults grew worse. The streets grew more dangerous for people like him. He’d been sacked, with little explanation, from his company; he’d spent three months unemployed, starving in a nation where he barely spoke the language, living off charity and what few friends he had. Eventually, he’d been re-hired at half wages by his old company. He could not return to Vietnam; he was a refugee, an enemy of the communist regime. His only hope was to stand and fight for this land, his adopted country. His story was the story of thousands of the marchers: immigrants who’d built new lives for themselves in this, the Lucky Country, who sought only to be Australians, like anyone else. They had no place in Hanson’s Australia. And so they marched.
Brian Langley marched. He hadn’t come down to Brisbane for this; he’d just been in the city for a week, in the market for new equipment, and was pushed into the throng. His family had been farmers for five generations. He’d voted for Hanson in 1999. He was a conservative by temperament and breeding. Change, of the left or right, was anathema to him. He wanted a stable, sensible government, that would provide the resources necessary to prop up his farm. That was all he wanted from the state – just enough to keep the tractors going, and the stock well-fed, and the fields waving off towards the horizon. Something to pass onto kids one day. He was bound up in his inheritance. He looked to have been carved out of the land.
He didn’t hate Hanson. One of her government’s hospitals had helped fix a septic gash along his forearm – if it hadn’t been for that, he might have lost the whole arm. Her trains had made commerce easier, and a small loan from the Trust, now repaid, had kept his farm secure during a difficult few months. But he didn’t appreciate what she was doing, with this ‘white privilege’ stuff. In Brian’s world, you earned your position through time and stamina. Not who your parents were or where you were born. It irritated him in the few specks of political consciousness he had. And so he marched.
The Black March, as it became known, flowed through Brisbane streets. Cars were forced onto side streets and into difficult detours to avoid the flood. A few idiots tried to start half-hearted chants; they were quickly shushed by the rest. This was not a spectacle. It was a statement.
They were halted halfway down George Street, at the Elizabeth intersection, by the police. They stood in solid formation, like insects in their riot gear and tinted helmets. The cops took formation to block off Elizabeth Street and the road to the casino, moving in pre-rehearsed movements to lock the protesters into George. There was only a single route left open – back.
A single policeman spoke into a microphone. ‘This march has been organised without authorisation of the Premier of Queensland. You are directed, under s29 of the Discretionary Powers Act, to disperse within a reasonable time. If you do not, we have authorisation to disperse this unauthorised gathering.’
A susurration moved down the rows of men and women. The younger marchers, agitated, hopping on the balls of their feet, wanted to push forward, daring the police to disperse them. But they were not the majority. The majority had never marched before. The majority were just ordinary folks, from all around the world, who wanted to make a statement – that they would not be silenced. They weren’t confrontational types. All they wanted was a chance to have their say.
The policeman spoke again. ‘You have been warned once. Section 29 allows for two warnings prior to detention and apprehension of anyone who has not dispersed within a reasonable time. This is your second warning.’
The march began to disintegrate, as the fearful amongst them peeled off, walking quickly back down George Street. They would return to their homes and their shops and hide: they did not wish to cause a scene, they did not wish to shame their families, they did not wish to stand too high. All the marchers were little people, but only those who fled accepted that they were such.
Most of the marchers stood firm. There were no insults. There was no resistance. Danh Jao held his head high; he had survived worse, much worse, than this. Andrew Middleton’s first instinct was to escape, but the press of people around him was too much. He twitched his head, looked frantically for an exit, and plotted out a whole dismal future for himself inside his mind. Brian Langley was relaxed. He’d marched. He’d had his say. If he got taken away to a cell for a few hours, then it didn’t matter much; he’d always fancied himself a larrikin at heart, anyway.
The police moved into the crowd. It was gentle, appearing to be some gigantic synchronised dance. The cops, inhuman in their padded suits, took protesters gently by the hand and led them towards the waiting vans, which stretched all the way down to the Parliament. The protesters made quiet jokes and helped the police along. A young woman gently shrugged off the policeman’s hand and walked, proudly, into custody. The silence remained. Even the police felt scared to break it.
Within a few minutes of the confrontation, the streets were empty. They had arrived to make a statement, and they had. Hanson had tried to demonise these people. The attempt merely exposed her hysteria and her nonsense for all the world to see, stripped bare on a silent Queensland street.
Back, after an unseemly break, with this. The next two weeks will be spent frantically studying, but I should be able to finish this soon. It's gasping, collapsing towards a conclusion.
Day 740...
It had been a regular party line vote – 46 to 40, 2 abstaining. New Nationalism returned to law. The transport workers’ union concluded their negotiations a few hours later. The crisis fizzled away, sputtering.
Samantha called a Strike Breaking party for that night, to celebrate. She’d invited around the younger followers of the party. Uni kids, the type Steven Mann had cultivated, with strange hair and wild ideas. Some were former members of the Socialist Alternative, eager to fight injustice; others were simply fascist thugs, kids with mean ideas and no subtlety about communicating them. They crowded into Mark’s apartment, yelling about the destruction of organised labour, the new One Nation majority (which would last for decades), and savouring the thought of the next federal election.
‘I think we’re gonna win it,’ said Samantha bluntly, glass of bubbly in hand, with speakers blasting 80s pop behind her. ‘I mean, Beazley’s just got no traction. None. People are realising he’s just a 120-kilo Keating. But they’re not gonna turn to Kennett: all he offers is more slash and burn economics, with latte social ideas to go with it. They’re gonna turn to us.’
‘Right,’ said Frank Patrick, looking around uncomfortably. ‘Makes sense. Where’s Mark?’
Samantha rolled her eyes. ‘He doesn’t like parties. He’s in the bedroom, looking at graphs. As usual.’
