Revolutionaries - A Queensland TL
- Thread starter BlackMage
- Start date
This could be the second-last entry. Or third-last, most likely, but I just want the damn thing over. I can never find time for writing these days, which frustrates me, because the quality of the finished product is reduced somewhat. I know how I want the story to end, I'm just having a damnable time getting it there.
Die, damn you!
Day 798 – Two Weeks until the Olympics...
Two years of autocratic leadership. Two years of inconsistent economic policies. Two years of scurrying down rabbit-holes after pipe-dream plans to reshape society. Two years of cronyism at the top, with the only democracy being between Mark, Samantha and Pauline. Two years of a government that never really seemed to get over the shock of being elected; a government much more concerned with national posturing and impossible designs than actually governing. It had taken the press campaign, and the protests against New Nationalism, and the ongoing shockwaves from Steven Mann’s implosion, but they walked on a set path. History is determined by great forces, upon which men bob up on the tide; dates and names cannot move outside a broad sweep. Hanson’s race was run; Mark’s manoeuvrings were simply jerkily progressing down iron tracks.
The caucus was funereal. The Robinson supporters were clustered into a corner. Hanson’s supporters drifted; badly organised, badly whipped, they were bound together by sentiment, not any organisation. Samantha had tried, once the scale of the threat became apparent, to tear down Wayne, but Hanson’s staffers were shambolic. Robinson offered, at least, the prospect of electoral renewal: someone who could speak about jobs and schools and hospitals. Hanson had never managed to expand beyond the simple certainties of race. Her supporters had to invent an agenda for her.
Hanson wasn’t there. Robinson, having dispelled supporters from mobbing around him, stood outside the caucus room, tapping a pen against his forehead in agitation. Mark wandered up, his shirt untucked. (He couldn’t technically enter the caucus room, which generally failed to prevent him from deciding their agenda.)
‘Where the hell is she?’ snapped Wayne.
Mark shook his head, morosely. ‘No idea. No idea. Her staffers have no idea. Samantha has no idea.’ The conversation, like every conversation for two days, had been monosyllabic. Neither could bear to say more.
Wayne grimaced. ‘Jesus Christ. We’ve got the Far Northers on side with all that Bradfield Scheme nonsense you wrote up for me. I mean, Jesus, you’re making me promise the goddamn moon to these people!’
‘These people are tired of Hanson saying no,’ Mark said. ‘They want a leader who understands their concerns. You don’t, but you’re the better pretender.’
Wayne placed his pen in his pocket, and cracked his knuckles. ‘I could be Premier. Me. I mean, I’m nobody, mate. Just a lucky sod who got in the right place at the right time. All it’ll take is 25 votes.’ Robinson stared at the ground. ‘I’m not ready for this, mate. We were just amateurs. We never took this seriously enough and now we’re screwed.’
Mark patted him, awkwardly, on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he said. ‘Just stick to the program – health, education, transport – and you’ll be fine.’
And then Hanson appeared – surrounded by a press pack, aides shouting to either side, Samantha on the edge of the throng, biting her nails – and swept into the caucus. Even now, in her diminished state, she still seemed to draw the world around her, sweeping everything around her into her orbit and then into some chaotic trajectory outwards. Wayne nodded to Mark – ‘See you round’ – and walked in, after her.
Hanson took the podium. She looked over the massed faces – the scared, the lonely, the angry, One Nation embodied as no other party was in its MPs. These were her people, plucked from the common mass and placed into the citadels of power. Every flaw and every shining moment of the premiership was owed to that. And now, they would plan to chuck her out – not because they’d been corrupted but because they were scared, and desperate, and vulnerable. Just like real people.
‘Right. Good morning. I’ve just come back from the Governor’s residence. I cannot govern this state unless I have authority to do so. For the past year, my authority has been denied and rejected by the elites and the other parties. If we’re going to get over this rough patch, we need to show them that while they may have the money and the power, we have the people, and the people win.
‘That’s why I’ve called an election for four weeks’ time. I’m assured by the Attorney-General’s Department that this is all perfectly legal. That means this Parliament is no longer in session, and that you are no longer MPs. As only MPs can vote on the party leader, that means I will remain leader of this party until the election is over. Once that happens, I hope you’ll all understand better why I am the only person who can lead this party.’
She turned off the microphone and walked away. Stunned silence followed.
Outside:
Hanson swept out, as suddenly as she had entered. Mark, chewing his fingernails, gaped. He grabbed an aide’s shoulder.
‘You! What the hell happened?’
‘Election, mate. Three weeks away. Clean out your office; we’re all fired.’
An aide in Peter Beattie’s office:
‘Mr Beattie! Mr Beattie!’
‘What the hell’s wrong? Something bite you?’
‘Hanson’s dissolved Parliament. We’ve got an election coming up.’
‘Jesus goddamn effing mother of God Christ!’
The news travels out, out from the inner warren into the press gallery, where it spreads across the state.
In Townsville, Paul Alanson is in court when it happens, arguing for a client who faces two years’ jail over a stolen pair of jeans. When he finds out, he hits the wall with his palm.
‘God damn it, I knew you had it in you, Mark!’
And the news spreads out, into the wider world, to those boycotting the Olympics and those enduring protests at home to attend. Hanson was a state premier. A fish and chip shop owner. And although her policies barely affected four million people, her message – that history could be, briefly, reversed – was known throughout the world.
And at the centre of the message, as the world took its breath, Mark stayed in his office eating chicken and chips. The lights were darkened. The staff had left, to the hastily-hired campaign headquarters. This would be an absurdly short campaign, called at no notice – Hanson had always been one to do it her own way.
‘Well,’ said Mark, softly, ‘I guess I did it. I got rid of her.’
He took another bite.
The Election
The first question must be: Could she? Was it really legal for Hanson to simply declare an election, by fiat, shocking everyone outside her close inner circle? Could Hanson, a politician who had campaigned on fixed terms, go back on her word and her laws?
In the first week of the campaign, Labor made a legal challenge to the election, but surreptitiously backed off once their poll numbers rose. The Greens, assured of not winning, continued the fight. The whole enterprise was, however, doomed by general public misunderstanding of the terms-limited legislation. The laws set a maximum term of four years; that was all that was required by the party platform. But the Premier’s power to advise an election was retained, albeit limited (in principle) to when ‘parliamentary control over the Legislative Assembly cannot be assured.’ Hanson, citing the possible defection of many of her colleagues, had her excuse; and, ultimately, the courts agreed.
In truth, she had little choice. One of the enduring ‘what-ifs’ of Australian politics is ‘what if Hanson had not taken her gamble’? Wayne Robinson would not have won the first ballot. Interviews, conducted exclusively for this history on the condition of anonymity, reveal that he had 15 votes locked up, with the possibility of eight more; perhaps enough, in the best of circumstances, to squeak out a narrow lead, but not enough to overcome the intense personal loyalty – even love – felt by much of the caucus for Hanson. But 15 votes, in a party ostensibly devoted to her, would have been enough to permanently destabilise her leadership. Robinson would have continued his campaign, perhaps for years; public confidence would have continued to decline; and the media campaign would have continued unabated. Hanson’s policy possibilities were closed in by the Beazley-Kennett consensus on a federal legislative cordon sanitaire. Her government would have been restricted to the management of dwindling resources, constrained from policy initiative by the ascendant economic conservatives and lacking political authority for sweeping social reform.
Hanson’s only hope for survival in government was an election win. It would have reasserted her authority, crushed her factional rivals, and probably destroyed Peter Beattie, her most formidable opponent. She has been described as a ‘maverick’, a ‘reckless opportunist’, even ‘teetering on the edge of insanity.’ The political biases of her opponents blinded them to her capacity to be suddenly, alarmingly clever.