Mark, highlighter in hand, carefully traced his way through columns. His face was flushed. He was blinking, rapidly.
Under Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland had been the ‘private enterprise capital of Australia’. Education spending was 20% below the nation average. Health spending down 13%. Welfare services, 13%. Unemployment of over 10% in the 80s; low taxes, low wages, low social mobility. He went over the same figures over and over, constructing his own factual edifices. He needed to make Queensland before Hanson into some dystopian wasteland; he needed his own myths.
The ‘after’ figures, however, meant nothing to him anymore. He’d used them too many times to justify one thing after another. He’d even used them to justify cuts to expenditure; that is, he’d used his projects to justify cutting his projects.
But this was too much.
He’d watched the Black March, from a distance. He had stumbled down towards downtown Brisbane, justifying it to himself with convenient fictions and excuses. But he’d watched, and seen police drag innocent people away. People he once stood in line with, people far closer to him than the grinning inanities of those outside in the party.
New Nationalism was, he was increasingly convinced, fatal to his dreams. Even Labor of an earlier age, the Labor he idealised and tried to model his plans after, would never have dreamed of this – two classes of Australian, one granted preferential treatment by accident of birth and belief. It had been suggested that this was merely a symbolic gesture, intended to provide jobs to the depressed Australian working class. Mark had swallowed that line for months.
He was tired. He was tired, and panicked, and disgusted. He felt claustrophobic; he had created this political nightmare for himself, helping build up this racist, authoritarian state, and now he was trapped in the middle of it. Crushed and chewed like Judas in the ninth circle of hell.
He’d stomached worse than this. He knew this, on an intellectual level; if so steeped in blood, why not further? But the last straw had been Samantha.
He’d tried to ignore her more radical instincts. He’d simply let her repeat her spiels, in every conversation, which he could safely ignore; while he talked he’d gaze, dreamily, at her face, and murmur assent at the right moments. [1] But he’d always been able to believe that she wasn’t a racist, just like her protestations. It was an arbitrary distinction to draw; any number of racist policies were acceptable, just so long as they did not reflect a racist mindset. But he clung to it. He could accept any number of flaws, but he could not go along with the idea that human beings were fundamentally divided along lines of blood and colour.
But he couldn’t believe that she thought the same.
Mark grabbed up the paper and threw it around the room, deeply miserable. Every avenue of movement seemed closed off. Every choice seemed horrific. He had reached the limits of his toleration for One Nation; he had accepted everything, even the butchering of his dream, but he could not accept this. And yet treachery or defiance were unthinkable. He had buried himself into this, through his complacency, his wilful blindness, his devotion, and now...
[1] Mark, despite being intelligent, is also deeply shallow.
The Loss of Authority
Hanson won the battle over white affirmative action, but at a great cost. Unions were openly hostile to the government, with strikes in education and service sectors becoming more frequent. Hanson’s authoritarian response to the strike, especially after peaceful protesters were arrested en masse, transformed her public image into that of a petty despot. The International Labour Organisation censured Queensland; the sporting boycott expanded to encompass nearly all forms of sport. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in a column for the New York Times, sought to bring American attention to Hanson, who he called a ‘third-rate George Wallace with a one-speed mind.’
More damaging than international condemnation was the loss of political authority at home. Hanson’s response, far from consolidating her image as a strong political leader, made her appear petty, erratic and weak. Her improbable political revival had been spurred by a return to the centre. Her unflagging support for New Nationalism shattered the political gains of months. With a popular new Labor leader, One Nation slid in the polls. The August Newspoll showed Labor on an election-winning lead of 36%, with One Nation on 27% and the Nat Libs on 22%. Hanson risked marginalising her party in the extreme right.
Ordinarily, Hanson would have attempted to appeal to law and order or race to shore up her support, as she generally did in times of political crisis. But the decline represents something far more fundamental: the genuine decline of the political movements which gave her such force. The tide was going out.
Hanson took power in an unprecedented wave of anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-native title, anti-liberal sentiment, a popular rebellion unmatched in Australian politics. This wave was first tapped by John Howard, but never so skilfully as by Hanson. But beyond this movement Hanson had little political capital or skill. She was halfway charismatic, occasionally cunning and was held in genuine affection by many Queenslanders, but her support always derived from a greater popular resentment, rather than affection for her personally.
Now, that resentment was being diminished. Beazley’s government, contrary to early right-wing fears, had been a moderate, pragmatic one. Racial tensions within the community were diminished; the atmosphere of crisis, which Hanson exploited skilfully with appeals to a mythologised past, had faded. Her government was outdated within two years of its formation.
With four-year terms introduced in early 2000, Hanson’s government seemed set to stumble on, long outliving the manifestation of the trends that had spawned it. Yet dissent within caucus was growing. Many of her MPs had reluctantly accepted the centrist 2000 budget as necessary for electoral survival; now, with her fortunes declining once more, a movement began to sever One Nation from the person widely regarded as the reason for its existence...
Day 766...
Wayne glowered at Mark. Three beers into the day, and he was still livid.
‘Tell me again,’ he growled, ‘why I should ever trust a bastard like you again?’
Mark sighed. ‘Because I’m the only man who can make you Premier.’
Wayne snorted. ‘I don’t want the job, mate. And no one else wants me to have the job, either. I’ve had people spit at me for what they think I did in Treasury. And it was your fault, mate.’
‘I know,’ said Mark.
Pause.
‘You gonna pretend to apologise or what?’
‘No. My programs will stand the test of time. We accomplished glorious things. For about a year.’
‘And yet you’re gonna take down the government. Your government.’
Mark looked down, into his glass. He looked ashen. Nearly a month of this agony. Caught between impulses and fears on either side, disturbing his sleep, causing twitches across his face and hands. It was torment. Even now, he spoke in a choked voice, terrified of any decision he made.
‘I made a lot of bad choices,’ he mumbled. ‘I supported a lot of terrible things. Hanson’s ideas aren’t mine. If I’m going to achieve the stuff I believe in, it won’t be through Hanson. One Nation can still be a force for good. We can still make this a better society. But the racists and the thugs have to go. Starting with her.’
Wayne drank, and put down his glass. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying for years, mate. But I’m not even a member of the bloody party anymore. I’m stuck in goddamn no-man’s-land. How are you going to turn me into Premier after that?’
Mark clutched the bar. He was doing something awful, he knew that. He would destroy the careers of so many people he’d worked with, people who were close to him. Maybe even Samantha. But he was set on his course, the course he’d been set on since university: his undying commitment to set of abstract ideals, chief of which was that every man shall be equal in the new society. The revolution came first. It always came first.
‘Watch me,’ he said.
Day 767 – 45 Days to the Olympics
After two years in office, One Nation had achieved a certain respectability, even if tarnished by their more unsavoury behaviours. The business community, at first startled by their interventionist impulses, wary of their unpopularity on the world stage, and skittish of the novelty of it all, had remoulded itself to secure new crevices in the regime. Prominent business leaders had been interviewed stating that, yes, they too believed in immigration reduction and better rural services; the Gold Coast bourgeoisie had placed new cowboy hats on thinning hair, pulled on old moleskin trousers, and ostentatiously placed blades of grass between their teeth.
And so this was one of those functions: a black-tie event, where the ministry and the monsters of industry could stare at each other from across the ballroom floor, hands in their pockets and gazing at their feet. Mark, who owned two suits, which he wore, in alternation, every day, was not enthused. Samantha was even less so. She fancied herself a practical woman, more concerned with substance than form. (This explains why her career as a poet was not greatly successful.)
But they were dragged along; it was intimated that serious talks were needed. And Mark’s plans, nebulous and checked by his indecisive angst though they were, demanded it.
Last year, the ball had been joyous, with country-music singers shipped in and a bacchanalian glee on the faces of the MPs. They were reshaping the state; they had crushed the Aboriginal industry, crushed economic rationalism, and soon they would crush Kim Beazley. This year’s tone was more akin to a funeral, with the possibility of a dire and threadbare wake. The businessmen openly showed their contempt for the frantic ministers. Samantha, after a few desultory conversations, announced her intention to spend all night at a table for one, drinking cheap lemonade.
Mark assembled a few of the most prominent Queensland businessmen at a centre table, with Wayne Robinson – invited on his request. Wayne hated the event more than anyone. His suit choked him; his feet seemed to burst out of his trouser legs like toothpaste from a tube. The businessmen would have hated their attendance at the ball to have been reported; they created images of themselves as philanthropists, as ‘socially conscious’ entrepreneurs, certainly not the sort to cuddle up to discredited, authoritarian racists. And yet here they were.
‘Hanson’s got to go,’ Mark said, quietly. ‘She’s erratic. Her instincts are all wrong. She’s become a liability to the whole party. If she stays, everything we’ve achieved is gone. Demolished.’
There was a murmur of qualified assent. A businessman leaned forward.
‘But when you say ‘we’, Mr Vass,’ he drawled, ‘you don’t mean us. We’re just concerned citizens.’
‘Right, right,’ said Wayne, glowering. ‘So when you spent a year trying to get into my pants you were just another citizen. I get it now. You call this respecting me in the morning?’
‘Wayne, please,’ said Mark, under his breath. He turned back to the businessmen. ‘But Mr Robinson is right – your influence is not just that of a ‘concerned citizen’. You own newspapers and radio stations. You employ thousands. You can, if you so wish, control the way this state thinks. You can place such pressure on caucus as to force the fall of Hanson.’
‘In favour of Wayne Robinson,’ said a second businessman, eyebrow raised.
Wayne shrugged. ‘I’m the only other candidate,’ he said. ‘You want Heather Hill in charge? You want Angus Lockey? You think things are bad now – wait till Nurse Ratchet and Goering get their claws into the state.’
‘But you oversaw a collapse in the state’s economy,’ said the second businessman, still persistent. ‘Your credibility is shot.’
Mark leaned forward. ‘I want to revive my programs,’ he said, quietly. ‘Wayne shouldn’t have to apologise for what he did. Time would have borne us out – but we reacted too hastily, and now we’re in this dreadful mess. So here’s the deal. Wayne comes to office, he ditches most of the social stuff. New Nationalism – gone. The land clearing in the north – gone. It’s a kinder, gentler One Nation.’
Wayne grunted. ‘You get me, mates, with all my flaws. And we offer you up Hanson and all her ideas on a platter. Admit it – anything I could do to the state is nothing compared to the damage Hanson’s image does to you. Even being from Queensland costs you money. I can make people proud to be Queenslanders again.’
The businessmen muttered to each other. The first businessman, warming to his role as spokesman, jerked his head to the left. On the other side of the room Samantha, glass in hand, was drinking quietly.
‘What about Ms Calden?’ he asked. ‘What’s her role in the whole auto-da-fe? I mean, she’s the tribune of, uh, what did you call it? ‘The social stuff’?’
Mark lowered his head. ‘She stays. Or at least, we offer to let her stay. She’s been a fantastic Chief of Staff. She doesn’t deserve to go down with the ship.’
‘I’m not sure we can accept that, Mr Vass,’ said a third businessman, unsmiling. ‘You may think you and your partner are behind the curtain, but it’s common knowledge – at least in our circles, and in wider Queensland as well – that you practically run the state. Now, you’re offering a ‘new One Nation’. We can accept that. But that means you both have to go. Throw yourself on your swords. There’s no other way you can purchase business support.’