The first week of the truncated (four week) election campaign was dominated by a sudden burst of One Nation propaganda. The policy launch, televised live on the ABC (grudgingly), was surprisingly successful – Hanson’s speech, pledging ‘a revival of faith in our culture and our traditions’, to ‘give every Queensland child the best education in the world’, and a well-pitched appeal to elderly voters, was well-received. Wayne Robinson, seeing no future for himself under Labor and wishing to establish himself as the obvious successor as Hanson lost, appeared on-stage with Hanson, praising her as ‘a great Australian’ who led ‘the people back to power.’ She was ‘the woman who gave us back our democracy.’ Television advertising – largely focusing on One Nation’s record in office – hit the airwaves before Labor, vastly better-funded, had time to organise.
At the same time, the National Liberal Party, seeking Labor’s ‘anti-One Nation’ votes, launched into a sudden, swingeing attack on the Labor Party. Mal Brough, National Liberal leader [1], attacked Labor’s record on taxes, law and order issues and regional policy. His message was carefully targeted. In rural seats, National Liberal candidates ran as ‘competent One Nation’. In urban seats, Labor were attacked in one of Australian politics’ most memorable billboards. With Hanson and Beattie’s faces (in greyscale) on opposite sides, the slogan ‘ALP. ONP. Two letters. No difference’ in bold white letters, and no mention of the National Liberals, the seat sought to use suburban disaffection with Hanson to throw Labor’s election strategy – focusing on those same suburban seats – into chaos. The effect of this that Labor and the Nat Libs wasted a third of the campaign destroying each other, with One Nation – announcing populist policies and dominating press coverage – sailing through the middle.
The effect of this was startling. The first Courier-Mail poll of the campaign was released on September 1, a week into the campaign. It showed One Nation’s primary vote on 38%, actually improving from the 1999 election, with Labor on 30% and the Nat Libs on 22% -- the rest scattered. Obviously a result of voter apathy at this point in the campaign, it showed that One Nation were definite contenders for another term, and even an increased majority.
[1] The one Liberal success story from 1999, he parachuted in from his federal seat to take the seat of a dissident Liberal. He stood head and shoulders over the other members of the broken, scattered Coalition.
Day 807 – Five Days to the Olympics...
Samantha was calm. Tranquil, even. In a fifth-floor office, in a mid-city office building hired to run the campaign, she methodically sketched out Hanson’s tour schedule. She would visit Gympie to talk about ethnic policies – more New Nationalism, keyed to get the base fired up. Then to Gladstone, for industrial policy – they would take the factories and the industrial wastelands, rip away Labor’s base and show it for the hollow, careerist shell it had become.
Her pen halted. She realised she was thinking like Mark. She blotted out the thoughts – methodically.
Then up to the north, to reinforce the swag of seats they’d stolen from the Nats, the base of any One Nation majority. Aboriginal policy, regional policy, transport policy. Tick, tick, tick. And then sweep south towards Brisbane, a final suburban dash in the last days of the campaign – they had no real polling, they barely had any money for chrissakes – and then home to Ipswich, for a victory rally, in the last days of the campaign.
Yes. A victory rally. Samantha believed with evangelical, all-encompassing faith that they would win.
‘Samantha?’
She didn’t look up. She knew who was sticking his head around the door, dandruff on his shoulders, flabby arms bulging with documents...
‘Yes?’
Mark walked in, awkwardly, and dumped manila binders across the table. ‘The new health policy. I’ve bounced a few guys off the walls over it for days. It’s the best compromise we’ve got.’
Samantha refused to look up from her work. ‘Why do you work for us, Mark?’
Because he did – back as policy director, just like last time. She was campaign manager and he worked out the policies and everything was bright and chilly and normal. They would bounce off and away from each other and keep bouncing back – he would say something stupid and she would overreact and yet they were stuck in these roles, like human test patterns. After all this drama, sackings and reverse turns and plots, here they were, talking about health policy.
She repeated the question. ‘Why do you work for us, Mark?’
Mark shrugged, spilling more documents. ‘I don’t know. Better the devil I know. Better the lesser evil. Better Hanson than phony Labor or plastic Nat Libs. I made a lot of bad choices. Now I’m stuck here.’
‘In the ninth circle of hell,’ mumbled Samantha, carefully writing down the names of city councillors to endorse Hanson. ‘That’s where they keep traitors, you know. Traitors to their lords and benefactors.’
Mark looked shocked. ‘You think I’m a traitor? Really?’
‘You betrayed Pauline,’ she replied, still not looking up. ‘You betrayed your party – you forced it into this stupid campaign, right before the Olympics. And you betrayed me. You couldn’t put your stupid policies and your stupid socialism over the woman you allegedly loved. You’re stuck here with the freaks and nuts – don’t try to deny it, you think we’re all racists and goddamn redneck hicks, don’t you?’
Even with the emphasis and the emotion, she still never looked up. She still barely spoke above a whisper. Mark looked utterly crushed.
‘I won you back before,’ he said. ‘I compromised. I worked my heart out. It didn’t work and I’m sorry and it’s because there’s something wrong with me, but I can do this. I can do this.’
She looked up at that – saw him standing there, trembling and bumbling through rehearsed lines. She snarled.
‘Get out.’
Die, damn you!
Day 798 – Two Weeks until the Olympics...
Two years of autocratic leadership. Two years of inconsistent economic policies. Two years of scurrying down rabbit-holes after pipe-dream plans to reshape society. Two years of cronyism at the top, with the only democracy being between Mark, Samantha and Pauline. Two years of a government that never really seemed to get over the shock of being elected; a government much more concerned with national posturing and impossible designs than actually governing. It had taken the press campaign, and the protests against New Nationalism, and the ongoing shockwaves from Steven Mann’s implosion, but they walked on a set path. History is determined by great forces, upon which men bob up on the tide; dates and names cannot move outside a broad sweep. Hanson’s race was run; Mark’s manoeuvrings were simply jerkily progressing down iron tracks.
The caucus was funereal. The Robinson supporters were clustered into a corner. Hanson’s supporters drifted; badly organised, badly whipped, they were bound together by sentiment, not any organisation. Samantha had tried, once the scale of the threat became apparent, to tear down Wayne, but Hanson’s staffers were shambolic. Robinson offered, at least, the prospect of electoral renewal: someone who could speak about jobs and schools and hospitals. Hanson had never managed to expand beyond the simple certainties of race. Her supporters had to invent an agenda for her.
Hanson wasn’t there. Robinson, having dispelled supporters from mobbing around him, stood outside the caucus room, tapping a pen against his forehead in agitation. Mark wandered up, his shirt untucked. (He couldn’t technically enter the caucus room, which generally failed to prevent him from deciding their agenda.)
‘Where the hell is she?’ snapped Wayne.
Mark shook his head, morosely. ‘No idea. No idea. Her staffers have no idea. Samantha has no idea.’ The conversation, like every conversation for two days, had been monosyllabic. Neither could bear to say more.
Wayne grimaced. ‘Jesus Christ. We’ve got the Far Northers on side with all that Bradfield Scheme nonsense you wrote up for me. I mean, Jesus, you’re making me promise the goddamn moon to these people!’
‘These people are tired of Hanson saying no,’ Mark said. ‘They want a leader who understands their concerns. You don’t, but you’re the better pretender.’
Wayne placed his pen in his pocket, and cracked his knuckles. ‘I could be Premier. Me. I mean, I’m nobody, mate. Just a lucky sod who got in the right place at the right time. All it’ll take is 25 votes.’ Robinson stared at the ground. ‘I’m not ready for this, mate. We were just amateurs. We never took this seriously enough and now we’re screwed.’
Mark patted him, awkwardly, on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he said. ‘Just stick to the program – health, education, transport – and you’ll be fine.’