Mark shrugged. Wayne looked askance at him.
‘Mark? You OK with this?’
‘It’s just a job,’ Mark mumbled. ‘I mean, we’re doing all this for Queensland, right? She’s smart. She can get a new job anywhere. If...if she’s becoming a problem for the stuff we’ve achieved, and if I-I’m hurting the program, then I can accept that. I’m fine with that.’
He forced a smile.
Day 740...
It had been a regular party line vote – 46 to 40, 2 abstaining. New Nationalism returned to law. The transport workers’ union concluded their negotiations a few hours later. The crisis fizzled away, sputtering.
Samantha called a Strike Breaking party for that night, to celebrate. She’d invited around the younger followers of the party. Uni kids, the type Steven Mann had cultivated, with strange hair and wild ideas. Some were former members of the Socialist Alternative, eager to fight injustice; others were simply fascist thugs, kids with mean ideas and no subtlety about communicating them. They crowded into Mark’s apartment, yelling about the destruction of organised labour, the new One Nation majority (which would last for decades), and savouring the thought of the next federal election.
‘I think we’re gonna win it,’ said Samantha bluntly, glass of bubbly in hand, with speakers blasting 80s pop behind her. ‘I mean, Beazley’s just got no traction. None. People are realising he’s just a 120-kilo Keating. But they’re not gonna turn to Kennett: all he offers is more slash and burn economics, with latte social ideas to go with it. They’re gonna turn to us.’
‘Right,’ said Frank Patrick, looking around uncomfortably. ‘Makes sense. Where’s Mark?’
Samantha rolled her eyes. ‘He doesn’t like parties. He’s in the bedroom, looking at graphs. As usual.’
Mark, highlighter in hand, carefully traced his way through columns. His face was flushed. He was blinking, rapidly.
Under Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland had been the ‘private enterprise capital of Australia’. Education spending was 20% below the nation average. Health spending down 13%. Welfare services, 13%. Unemployment of over 10% in the 80s; low taxes, low wages, low social mobility. He went over the same figures over and over, constructing his own factual edifices. He needed to make Queensland before Hanson into some dystopian wasteland; he needed his own myths.
The ‘after’ figures, however, meant nothing to him anymore. He’d used them too many times to justify one thing after another. He’d even used them to justify cuts to expenditure; that is, he’d used his projects to justify cutting his projects.
But this was too much.
He’d watched the Black March, from a distance. He had stumbled down towards downtown Brisbane, justifying it to himself with convenient fictions and excuses. But he’d watched, and seen police drag innocent people away. People he once stood in line with, people far closer to him than the grinning inanities of those outside in the party.
New Nationalism was, he was increasingly convinced, fatal to his dreams. Even Labor of an earlier age, the Labor he idealised and tried to model his plans after, would never have dreamed of this – two classes of Australian, one granted preferential treatment by accident of birth and belief. It had been suggested that this was merely a symbolic gesture, intended to provide jobs to the depressed Australian working class. Mark had swallowed that line for months.
He was tired. He was tired, and panicked, and disgusted. He felt claustrophobic; he had created this political nightmare for himself, helping build up this racist, authoritarian state, and now he was trapped in the middle of it. Crushed and chewed like Judas in the ninth circle of hell.
He’d stomached worse than this. He knew this, on an intellectual level; if so steeped in blood, why not further? But the last straw had been Samantha.
He’d tried to ignore her more radical instincts. He’d simply let her repeat her spiels, in every conversation, which he could safely ignore; while he talked he’d gaze, dreamily, at her face, and murmur assent at the right moments. [1] But he’d always been able to believe that she wasn’t a racist, just like her protestations. It was an arbitrary distinction to draw; any number of racist policies were acceptable, just so long as they did not reflect a racist mindset. But he clung to it. He could accept any number of flaws, but he could not go along with the idea that human beings were fundamentally divided along lines of blood and colour.
But he couldn’t believe that she thought the same.
Mark grabbed up the paper and threw it around the room, deeply miserable. Every avenue of movement seemed closed off. Every choice seemed horrific. He had reached the limits of his toleration for One Nation; he had accepted everything, even the butchering of his dream, but he could not accept this. And yet treachery or defiance were unthinkable. He had buried himself into this, through his complacency, his wilful blindness, his devotion, and now...
[1] Mark, despite being intelligent, is also deeply shallow.
The Loss of Authority
Hanson won the battle over white affirmative action, but at a great cost. Unions were openly hostile to the government, with strikes in education and service sectors becoming more frequent. Hanson’s authoritarian response to the strike, especially after peaceful protesters were arrested en masse, transformed her public image into that of a petty despot. The International Labour Organisation censured Queensland; the sporting boycott expanded to encompass nearly all forms of sport. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in a column for the New York Times, sought to bring American attention to Hanson, who he called a ‘third-rate George Wallace with a one-speed mind.’
More damaging than international condemnation was the loss of political authority at home. Hanson’s response, far from consolidating her image as a strong political leader, made her appear petty, erratic and weak. Her improbable political revival had been spurred by a return to the centre. Her unflagging support for New Nationalism shattered the political gains of months. With a popular new Labor leader, One Nation slid in the polls. The August Newspoll showed Labor on an election-winning lead of 36%, with One Nation on 27% and the Nat Libs on 22%. Hanson risked marginalising her party in the extreme right.
Ordinarily, Hanson would have attempted to appeal to law and order or race to shore up her support, as she generally did in times of political crisis. But the decline represents something far more fundamental: the genuine decline of the political movements which gave her such force. The tide was going out.
Hanson took power in an unprecedented wave of anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-native title, anti-liberal sentiment, a popular rebellion unmatched in Australian politics. This wave was first tapped by John Howard, but never so skilfully as by Hanson. But beyond this movement Hanson had little political capital or skill. She was halfway charismatic, occasionally cunning and was held in genuine affection by many Queenslanders, but her support always derived from a greater popular resentment, rather than affection for her personally.
Now, that resentment was being diminished. Beazley’s government, contrary to early right-wing fears, had been a moderate, pragmatic one. Racial tensions within the community were diminished; the atmosphere of crisis, which Hanson exploited skilfully with appeals to a mythologised past, had faded. Her government was outdated within two years of its formation.
With four-year terms introduced in early 2000, Hanson’s government seemed set to stumble on, long outliving the manifestation of the trends that had spawned it. Yet dissent within caucus was growing. Many of her MPs had reluctantly accepted the centrist 2000 budget as necessary for electoral survival; now, with her fortunes declining once more, a movement began to sever One Nation from the person widely regarded as the reason for its existence...
Day 766...
Wayne glowered at Mark. Three beers into the day, and he was still livid.
‘Tell me again,’ he growled, ‘why I should ever trust a bastard like you again?’
Mark sighed. ‘Because I’m the only man who can make you Premier.’
Wayne snorted. ‘I don’t want the job, mate. And no one else wants me to have the job, either. I’ve had people spit at me for what they think I did in Treasury. And it was your fault, mate.’
‘I know,’ said Mark.
Pause.
‘You gonna pretend to apologise or what?’
‘No. My programs will stand the test of time. We accomplished glorious things. For about a year.’
‘And yet you’re gonna take down the government. Your government.’
Mark looked down, into his glass. He looked ashen. Nearly a month of this agony. Caught between impulses and fears on either side, disturbing his sleep, causing twitches across his face and hands. It was torment. Even now, he spoke in a choked voice, terrified of any decision he made.
‘I made a lot of bad choices,’ he mumbled. ‘I supported a lot of terrible things. Hanson’s ideas aren’t mine. If I’m going to achieve the stuff I believe in, it won’t be through Hanson. One Nation can still be a force for good. We can still make this a better society. But the racists and the thugs have to go. Starting with her.’
Wayne drank, and put down his glass. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying for years, mate. But I’m not even a member of the bloody party anymore. I’m stuck in goddamn no-man’s-land. How are you going to turn me into Premier after that?’
Mark clutched the bar. He was doing something awful, he knew that. He would destroy the careers of so many people he’d worked with, people who were close to him. Maybe even Samantha. But he was set on his course, the course he’d been set on since university: his undying commitment to set of abstract ideals, chief of which was that every man shall be equal in the new society. The revolution came first. It always came first.
‘Watch me,’ he said.
Day 767 – 45 Days to the Olympics
After two years in office, One Nation had achieved a certain respectability, even if tarnished by their more unsavoury behaviours. The business community, at first startled by their interventionist impulses, wary of their unpopularity on the world stage, and skittish of the novelty of it all, had remoulded itself to secure new crevices in the regime. Prominent business leaders had been interviewed stating that, yes, they too believed in immigration reduction and better rural services; the Gold Coast bourgeoisie had placed new cowboy hats on thinning hair, pulled on old moleskin trousers, and ostentatiously placed blades of grass between their teeth.
And so this was one of those functions: a black-tie event, where the ministry and the monsters of industry could stare at each other from across the ballroom floor, hands in their pockets and gazing at their feet. Mark, who owned two suits, which he wore, in alternation, every day, was not enthused. Samantha was even less so. She fancied herself a practical woman, more concerned with substance than form. (This explains why her career as a poet was not greatly successful.)
But they were dragged along; it was intimated that serious talks were needed. And Mark’s plans, nebulous and checked by his indecisive angst though they were, demanded it.
Last year, the ball had been joyous, with country-music singers shipped in and a bacchanalian glee on the faces of the MPs. They were reshaping the state; they had crushed the Aboriginal industry, crushed economic rationalism, and soon they would crush Kim Beazley. This year’s tone was more akin to a funeral, with the possibility of a dire and threadbare wake. The businessmen openly showed their contempt for the frantic ministers. Samantha, after a few desultory conversations, announced her intention to spend all night at a table for one, drinking cheap lemonade.
Mark assembled a few of the most prominent Queensland businessmen at a centre table, with Wayne Robinson – invited on his request. Wayne hated the event more than anyone. His suit choked him; his feet seemed to burst out of his trouser legs like toothpaste from a tube. The businessmen would have hated their attendance at the ball to have been reported; they created images of themselves as philanthropists, as ‘socially conscious’ entrepreneurs, certainly not the sort to cuddle up to discredited, authoritarian racists. And yet here they were.
‘Hanson’s got to go,’ Mark said, quietly. ‘She’s erratic. Her instincts are all wrong. She’s become a liability to the whole party. If she stays, everything we’ve achieved is gone. Demolished.’
There was a murmur of qualified assent. A businessman leaned forward.
‘But when you say ‘we’, Mr Vass,’ he drawled, ‘you don’t mean us. We’re just concerned citizens.’
‘Right, right,’ said Wayne, glowering. ‘So when you spent a year trying to get into my pants you were just another citizen. I get it now. You call this respecting me in the morning?’
‘Wayne, please,’ said Mark, under his breath. He turned back to the businessmen. ‘But Mr Robinson is right – your influence is not just that of a ‘concerned citizen’. You own newspapers and radio stations. You employ thousands. You can, if you so wish, control the way this state thinks. You can place such pressure on caucus as to force the fall of Hanson.’
‘In favour of Wayne Robinson,’ said a second businessman, eyebrow raised.
Wayne shrugged. ‘I’m the only other candidate,’ he said. ‘You want Heather Hill in charge? You want Angus Lockey? You think things are bad now – wait till Nurse Ratchet and Goering get their claws into the state.’