And then Hanson appeared – surrounded by a press pack, aides shouting to either side, Samantha on the edge of the throng, biting her nails – and swept into the caucus. Even now, in her diminished state, she still seemed to draw the world around her, sweeping everything around her into her orbit and then into some chaotic trajectory outwards. Wayne nodded to Mark – ‘See you round’ – and walked in, after her.
Hanson took the podium. She looked over the massed faces – the scared, the lonely, the angry, One Nation embodied as no other party was in its MPs. These were her people, plucked from the common mass and placed into the citadels of power. Every flaw and every shining moment of the premiership was owed to that. And now, they would plan to chuck her out – not because they’d been corrupted but because they were scared, and desperate, and vulnerable. Just like real people.
‘Right. Good morning. I’ve just come back from the Governor’s residence. I cannot govern this state unless I have authority to do so. For the past year, my authority has been denied and rejected by the elites and the other parties. If we’re going to get over this rough patch, we need to show them that while they may have the money and the power, we have the people, and the people win.
‘That’s why I’ve called an election for four weeks’ time. I’m assured by the Attorney-General’s Department that this is all perfectly legal. That means this Parliament is no longer in session, and that you are no longer MPs. As only MPs can vote on the party leader, that means I will remain leader of this party until the election is over. Once that happens, I hope you’ll all understand better why I am the only person who can lead this party.’
She turned off the microphone and walked away. Stunned silence followed.
Outside:
Hanson swept out, as suddenly as she had entered. Mark, chewing his fingernails, gaped. He grabbed an aide’s shoulder.
‘You! What the hell happened?’
‘Election, mate. Three weeks away. Clean out your office; we’re all fired.’
An aide in Peter Beattie’s office:
‘Mr Beattie! Mr Beattie!’
‘What the hell’s wrong? Something bite you?’
‘Hanson’s dissolved Parliament. We’ve got an election coming up.’
‘Jesus goddamn effing mother of God Christ!’
The news travels out, out from the inner warren into the press gallery, where it spreads across the state.
In Townsville, Paul Alanson is in court when it happens, arguing for a client who faces two years’ jail over a stolen pair of jeans. When he finds out, he hits the wall with his palm.
‘God damn it, I knew you had it in you, Mark!’
And the news spreads out, into the wider world, to those boycotting the Olympics and those enduring protests at home to attend. Hanson was a state premier. A fish and chip shop owner. And although her policies barely affected four million people, her message – that history could be, briefly, reversed – was known throughout the world.
And at the centre of the message, as the world took its breath, Mark stayed in his office eating chicken and chips. The lights were darkened. The staff had left, to the hastily-hired campaign headquarters. This would be an absurdly short campaign, called at no notice – Hanson had always been one to do it her own way.
‘Well,’ said Mark, softly, ‘I guess I did it. I got rid of her.’
He took another bite.
The Election
The first question must be: Could she? Was it really legal for Hanson to simply declare an election, by fiat, shocking everyone outside her close inner circle? Could Hanson, a politician who had campaigned on fixed terms, go back on her word and her laws?
In the first week of the campaign, Labor made a legal challenge to the election, but surreptitiously backed off once their poll numbers rose. The Greens, assured of not winning, continued the fight. The whole enterprise was, however, doomed by general public misunderstanding of the terms-limited legislation. The laws set a maximum term of four years; that was all that was required by the party platform. But the Premier’s power to advise an election was retained, albeit limited (in principle) to when ‘parliamentary control over the Legislative Assembly cannot be assured.’ Hanson, citing the possible defection of many of her colleagues, had her excuse; and, ultimately, the courts agreed.
In truth, she had little choice. One of the enduring ‘what-ifs’ of Australian politics is ‘what if Hanson had not taken her gamble’? Wayne Robinson would not have won the first ballot. Interviews, conducted exclusively for this history on the condition of anonymity, reveal that he had 15 votes locked up, with the possibility of eight more; perhaps enough, in the best of circumstances, to squeak out a narrow lead, but not enough to overcome the intense personal loyalty – even love – felt by much of the caucus for Hanson. But 15 votes, in a party ostensibly devoted to her, would have been enough to permanently destabilise her leadership. Robinson would have continued his campaign, perhaps for years; public confidence would have continued to decline; and the media campaign would have continued unabated. Hanson’s policy possibilities were closed in by the Beazley-Kennett consensus on a federal legislative cordon sanitaire. Her government would have been restricted to the management of dwindling resources, constrained from policy initiative by the ascendant economic conservatives and lacking political authority for sweeping social reform.
Hanson’s only hope for survival in government was an election win. It would have reasserted her authority, crushed her factional rivals, and probably destroyed Peter Beattie, her most formidable opponent. She has been described as a ‘maverick’, a ‘reckless opportunist’, even ‘teetering on the edge of insanity.’ The political biases of her opponents blinded them to her capacity to be suddenly, alarmingly clever.
The first week of the truncated (four week) election campaign was dominated by a sudden burst of One Nation propaganda. The policy launch, televised live on the ABC (grudgingly), was surprisingly successful – Hanson’s speech, pledging ‘a revival of faith in our culture and our traditions’, to ‘give every Queensland child the best education in the world’, and a well-pitched appeal to elderly voters, was well-received. Wayne Robinson, seeing no future for himself under Labor and wishing to establish himself as the obvious successor as Hanson lost, appeared on-stage with Hanson, praising her as ‘a great Australian’ who led ‘the people back to power.’ She was ‘the woman who gave us back our democracy.’ Television advertising – largely focusing on One Nation’s record in office – hit the airwaves before Labor, vastly better-funded, had time to organise.
At the same time, the National Liberal Party, seeking Labor’s ‘anti-One Nation’ votes, launched into a sudden, swingeing attack on the Labor Party. Mal Brough, National Liberal leader [1], attacked Labor’s record on taxes, law and order issues and regional policy. His message was carefully targeted. In rural seats, National Liberal candidates ran as ‘competent One Nation’. In urban seats, Labor were attacked in one of Australian politics’ most memorable billboards. With Hanson and Beattie’s faces (in greyscale) on opposite sides, the slogan ‘ALP. ONP. Two letters. No difference’ in bold white letters, and no mention of the National Liberals, the seat sought to use suburban disaffection with Hanson to throw Labor’s election strategy – focusing on those same suburban seats – into chaos. The effect of this that Labor and the Nat Libs wasted a third of the campaign destroying each other, with One Nation – announcing populist policies and dominating press coverage – sailing through the middle.
The effect of this was startling. The first Courier-Mail poll of the campaign was released on September 1, a week into the campaign. It showed One Nation’s primary vote on 38%, actually improving from the 1999 election, with Labor on 30% and the Nat Libs on 22% -- the rest scattered. Obviously a result of voter apathy at this point in the campaign, it showed that One Nation were definite contenders for another term, and even an increased majority.
[1] The one Liberal success story from 1999, he parachuted in from his federal seat to take the seat of a dissident Liberal. He stood head and shoulders over the other members of the broken, scattered Coalition.
Day 807 – Five Days to the Olympics...
Samantha was calm. Tranquil, even. In a fifth-floor office, in a mid-city office building hired to run the campaign, she methodically sketched out Hanson’s tour schedule. She would visit Gympie to talk about ethnic policies – more New Nationalism, keyed to get the base fired up. Then to Gladstone, for industrial policy – they would take the factories and the industrial wastelands, rip away Labor’s base and show it for the hollow, careerist shell it had become.
Her pen halted. She realised she was thinking like Mark. She blotted out the thoughts – methodically.