‘But you oversaw a collapse in the state’s economy,’ said the second businessman, still persistent. ‘Your credibility is shot.’
Mark leaned forward. ‘I want to revive my programs,’ he said, quietly. ‘Wayne shouldn’t have to apologise for what he did. Time would have borne us out – but we reacted too hastily, and now we’re in this dreadful mess. So here’s the deal. Wayne comes to office, he ditches most of the social stuff. New Nationalism – gone. The land clearing in the north – gone. It’s a kinder, gentler One Nation.’
Wayne grunted. ‘You get me, mates, with all my flaws. And we offer you up Hanson and all her ideas on a platter. Admit it – anything I could do to the state is nothing compared to the damage Hanson’s image does to you. Even being from Queensland costs you money. I can make people proud to be Queenslanders again.’
The businessmen muttered to each other. The first businessman, warming to his role as spokesman, jerked his head to the left. On the other side of the room Samantha, glass in hand, was drinking quietly.
‘What about Ms Calden?’ he asked. ‘What’s her role in the whole auto-da-fe? I mean, she’s the tribune of, uh, what did you call it? ‘The social stuff’?’
Mark lowered his head. ‘She stays. Or at least, we offer to let her stay. She’s been a fantastic Chief of Staff. She doesn’t deserve to go down with the ship.’
‘I’m not sure we can accept that, Mr Vass,’ said a third businessman, unsmiling. ‘You may think you and your partner are behind the curtain, but it’s common knowledge – at least in our circles, and in wider Queensland as well – that you practically run the state. Now, you’re offering a ‘new One Nation’. We can accept that. But that means you both have to go. Throw yourself on your swords. There’s no other way you can purchase business support.’
Mark shrugged. Wayne looked askance at him.
‘Mark? You OK with this?’
‘It’s just a job,’ Mark mumbled. ‘I mean, we’re doing all this for Queensland, right? She’s smart. She can get a new job anywhere. If...if she’s becoming a problem for the stuff we’ve achieved, and if I-I’m hurting the program, then I can accept that. I’m fine with that.’
He forced a smile.
I always saw it as a three-part docudrama. You'd get real people (like Michael Kirby or Jeff Kennett) to give their accounts of what their 'fictionalised' selves did, fading into the Mark-Samantha melodrama. But, then again, I like it like this, too.
I've been wanting to write this entry for months, now. The segment in question (the last one) I originally envisaged as a pages-long, bodice-ripping, screaming match, with buckets of tears and allusions to domestic violence. But I think it works better this way, and although I only just wrote it I think it stands up well in all the stuff I've done.
The Media and Hanson
The media had always had a conflicted relationship with Pauline Hanson, even from her first election to federal Parliament in 1996. On one hand, the socially liberal, middle-income journalists largely despised Hanson’s policies, with her inarticulateness and hostility to ‘elites’ proving difficult to produce copy. On the other hand, her rise and rise provided for a sensational story, which could be used to reinforce any particular prejudice of a paper’s proprietor that the journalists cared to satiate. Hence, she was obsessively covered, from every possible angle, in the period leading up to the 1998 election, even though she was, at the time, hoping only to secure the balance of power. This all-encompassing media coverage has been attributed as a major factor in her shock, early success.
Once she took office, however, the media faced increasing burdens. State government was, inevitably, less interesting to a national audience than the conflicts of federal politics; as well, many of Hanson’s initiatives in office focused on boring matters of health, education, and transport, not natural sources of copy. However, the increasing international reaction to Hanson, coupled with her attempts to implement a federal agenda with state powers (New Nationalism, the northern land clearances, the major funding cuts of the first few months), retained her place as one of the most famous and reported-on figures in Australia.
The prerogatives of office served to make reporting on Hanson somewhat more balanced than previously. While many of her policies remained anathema to journalists, she gained a certain ‘credibility’ merely by holding high office; her ideas could hardly be ‘out of the mainstream’, as the mainstream had spoken – and she was clearly their choice. (Journalists are not good at communicating the subtleties of Westminster, or preferential voting.) As well, her economic policies were, at first, very favourably reported. Her ‘responsible reforms’ from March 2000, after the excesses of previous years, were also well-received. Paul Kelly, doyen of the press gallery and Editor in Chief of The Australian, was the first to speculate: Could Hanson be the new face of the Centre-Right? He argued that her government, while often ‘over-enthusiastic’ and ‘excessive’, had ‘toned its wilder impulses’ and ‘turned popular resentment into responsible government.’
In August 2000, this response changed dramatically, into what can only be termed an attempt by the Australian media to overthrow an elected government. The Courier-Mail, which had previously alternated between mild hostility and subdued support for Hanson, suddenly launched into a crusade against the Premier. ‘Pauline: Unfit To Lead’, blared the headline on August 3, and the following week of ‘exposes’ were scarcely less blatant. The Australian, Queensland’s closest equivalent to a reputable broadsheet, followed suit. There was hardly any new material to justify such a push, which has prompted many to speculate where the shift came from.
The obvious answer is that Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of both papers, felt Hanson’s threatened 2001 federal election campaign would have threatened his interests in regional Australia. Hanson, in office, spoke passionately (if according to scripts written by Mark Vass) about the need for media diversity, especially in rural areas. Failing newspapers were granted loans from the Trust; government publicity and interviews favoured independent operators. It has hence been speculated that Murdoch sought to shore up his position by neutralising a possible threat.
This theory, however, falls into the all-too-common trap of blaming Murdoch for everything, a lamentable trope of the Australian left. It is more likely that the campaign simply derived from simple tiredness with Hanson. Her government, even after two years, was appearing tired and out of ideas; her economic agenda was rote, by-the-numbers bureaucratic centrism, and her social policies were retreads of earlier classic clashes. The hunting of Pauline Hanson was the result, ultimately, of short attention spans. [1]
[1] Note: We know that this is not the case, and that Mark has in fact offered himself, Samantha, and most of One Nation’s policies in a Faustian pact with the media.
Day 785 – 27 Days to the Olympics
Three nervous MPs clustered into Mark’s office, casting nervous glances over their shoulders. Mark, hunched, leaning over the back of a chair, grimaced.
‘Hanson is toast. We’re running private polling – it’s worse than you know. The Black March shattered her. She alienated a whole segment of the base with the move to the centre, earlier this year, and she alienated all the new voters she got with that with New Nationalism. She’s got no friends left. She’s got nowhere left to turn.’
Shaun Nelson, one of the MPs, grinned.
‘You had me sacked, Vass,’ he said, conversationally. He was attempting to be friendly – Mark noticed that. ‘Just for having lunch with Mann. Now I’m the most important man in the world to you? What gives you the gall, mate?’
‘I’m simply interested in the good of the state,’ said Mark, his tone unaltered. ‘This party is a means to that end. The ministers are a means to that end. And so, ultimately, is the Premier.’
‘She’s not just the premier,’ said another MP, Harry Black – also sacked by Mark. ‘She’s Pauline. Without her, the party really doesn’t have much reason to exist.’
Mark’s knuckles whitened on the chair. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Untrue. We exist for our constituency. The poor. The farmers. The ignored. The underprivileged. She is their tribune – their interests must come first.’
The third MP, a committee chair, a small businessman noted for his loud voice and clout in caucus, leaned back in his chair and grimaced, contemptuously. ‘But you wanna stick Wayne Robinson on us. I mean, Jesus, his credibility’s kaput. All those goddamn schemes the two of you cooked up. We’d take Heather Hill, for sure – if she were interested in the job, she’d have had it months ago. But you’ve got a s*** candidate, mate.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mark, levelly. He noticed a shifting in Nelson’s demeanour – a sign that the calmness was having an effect. ‘But he will be the only candidate. You are all prepared to jump ship, if need be, but no one is prepared to be the captain. Except him. I’m not asking that you like him – merely that you vote for him.’
Black leaned forward. He grinned, conspiratorially. ‘And you’re offering yourself into the bargain, eh? We get Wayne, we lose you. And Samantha Calden. I gotta admit, that’s doing a hell of a lot more to sell this scheme than anything about Pauline.’
Mark half-shrugged. ‘I know. I understand the issues at stake here. If we keep Pauline, we stumble on to the next election, with these pseudo-Liberal economic policies and fascist social ideals, and we lose so heavily the party’s dead as a political force. If we dump her, we get a leader who understands the plight of working people and who can win.’
‘You don’t believe that,’ drawled the third MP. ‘Jesus Christ couldn’t take this goddamn bloody rabble to 45 seats at the next election. I mean, come on, we’ve been a mess for months.’
‘Even if you believe that,’ said Mark, ‘which I don’t, because I believe we can build a movement behind our ideas that will keep us in power for decades, then, well...’ He threw his arms up in the air. ‘Then what matters is how much we can achieve, in the time we have. We could wipe out poverty in Queensland in two years. We could turn wilderness into civilisation. We could give every Queenslander the best education, the best healthcare system, the best standard of living of anywhere in the country. Pauline can’t do that. She won’t. But Wayne can.’
Day 795 – 17 Days to the Olympics
It was a windy day in Brisbane, and cold. Gusts tore newspapers to shreds even as commuters flailed to keep them together. Suits were caught up and reduced to almost comical chaos. The styled hair of men and women seemed almost perversely targeted.
Robinson stood on the steps of Parliament House, surrounded by a mob of reporters. Cameras flashed. Aides, recruited by Mark for the putsch, stood to either side. A boom, unsteady in the wind, danced perilously around Robinson’s head.
‘Right!’ bellowed Wayne. ‘I’ve called you all here today because Queensland is in trouble. We’ve got a leader who’s lost touch with the people. She’s arrogant. She’s petty. She’s enforcing an extremist agenda when Queenslanders want a common-sense, plain-speaking, plain-thinking government that’s focused on their problems!
‘So that’s why today, I’m announcing that I will challenge Pauline Hanson for leadership of the One Nation party, and for the premiership of this great state Queensland, the greatest state in the federation!’
‘Mr Robinson! First question: weren’t you expelled from caucus?’
‘That’s a lie,’ he snarled. ‘I left. After I became aware of Hanson’s cronyism. My first act as Premier will be to sack Mark Vass and Samantha Calden. They’ve got almost total control over Hanson. The only one controlling me will be me!’
‘Mr Robinson! It’s been reported by the Courier-Mail, sir, that Mark Vass is actually behind your campaign. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical—‘
‘That’s nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘Vass may be stirring up the caucus against Hanson, but don’t you forget: he deceived me when I was Treasurer. He tried to manipulate me. When I’m Premier, you try to lie to me and I’ll give you a head start at the state border!’
‘That’s not really an answer—‘
‘It’s an answer. Next question?’
‘Mr Robinson! Melanie Taylor, ABC. Do you think you have the numbers to win?’
Robinson grinned broadly. ‘Would I be standing here if I didn’t think so?’
Mark, watching the proceedings on an indoor TV, whistled. The aghast staff – he hadn’t let them know; he hadn’t let anyone know, especially not Samantha – looked at him.
‘Impressive,’ he explained. ‘He lies beautifully. Populist, double-talking, always prepared to blast himself out of a gotcha question. He’ll make a great Premier.’
Day 796...
Mark woke up early to realise she wasn’t there.