Then up to the north, to reinforce the swag of seats they’d stolen from the Nats, the base of any One Nation majority. Aboriginal policy, regional policy, transport policy. Tick, tick, tick. And then sweep south towards Brisbane, a final suburban dash in the last days of the campaign – they had no real polling, they barely had any money for chrissakes – and then home to Ipswich, for a victory rally, in the last days of the campaign.
Yes. A victory rally. Samantha believed with evangelical, all-encompassing faith that they would win.
‘Samantha?’
She didn’t look up. She knew who was sticking his head around the door, dandruff on his shoulders, flabby arms bulging with documents...
‘Yes?’
Mark walked in, awkwardly, and dumped manila binders across the table. ‘The new health policy. I’ve bounced a few guys off the walls over it for days. It’s the best compromise we’ve got.’
Samantha refused to look up from her work. ‘Why do you work for us, Mark?’
Because he did – back as policy director, just like last time. She was campaign manager and he worked out the policies and everything was bright and chilly and normal. They would bounce off and away from each other and keep bouncing back – he would say something stupid and she would overreact and yet they were stuck in these roles, like human test patterns. After all this drama, sackings and reverse turns and plots, here they were, talking about health policy.
She repeated the question. ‘Why do you work for us, Mark?’
Mark shrugged, spilling more documents. ‘I don’t know. Better the devil I know. Better the lesser evil. Better Hanson than phony Labor or plastic Nat Libs. I made a lot of bad choices. Now I’m stuck here.’
‘In the ninth circle of hell,’ mumbled Samantha, carefully writing down the names of city councillors to endorse Hanson. ‘That’s where they keep traitors, you know. Traitors to their lords and benefactors.’
Mark looked shocked. ‘You think I’m a traitor? Really?’
‘You betrayed Pauline,’ she replied, still not looking up. ‘You betrayed your party – you forced it into this stupid campaign, right before the Olympics. And you betrayed me. You couldn’t put your stupid policies and your stupid socialism over the woman you allegedly loved. You’re stuck here with the freaks and nuts – don’t try to deny it, you think we’re all racists and goddamn redneck hicks, don’t you?’
Even with the emphasis and the emotion, she still never looked up. She still barely spoke above a whisper. Mark looked utterly crushed.
‘I won you back before,’ he said. ‘I compromised. I worked my heart out. It didn’t work and I’m sorry and it’s because there’s something wrong with me, but I can do this. I can do this.’
She looked up at that – saw him standing there, trembling and bumbling through rehearsed lines. She snarled.
‘Get out.’
Final post. I demand comments! I demand praise and adulation and scathing, scathing criticism! Or, you know, you could not. In a manner that I'm sure Mark Vass would hate, I leave the choice entirely to you.
The Election
By the second week of the campaign, it was obvious that One Nation’s route to victory lay through the National Liberal Party. Their attempt to ‘play both sides of the fence’, appealing to urban and rural voters, was clearly not working; they stood to lose most of the former National seats to One Nation, which would have the result of forestalling seat losses elsewhere. Meanwhile, their attacks on Labor split the vote in southern seats, allowing preference exhaustion to potentially benefit One Nation. Preferential voting was invented to prevent three-cornered contests, but Queensland’s ‘optional preferential’ system stymied much of the effect of this.
The solution was found in an act of calculated political bastardry. Jeff Kennett, Peter Beattie and Kim Beazley arranged for One Nation candidates not to be preferenced on any Nat Lib ‘how-to-vote’ cards – a move sure to alienate rural voters. In exchange for this, Labor candidates would withdraw from many traditionally Liberal seats, giving Nat Lib candidates a clear run. Effectively, any seats lost in the bush would be regained on the Gold Coast, and Labor would lose a critical thorn in its side.
The plan was far too clever for its own good – to the extent that many have queried whether it was actually ever meant to be implemented. On Wednesday of the second week, the plan was leaked to the press. The former National Party members of the Nat Libs were outraged; they were to be the sacrificial lambs under this plan, ceding party heartland to One Nation. Conservative voters resented negotiations with Labor, undertaken behind the voters’ backs. And everyone, especially Nat Lib leader Mal Brough, loathed Kennett, and his presumption in attempting to manipulate the electoral process.
The result of this was a sudden plunge in the Nat Lib vote. Contrary to expectations, this benefitted Labor, not One Nation; many voters were ‘anyone but Hanson’ voters, preferring a conservative Labor government to a radical Hanson government. Labor had been forced to defend its urban flank from a Nat Lib incursion; with the threat neutralised, they were able to push into One Nation’s rural heartland in the final days of the campaign.
The Olympics
On Friday 15 September, 2000, the Sydney Olympics began.
Aboriginal heritage was recognised. Stockriders galloped across the stadium floor, cracking whips. The nations were paraded; diminished by awkward gaps where the boycotts should have marched. The world’s attention bent upon Sydney, and saw...
They saw something good. What superlatives there were, were strangely lacking: decency, humility, tolerance. They saw a nation that, even if it had not come to terms with its past, recognised something wrong, some strain on the nation’s conscience: it could not be ignored any longer. They saw faces of every colour and beliefs of every complexion. Hanson’s demagoguery could only have worked in Ipswich, a provincial town of dying industry and parochial concerns. Her people did not know multiculturalism; they knew a caricature, a strawman composed by talkback radio and dark rumours. But for most Australians, multiculturalism wasn’t a dogma or a spectre or an inspiration or a curse. It was just there, the way we lived; merely the ideal that you should not be respected according to how well you ‘measured up’ to some sketched Australian identity, some pastiche of Kelly and Gallipoli and Kokoda, but according to who you were. Attempts to intellectualise the ideal, to place it in terms of demography and sociology, ignored the simple human truths at stake.
Of course, this is overanalysis. What merely happened was that the world turned to Australia and saw a nation decent and good, fair and free, and that Australia blushed at their appreciation. The national mood seemed to shift. The ‘Hanson years’ – those dominated by the conflicts over race and national pride – were ultimately about a changing nation: whether the achievements and struggles of the last 30 years had been worth it, or merely damaged and divided the nation. The Olympics seemed, perhaps, to confirm the answer.
Or, at least, that’s one theory. The main problem with political analysis in Australia is that myths and cod-psychology hang over the field like spiderwebs. It’s entirely possible to attribute Hanson’s decline to the in-fighting between staff, a skilful campaign by Peter Beattie accompanied by expensive advertising, or even the launch of Steven Mann’s autobiography, A Radical For Capitalism. Little read and less bought, Mann’s damaging revelations – Vass’s confrontational and obsessive personality, Calden’s ruthlessness and absolute determination to win – reinforced an image of One Nation’s government as crony-laden and dominated by ideologues.
But it can hardly be denied that the Olympics played some role. They completely overshadowed the last two weeks of the campaign, which fought for coverage against blanket sports news. Cathy Freeman’s victory in the 400m athletics title gained more coverage than any economic issue during the campaign. And yet, this was highly appropriate: in a state whose politics were dominated by Aboriginal issues, Freeman’s astonishing success was the ultimate rebuff to Hanson’s pretensions to create ‘one nation’ based on English values. How could she claim such, when the contributions of Aboriginal Australians were so apparent?
All three parties fought for coverage against the overwhelming tide of the Olympics. Yet by the end of the campaign, no polling had been conducted for weeks. Hanson, who demanded to be at the centre of press and political attention, found herself ignored. This immensely consequential election was reduced to triviality.
Day 823 – Three Days to Election Day...
Rain cascaded down the windows. It had been drizzling for days, a constant soak straining tempers. Hanson stood on the stage of a small community hall. She lectured a small crowd of invalid, elderly voters about land rights. Mark, who’d been assigned to follow her for the last days of the campaign, stayed outside, reading on the veranda. He’d been making notes in The Whitlam Government – comparing his government to Whitlam’s. He was searching for validation.
Another campaign aide stared out into the mist, watching lightning crackle over the Glasshouse Mountains. They were a few miles outside Noosa, and yet the sea could not be seen; the resort in winter was a pitiful place, sodden and tired.
‘How do you think she’s doing?’ asked the aide.
Mark closed his book. ‘Badly,’ he said. ‘She still doesn’t get it. She thinks the voters want her for the social stuff. I mean, land rights, for gods sakes; if I didn’t know she was uncontrollable I’d drag her off that stage right now.’
The aide looked surprised; Mark was generally more technical, more precise in his language. ‘So why do they vote for us, then?’
‘Because they think we can improve their lives. Everyone’s forgotten that, every politician in this country; they think voters want nothing more than to be left alone. That’s nonsense. They want help. Hanson exploited that, but she never really understood that; she thought people would be content for her to crusade against the symptoms of their distress, but never the causes. And that’s why we’re going to lose, and that’s why we deserve to lose.’
The aide scoffed. ‘You’re a real wet blanket, you know that?’
‘We deserve this,’ repeated Mark, mournfully. ‘People voted for us because they felt that they were growing apart. That class, race, beliefs, were all driving us apart. That we were becoming more unfriendly, more scared, more...brutal, callous, all that. But One Nation grew out of those trends; it was never going to solve them. We were a manifestation of everything economic rationalism has done to this country. And I helped it. I created it.’
Lightning lit up the veranda for a few seconds; Mark sighed. ‘She’ll be finished in a few minutes. But she can’t be stopped, not even if she loses; the divides she’s spurred up in Queensland will take generations to heal. We will be more scared and more divided than in any time in our history. And I did it.’
The aide clapped his hand against the wall of the veranda. ‘Don’t feel so bad about it, mate. At least she kept the Asians out of the state.’
Mark sighed again.
Day 826, Election Night
Right up until the end, Samantha still had hope.
There would be a swing. She was sure of that. They would lose every seat in the Brisbane surrounds, and there would be losses on the Gold Coast. But they would pick up Nat Lib seats, surely, and draw off defectors from the imploding merged party if necessary. They were the only party of progress, the party of ideas. When they moved, politics moved with them; every other party merely reacted, caught up in their wake. They were revolutionaries. History was on their side...
But she knew from the first results. Angus Lockey, in Mackay, was swept out with the tide – a 10% swing against him. The brains of One Nation authoritarianism conceded defeat in the first moments of counting.
The headquarters were quiet, as the numbers rolled in. Some quietly sobbed in corners. Others, shellshocked, rationalised away the defeat – ‘We can pick up seats in Sunshine, we can keep the north’ – until it was impossible. Samantha stayed calm, right until the end, right until Pauline took the stage to angrily, bitterly denounce those who had turned on her.
Mark worked the numbers, without emotion. He looked up at the end of the speech to see Samantha, standing amidst the desks and chairs, lit by stuttering fluorescent lights. He forced himself to keep looking. He needed to experience this, to share her pain – to know what he’d done to her and her dreams. It was the price he paid.
She looked over towards him. She walked, steadily, over his desk, until she towered over him.
She spat in his face.
Then she walked out, turning out the lights behind her – even as the office was still crowded with people, all silent, all broken – and Mark was alone once more.
The Election
Turnout was low, even with compulsory voting – just 88% of eligible voters reached the polls. Rates of informal and donkey voting were higher than in past years. One Nation supporters had been disillusioned by Hanson’s erratic governance, the incompetence of her ministers, and the domination of government by staffers. Labor supporters were torn between One Nation’s interventionist economic policies and traditional ties. Rural Nat Libs were disgusted by the party’s domination by the federal Liberal Party; urban Nat Libs saw it as merely a National Party takeover.
One Nation was reduced to 25% of the vote. It lost 20 seats, including those of Angus Lockey, Bill Feldman – and Wayne Robinson, pipped by 203 votes. The Nat Libs fared even worse, reduced to 5 seats, all in urban areas, with a humiliating 15% of the vote.
The Labor Party won by default, merely by not being One Nation or the Nat Libs. They won 50.1% of the primary vote, and 60 seats. Independents – former One Nation MPs and rural populists – won another 3 seats. It was a shattering defeat for One Nation, the end of their political moment. It forms part and parcel of Hanson’s shocking two years of triumph – just as she had come to power by coincidence and a sudden zeitgeist, the loss of such an animating momentum left her government ruined and her credibility in tatters.
The Aftermath
In her concession speech, Hanson delivered a fiery bromide, attacking media bias, ethnic branch-stacking and Labor corruption. She refused to concede any fault on her own part, and declared – startlingly – her own campaign for the Prime Ministership, at the federal election the next year.
The ‘Pauline for PM’ campaign lasted a little over a year. She campaigned amongst the true believers in every state, and seemed, for a while, to gain momentum from voter disgust at the trench warfare between Kennett and Beazley. She campaigned heavily on the issue of asylum seekers. At the 2001 Western Australian election, One Nation won 15% of the vote and three outback seats – surpassing all expectations. For a while it seemed as if Hanson could pull off the impossible: achieve the balance of power, and a strong role in a coalition government.
But Hanson was denied the preference deals that had allowed her a shocking victory in 1998. Both parties campaigned against ‘One Nation extremism’. She was denied press coverage, denied credibility and forced further and further to the fringes of the political spectrum, in order to curry favour with a diminishing base. Her campaign has been compared to Gough Whitlam, in his sad opposition leadership from 1975-1977; a true believer after her time, fighting desperately to reclaim a lost historical moment.
One Nation gained 9.8% of the national vote in 2001 – more than expected, but only enough to elect a Senator in Queensland. Hanson won the constituency of Oxley, her first seat; no other MPs were elected. One Nation votes drew disproportionately from the Coalition, but spread preferences evenly between Labor and Liberal. This allowed Kim Beazley to scrape out a narrow re-election win, which pundits dryly attributed to Hanson. At the by-election for her state seat, Labor won in a landslide.
With Hanson reduced to lonely ostracism in federal Parliament, One Nation underwent a spectacular implosion. Factions, divided by personality as much as politics, tore the parliamentary party apart. One Nation was a party held together by grievances, personal ambition and Hanson’s charisma. It was not a party well-built for opposition: it was not a party well-built for anything.
Three separate ‘One Nation’ parties competed in the 2003 state elections. None gained more than 10% of the vote. The largest faction, under former Transport Minister Jamie Fisk, won seats in the Gladstone region on a platform inspired by the ideas of Mark Vass. But the overall result was decimation. The Nat Libs regained their status as Official Opposition; Labor, under Peter Beattie’s cautious, conservative governance, actually increased their majority.
Today, One Nation exists only in Queensland. Hanson retains her House seat, although the party has no Senators. Jim Fisk’s faction retains five seats in the Queensland Parliament, although he himself has retired. Otherwise, the party did not survive its first decade.
A Reflection on One Nation
One Nation will probably always remain controversial. Its dwindling supporters gain greater vehemence as time goes by; its hysterical opponents continue to believe Hanson was a hair’s breadth away from fascism. As she fades into memory, the debate grows more emotional, memories grow more distorted, and the entire history is shrouded in myth.
It must first be acknowledged One Nation had real accomplishments, beyond the extraordinary feat of being elected at all. Health, education and welfare spending were all increased dramatically. The rail lines constructed by One Nation are amongst the best in Australia, serving rural communities dying for lack of access. Public housing was upgraded; urban services, especially in rural areas, received reinvigoration; and local governments were given new funding and functions. Unemployment declined significantly. The apprentice subsidy scheme was retained, and improved, by Labor, and has become an article of bipartisan faith in Queensland. If you were white, and especially if you lived in a regional area, then the One Nation years were good to you.