They’d adjusted, gradually, into sleeping in the same bed. Neither was particularly interested in sex – a Christian Brothers education had left Mark wearing socks in the shower, and Samantha was uncomfortable with the idea of sex before marriage. (They’d never even mentioned marriage.) But she had moved in, forgiving him for his faults, and to sleep on the couch seemed silly. Mark, a man who lived without intimacy or emotional connection, was more affected by most than the simple idea of sharing a bed.
But she wasn’t there.
He pulled himself up. 6:43 AM. The sun wasn’t up yet. Rain drizzled against the windows, splattering down gutters and pooling on the surfboard-side balcony.
Mark stumbled out into the living room. There she was, nursing a coffee, eyes red. They hadn’t spoken the night before; he’d stumbled home at 10 pm, after a day of frantic number-crunching, of arm-twisting and favour-gouging and all the petty little dark arts of politics. She’d already been asleep.
They hadn’t talked about this – his involvement in the putsch. They’d never talked about their future, or their pasts, really; he didn’t know her mum’s maiden name or if she liked pets or God. They’d simply nattered on about fixed political beliefs and polling, and had lived their lives apart.
She looked up at him. Her eyes flickered. ‘Hello.’
He walked over to the fridge; poured himself a glass of cold water. Then he sat down, beside her. ‘You woke up early,’ he said, flatly.
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
Another awkward silence. He looked around the room, uncomfortable. She reached up, tentatively, and moved his face towards hers.
‘I’m begging you,’ she said, quietly. ‘Begging you. Stop this. Stop Wayne Robinson.’
And there it was: the heart of it. ‘I can’t,’ he said, without intonation.
‘Yes, you can. You’re behind all this. As long as I’ve known you you’ve been spinning plots and programs and things like this. You can never stop, can you? If you ever got your utopia you’d smash it in a week, just because you weren’t satisfied. You can never be satisfied.’
‘Some might say that’s a good thing,’ said Mark, lamely. ‘I mean, if we’re to achieve progress—‘
‘Stop that.’ He noticed her eyes, gleaming. ‘Stop talking in goddamn effing buzzwords. Talk like a human. I want you to save Pauline for me. I want to know you can do that. She...’ Samantha blew air through her teeth, in frustration. ‘She means nothing to you. She’s a vehicle, a Trojan Horse. But she, and the things she stands for, means everything to me. You understand that, don’t you?’
Mark looked at his feet. ‘Yes,’ he said, quietly. ‘I know.’
Samantha took a deep breath. ‘Then if you know that...and if you think you and me have something pretty special together, something, uh, meaningful...then I can’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. I can’t understand.’
‘Because...’
He clenched his fists, in frustration. He stammered – these were feelings and moods, not words. ‘Because – because the new society I want isn’t yours. Because of the towns we destroyed up in the north. Because you can’t treat people unequally – and that’s what we do, we pretend there’s one way of being Australian and one way only and it’s ultimately all about what colour you are. Because – because I gave up my whole life for a dream, just a few policy planks, and I lost my friends and my job and most of my immortal soul for that but I can’t go along with this. We shouldn’t have arrested the marchers. It just – it, uh, it just showed me how rotten the whole project is. I – I’m sorry, Samantha, I’m really sorry.’
The whole spiel took about a minute – words spilled over each other, with awkward pauses halfway through sentences as he tried to say things he had tried so hard not to even think. She stared at him, uncomprehending. That, he realised, was the worst thing of all.
‘You’re not a whole person, Mark,’ she said, finally. ‘You talk and you breathe but you’re missing something. I’m not trying to convince you of a point of view. I’m asking you for me. I want to know you’re capable of choosing between me and the program.
‘I tried, Samantha,’ he whispered. ‘For months and months. I tried to be normal. I ripped down the whole program for you – just so you’d know I could do it. And we had something pretty good, for a while there. For a few weeks.’
Samantha tried to smile. ‘Chicken and chips in the park. That night we watched The Simpsons and I finally started laughing at the jokes. The day you fell asleep on my shoulder on the train, and I got so used to it that we woke up in Ipswich. We could have spent the rest of our lives together.’
‘No,’ said Mark. ‘Because you’re right. I can’t do that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wish I could choose you – I could just shut off some switch in my brain, and work up new groups for Hanson to criminalise, and new areas to decimate, and new sins. But the revolution comes first. I’m sorry.’
She tried to say something. The first few words burbled out, then she crumpled up on the countertop. He placed a hand on her shoulder as she sobbed, but she shrugged him off. He sat alone as she shook and cried on the mock-wood table.
He took a drink of the water, coughed and spluttered as it went down the wrong way. ‘Hanson might still win,’ he said. ‘The votes aren’t looking good our way. This could just be a sun shower – she’s emerged from worse before.’
She looked up. ‘You still don’t get it,’ Samantha croaked. ‘It’s not about Hanson.’
He stared at her, as she struggled to articulate it. He could never really understand. For Mark, it was always about the political angle. He looked at a world of sharp angles and quantified values. For a while, he’d glimpsed something more, something that made him, briefly, a human being. But it slipped away.
TV networks don't have views -- their news coverage is so insubstantial that the ability to put forward a 'perspective' is strictly limited. The exception: the tabloid news programs, Today Tonight and A Current Affair (I think Today Tonight was called something different back then.) Their focus on race-crime-welfare is so prevalent that they serve as major advantages for Hanson. Whenever she grants an interview, she grants it to a tabloid commercial-channel show, not the 'elitist' ABC.
But the commercial channels largely follow, rather than shape, political opinion. When she's up she's very very up and when she'd down the coverage is simply awful.
One of my favourite Chaser quote:
'Pauline...I know you're watching the show...you're not watching SBS, that's for sure.'
That sums up pretty much everything about their attitude to Hanson. One thinks she's a racist and the other knows she is. The ABC shows barely-disguised hostility and the SBS doesn't disguise.