But on balance, her legacy was negative. Ethnic Australians suffered a level of hostility and discrimination unseen in decades. New Nationalism, rank bigotry at its worst, must be condemned in the strongest terms. The Queensland Trust never worked as intended and became a mere rort, funnelling money from the taxpayer directly to favoured groups: farmers and small businessmen. Environmental protections were greatly undermined. Civil liberties and due process were damaged and systematically attacked. Mandatory sentencing and the death penalty became international stains on Australia’s reputation, and hurt the efficacy and public respect of the criminal justice system.
Hanson’s worst legacy was in Aboriginal affairs. Although her land clearances were ended by the Labor government, and compensation was given (in part, and gradually) for dispossession and lost property, the fact remains that an entire region was ethnically cleansed. Aboriginal disadvantage in Queensland is the worst in Australia. Homelessness remains the single most pressing problem of any Queensland government. Her attack on land rights, on human dignity, on the simple concept of the equality of races will tar her as the worst head of government for Aborigines in Australian history.
One Nation was a radical party. This defined its best and its worst moments. But this radicalism was doomed to burn out, brightly and briefly. It was not a party built for governance. And yet our society, in Queensland and Australia, will always bear the scars and signs of the Hanson government.
Epilogue
Hobart, Tasmania – Day 3650
He rides a bike to work – public transport is terrible here, although he’s doing his bit to change that. He shows his badge at Parliament House, sweeps through an office of cronies into a meeting with the Deputy Premier. He uses the right buzzwords: ‘sustainability’, ‘social justice’, ‘a Green Tasmania is the only Tasmania that can survive.’ He’s used to veiling his message in other people’s words by now.
A morning of hard work on education policy. Regional Tasmania is one of the most impoverished regions of Australia – ‘six finger country’, lacking the services the rest take for granted. His schemes – universal kindergarten education, tax credits for teachers, and more funding, of course – will change that. Equality of outcome will only result, ultimately, from equality of opportunity.
He wanders down to a cafe for lunch. They serve battered fish and chips, straight from the sea – some of the best he’s ever tasted. He sits down at a table, opens up his copy of the Mercury. Latham is in trouble, again, over his tax proposals. The Finance Minister has already resigned – they’re saying a leadership coup is days away. But the Liberals are a hopeless rabble, caught between half a dozen aspirants for the crown. Australia is in desperate need of leadership, yet neither party seems fit to provide.
And then Mark sees Samantha.
She walks in, and looks around the cafe. Her hair is cut short. Her face is more lined. And she’s lost weight – somewhat alarmingly so. But he knows it’s her. She sees him.
And she smiles.
She sits down across the table from him. He doesn’t know what to say.
She speaks first. ‘Hello, Mark.’
He still doesn’t know what to say.
‘I asked at your office,’ she says. ‘They say you come here every day, for lunch. You always liked a routine.’
No response. She smiles.
‘Honestly, Mark. You work for the Greens?’
He finally responds. ‘They don’t like to publicise it,’ he stammers. ‘I’m the Man in the Iron Mask, to them. But they like my ideas. Some of them.’
And then they both talk, in a rapid-fire burst of anecdotes and half-truths. She’s a real-estate agent now, up in Noosa. She alludes to a few years of financial struggle; attempts to gain political patrons that never eventuated, time spent on the dole. He talks about bouncing from party to party, state to state, constantly on the move to sell his ideas.
‘The Greens aren’t that far from One Nation, you know,’ he gabbles. ‘We both want to protect the Australian economy from foreign interests. We both want to stand up for the poorest in society. We’re both interested in sharing the wealth.’
She snorts, amused. ‘I think only you were interested in sharing the wealth. You just talked louder than the rest of us.’
‘I’m doing good work,’ he says, proudly. ‘We’ve been in coalition for two years. In that time, child mortality’s fallen, test scores have risen, and work’s already begun on the Hobart metro. It’s...it’s wonderful.’
Samantha smiles fondly. ‘Still the revolutionary. Still changing the world.’
‘Yes,’ he replies, without embarrassment.
They sit in silence for a moment. A waiter walks up; she orders a coffee.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks.
She shrugs. ‘This is my holiday. I met Wayne Robinson a few weeks ago; he was buying property, just like everyone else. He’s getting married again. And he said you worked down here. So...here I am.’
‘Here you are,’ he repeats. ‘That’s how you’re here. I’m asking why.’
She giggles at the overanalysis. He blushes. ‘I’m here because I wanted to see you,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what happens from there. I hadn’t planned this out very far.’
Another awkward pause; Mark plays with the chips on his plate.
‘We really don’t work out very well,’ he finally says, haltingly. ‘You knew we don’t. There’s something wrong with me. I’m...obsessive. Single-minded. A workaholic. And you...you spat on me, last time we saw each other.’
‘I know,’ says Samantha. ‘It was a difficult time. You got us thrown out of government. We did a lot of good stuff, more than any other Australian government. We changed the world, you and me, and you threw it all away. I worked my whole life towards that and you threw it all away.’
‘Then...’ He gulps. Everything is predicated on this one moment. ‘Then why are you here?’
She smiles. ‘Like I said. I’m on my holiday. But...if you wanted...another explanation...then I suppose it’s because some things are more important than the revolution. I don’t know why I like you. You’re not good-looking, that’s for sure. But...you interest me, with your ideas and your obsessions and you’re kinda charming, in your own way.’
He looks down at his plate, to hide his embarrassment. She shrugs. ‘And...I suppose...well, the real estate boom in Queensland’s fading, as the economy slows. But with the investments you’re making here, there’s a population shift. I think it’s a real growth market.’
Without looking up from his plate, he mumbles, ‘I don’t know if we can sustain...something...just based on me being kinda interesting.’
He looks up. He sees her smiling – a sight that he would once have given the whole world for. Something he tried to give the revolution for. He may be badly-made. He may be not quite human. But for a while, she almost made him so.
He finally smiles. ‘But I suppose it’s worth a shot.’
The End
The Election
By the second week of the campaign, it was obvious that One Nation’s route to victory lay through the National Liberal Party. Their attempt to ‘play both sides of the fence’, appealing to urban and rural voters, was clearly not working; they stood to lose most of the former National seats to One Nation, which would have the result of forestalling seat losses elsewhere. Meanwhile, their attacks on Labor split the vote in southern seats, allowing preference exhaustion to potentially benefit One Nation. Preferential voting was invented to prevent three-cornered contests, but Queensland’s ‘optional preferential’ system stymied much of the effect of this.
The solution was found in an act of calculated political bastardry. Jeff Kennett, Peter Beattie and Kim Beazley arranged for One Nation candidates not to be preferenced on any Nat Lib ‘how-to-vote’ cards – a move sure to alienate rural voters. In exchange for this, Labor candidates would withdraw from many traditionally Liberal seats, giving Nat Lib candidates a clear run. Effectively, any seats lost in the bush would be regained on the Gold Coast, and Labor would lose a critical thorn in its side.
The plan was far too clever for its own good – to the extent that many have queried whether it was actually ever meant to be implemented. On Wednesday of the second week, the plan was leaked to the press. The former National Party members of the Nat Libs were outraged; they were to be the sacrificial lambs under this plan, ceding party heartland to One Nation. Conservative voters resented negotiations with Labor, undertaken behind the voters’ backs. And everyone, especially Nat Lib leader Mal Brough, loathed Kennett, and his presumption in attempting to manipulate the electoral process.
The result of this was a sudden plunge in the Nat Lib vote. Contrary to expectations, this benefitted Labor, not One Nation; many voters were ‘anyone but Hanson’ voters, preferring a conservative Labor government to a radical Hanson government. Labor had been forced to defend its urban flank from a Nat Lib incursion; with the threat neutralised, they were able to push into One Nation’s rural heartland in the final days of the campaign.
The Olympics
On Friday 15 September, 2000, the Sydney Olympics began.
Aboriginal heritage was recognised. Stockriders galloped across the stadium floor, cracking whips. The nations were paraded; diminished by awkward gaps where the boycotts should have marched. The world’s attention bent upon Sydney, and saw...
They saw something good. What superlatives there were, were strangely lacking: decency, humility, tolerance. They saw a nation that, even if it had not come to terms with its past, recognised something wrong, some strain on the nation’s conscience: it could not be ignored any longer. They saw faces of every colour and beliefs of every complexion. Hanson’s demagoguery could only have worked in Ipswich, a provincial town of dying industry and parochial concerns. Her people did not know multiculturalism; they knew a caricature, a strawman composed by talkback radio and dark rumours. But for most Australians, multiculturalism wasn’t a dogma or a spectre or an inspiration or a curse. It was just there, the way we lived; merely the ideal that you should not be respected according to how well you ‘measured up’ to some sketched Australian identity, some pastiche of Kelly and Gallipoli and Kokoda, but according to who you were. Attempts to intellectualise the ideal, to place it in terms of demography and sociology, ignored the simple human truths at stake.
Of course, this is overanalysis. What merely happened was that the world turned to Australia and saw a nation decent and good, fair and free, and that Australia blushed at their appreciation. The national mood seemed to shift. The ‘Hanson years’ – those dominated by the conflicts over race and national pride – were ultimately about a changing nation: whether the achievements and struggles of the last 30 years had been worth it, or merely damaged and divided the nation. The Olympics seemed, perhaps, to confirm the answer.
Or, at least, that’s one theory. The main problem with political analysis in Australia is that myths and cod-psychology hang over the field like spiderwebs. It’s entirely possible to attribute Hanson’s decline to the in-fighting between staff, a skilful campaign by Peter Beattie accompanied by expensive advertising, or even the launch of Steven Mann’s autobiography, A Radical For Capitalism. Little read and less bought, Mann’s damaging revelations – Vass’s confrontational and obsessive personality, Calden’s ruthlessness and absolute determination to win – reinforced an image of One Nation’s government as crony-laden and dominated by ideologues.
But it can hardly be denied that the Olympics played some role. They completely overshadowed the last two weeks of the campaign, which fought for coverage against blanket sports news. Cathy Freeman’s victory in the 400m athletics title gained more coverage than any economic issue during the campaign. And yet, this was highly appropriate: in a state whose politics were dominated by Aboriginal issues, Freeman’s astonishing success was the ultimate rebuff to Hanson’s pretensions to create ‘one nation’ based on English values. How could she claim such, when the contributions of Aboriginal Australians were so apparent?
All three parties fought for coverage against the overwhelming tide of the Olympics. Yet by the end of the campaign, no polling had been conducted for weeks. Hanson, who demanded to be at the centre of press and political attention, found herself ignored. This immensely consequential election was reduced to triviality.
Day 823 – Three Days to Election Day...
Rain cascaded down the windows. It had been drizzling for days, a constant soak straining tempers. Hanson stood on the stage of a small community hall. She lectured a small crowd of invalid, elderly voters about land rights. Mark, who’d been assigned to follow her for the last days of the campaign, stayed outside, reading on the veranda. He’d been making notes in The Whitlam Government – comparing his government to Whitlam’s. He was searching for validation.
Another campaign aide stared out into the mist, watching lightning crackle over the Glasshouse Mountains. They were a few miles outside Noosa, and yet the sea could not be seen; the resort in winter was a pitiful place, sodden and tired.
‘How do you think she’s doing?’ asked the aide.
Mark closed his book. ‘Badly,’ he said. ‘She still doesn’t get it. She thinks the voters want her for the social stuff. I mean, land rights, for gods sakes; if I didn’t know she was uncontrollable I’d drag her off that stage right now.’
The aide looked surprised; Mark was generally more technical, more precise in his language. ‘So why do they vote for us, then?’
‘Because they think we can improve their lives. Everyone’s forgotten that, every politician in this country; they think voters want nothing more than to be left alone. That’s nonsense. They want help. Hanson exploited that, but she never really understood that; she thought people would be content for her to crusade against the symptoms of their distress, but never the causes. And that’s why we’re going to lose, and that’s why we deserve to lose.’
The aide scoffed. ‘You’re a real wet blanket, you know that?’
‘We deserve this,’ repeated Mark, mournfully. ‘People voted for us because they felt that they were growing apart. That class, race, beliefs, were all driving us apart. That we were becoming more unfriendly, more scared, more...brutal, callous, all that. But One Nation grew out of those trends; it was never going to solve them. We were a manifestation of everything economic rationalism has done to this country. And I helped it. I created it.’
Lightning lit up the veranda for a few seconds; Mark sighed. ‘She’ll be finished in a few minutes. But she can’t be stopped, not even if she loses; the divides she’s spurred up in Queensland will take generations to heal. We will be more scared and more divided than in any time in our history. And I did it.’
The aide clapped his hand against the wall of the veranda. ‘Don’t feel so bad about it, mate. At least she kept the Asians out of the state.’
Mark sighed again.
Day 826, Election Night
Right up until the end, Samantha still had hope.
There would be a swing. She was sure of that. They would lose every seat in the Brisbane surrounds, and there would be losses on the Gold Coast. But they would pick up Nat Lib seats, surely, and draw off defectors from the imploding merged party if necessary. They were the only party of progress, the party of ideas. When they moved, politics moved with them; every other party merely reacted, caught up in their wake. They were revolutionaries. History was on their side...
But she knew from the first results. Angus Lockey, in Mackay, was swept out with the tide – a 10% swing against him. The brains of One Nation authoritarianism conceded defeat in the first moments of counting.
The headquarters were quiet, as the numbers rolled in. Some quietly sobbed in corners. Others, shellshocked, rationalised away the defeat – ‘We can pick up seats in Sunshine, we can keep the north’ – until it was impossible. Samantha stayed calm, right until the end, right until Pauline took the stage to angrily, bitterly denounce those who had turned on her.
Mark worked the numbers, without emotion. He looked up at the end of the speech to see Samantha, standing amidst the desks and chairs, lit by stuttering fluorescent lights. He forced himself to keep looking. He needed to experience this, to share her pain – to know what he’d done to her and her dreams. It was the price he paid.
She looked over towards him. She walked, steadily, over his desk, until she towered over him.
She spat in his face.
Then she walked out, turning out the lights behind her – even as the office was still crowded with people, all silent, all broken – and Mark was alone once more.
The Election
Turnout was low, even with compulsory voting – just 88% of eligible voters reached the polls. Rates of informal and donkey voting were higher than in past years. One Nation supporters had been disillusioned by Hanson’s erratic governance, the incompetence of her ministers, and the domination of government by staffers. Labor supporters were torn between One Nation’s interventionist economic policies and traditional ties. Rural Nat Libs were disgusted by the party’s domination by the federal Liberal Party; urban Nat Libs saw it as merely a National Party takeover.
One Nation was reduced to 25% of the vote. It lost 20 seats, including those of Angus Lockey, Bill Feldman – and Wayne Robinson, pipped by 203 votes. The Nat Libs fared even worse, reduced to 5 seats, all in urban areas, with a humiliating 15% of the vote.
The Labor Party won by default, merely by not being One Nation or the Nat Libs. They won 50.1% of the primary vote, and 60 seats. Independents – former One Nation MPs and rural populists – won another 3 seats. It was a shattering defeat for One Nation, the end of their political moment. It forms part and parcel of Hanson’s shocking two years of triumph – just as she had come to power by coincidence and a sudden zeitgeist, the loss of such an animating momentum left her government ruined and her credibility in tatters.
The Aftermath
In her concession speech, Hanson delivered a fiery bromide, attacking media bias, ethnic branch-stacking and Labor corruption. She refused to concede any fault on her own part, and declared – startlingly – her own campaign for the Prime Ministership, at the federal election the next year.
The ‘Pauline for PM’ campaign lasted a little over a year. She campaigned amongst the true believers in every state, and seemed, for a while, to gain momentum from voter disgust at the trench warfare between Kennett and Beazley. She campaigned heavily on the issue of asylum seekers. At the 2001 Western Australian election, One Nation won 15% of the vote and three outback seats – surpassing all expectations. For a while it seemed as if Hanson could pull off the impossible: achieve the balance of power, and a strong role in a coalition government.
But Hanson was denied the preference deals that had allowed her a shocking victory in 1998. Both parties campaigned against ‘One Nation extremism’. She was denied press coverage, denied credibility and forced further and further to the fringes of the political spectrum, in order to curry favour with a diminishing base. Her campaign has been compared to Gough Whitlam, in his sad opposition leadership from 1975-1977; a true believer after her time, fighting desperately to reclaim a lost historical moment.
One Nation gained 9.8% of the national vote in 2001 – more than expected, but only enough to elect a Senator in Queensland. Hanson won the constituency of Oxley, her first seat; no other MPs were elected. One Nation votes drew disproportionately from the Coalition, but spread preferences evenly between Labor and Liberal. This allowed Kim Beazley to scrape out a narrow re-election win, which pundits dryly attributed to Hanson. At the by-election for her state seat, Labor won in a landslide.
With Hanson reduced to lonely ostracism in federal Parliament, One Nation underwent a spectacular implosion. Factions, divided by personality as much as politics, tore the parliamentary party apart. One Nation was a party held together by grievances, personal ambition and Hanson’s charisma. It was not a party well-built for opposition: it was not a party well-built for anything.
Three separate ‘One Nation’ parties competed in the 2003 state elections. None gained more than 10% of the vote. The largest faction, under former Transport Minister Jamie Fisk, won seats in the Gladstone region on a platform inspired by the ideas of Mark Vass. But the overall result was decimation. The Nat Libs regained their status as Official Opposition; Labor, under Peter Beattie’s cautious, conservative governance, actually increased their majority.
Today, One Nation exists only in Queensland. Hanson retains her House seat, although the party has no Senators. Jim Fisk’s faction retains five seats in the Queensland Parliament, although he himself has retired. Otherwise, the party did not survive its first decade.
A Reflection on One Nation
One Nation will probably always remain controversial. Its dwindling supporters gain greater vehemence as time goes by; its hysterical opponents continue to believe Hanson was a hair’s breadth away from fascism. As she fades into memory, the debate grows more emotional, memories grow more distorted, and the entire history is shrouded in myth.
It must first be acknowledged One Nation had real accomplishments, beyond the extraordinary feat of being elected at all. Health, education and welfare spending were all increased dramatically. The rail lines constructed by One Nation are amongst the best in Australia, serving rural communities dying for lack of access. Public housing was upgraded; urban services, especially in rural areas, received reinvigoration; and local governments were given new funding and functions. Unemployment declined significantly. The apprentice subsidy scheme was retained, and improved, by Labor, and has become an article of bipartisan faith in Queensland. If you were white, and especially if you lived in a regional area, then the One Nation years were good to you.
But on balance, her legacy was negative. Ethnic Australians suffered a level of hostility and discrimination unseen in decades. New Nationalism, rank bigotry at its worst, must be condemned in the strongest terms. The Queensland Trust never worked as intended and became a mere rort, funnelling money from the taxpayer directly to favoured groups: farmers and small businessmen. Environmental protections were greatly undermined. Civil liberties and due process were damaged and systematically attacked. Mandatory sentencing and the death penalty became international stains on Australia’s reputation, and hurt the efficacy and public respect of the criminal justice system.
Hanson’s worst legacy was in Aboriginal affairs. Although her land clearances were ended by the Labor government, and compensation was given (in part, and gradually) for dispossession and lost property, the fact remains that an entire region was ethnically cleansed. Aboriginal disadvantage in Queensland is the worst in Australia. Homelessness remains the single most pressing problem of any Queensland government. Her attack on land rights, on human dignity, on the simple concept of the equality of races will tar her as the worst head of government for Aborigines in Australian history.
One Nation was a radical party. This defined its best and its worst moments. But this radicalism was doomed to burn out, brightly and briefly. It was not a party built for governance. And yet our society, in Queensland and Australia, will always bear the scars and signs of the Hanson government.
Epilogue
Hobart, Tasmania – Day 3650
He rides a bike to work – public transport is terrible here, although he’s doing his bit to change that. He shows his badge at Parliament House, sweeps through an office of cronies into a meeting with the Deputy Premier. He uses the right buzzwords: ‘sustainability’, ‘social justice’, ‘a Green Tasmania is the only Tasmania that can survive.’ He’s used to veiling his message in other people’s words by now.
A morning of hard work on education policy. Regional Tasmania is one of the most impoverished regions of Australia – ‘six finger country’, lacking the services the rest take for granted. His schemes – universal kindergarten education, tax credits for teachers, and more funding, of course – will change that. Equality of outcome will only result, ultimately, from equality of opportunity.
He wanders down to a cafe for lunch. They serve battered fish and chips, straight from the sea – some of the best he’s ever tasted. He sits down at a table, opens up his copy of the Mercury. Latham is in trouble, again, over his tax proposals. The Finance Minister has already resigned – they’re saying a leadership coup is days away. But the Liberals are a hopeless rabble, caught between half a dozen aspirants for the crown. Australia is in desperate need of leadership, yet neither party seems fit to provide.
And then Mark sees Samantha.
She walks in, and looks around the cafe. Her hair is cut short. Her face is more lined. And she’s lost weight – somewhat alarmingly so. But he knows it’s her. She sees him.
And she smiles.
She sits down across the table from him. He doesn’t know what to say.
She speaks first. ‘Hello, Mark.’
He still doesn’t know what to say.
‘I asked at your office,’ she says. ‘They say you come here every day, for lunch. You always liked a routine.’
No response. She smiles.
‘Honestly, Mark. You work for the Greens?’
He finally responds. ‘They don’t like to publicise it,’ he stammers. ‘I’m the Man in the Iron Mask, to them. But they like my ideas. Some of them.’
And then they both talk, in a rapid-fire burst of anecdotes and half-truths. She’s a real-estate agent now, up in Noosa. She alludes to a few years of financial struggle; attempts to gain political patrons that never eventuated, time spent on the dole. He talks about bouncing from party to party, state to state, constantly on the move to sell his ideas.
‘The Greens aren’t that far from One Nation, you know,’ he gabbles. ‘We both want to protect the Australian economy from foreign interests. We both want to stand up for the poorest in society. We’re both interested in sharing the wealth.’
She snorts, amused. ‘I think only you were interested in sharing the wealth. You just talked louder than the rest of us.’
‘I’m doing good work,’ he says, proudly. ‘We’ve been in coalition for two years. In that time, child mortality’s fallen, test scores have risen, and work’s already begun on the Hobart metro. It’s...it’s wonderful.’
Samantha smiles fondly. ‘Still the revolutionary. Still changing the world.’
‘Yes,’ he replies, without embarrassment.
They sit in silence for a moment. A waiter walks up; she orders a coffee.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks.
She shrugs. ‘This is my holiday. I met Wayne Robinson a few weeks ago; he was buying property, just like everyone else. He’s getting married again. And he said you worked down here. So...here I am.’
‘Here you are,’ he repeats. ‘That’s how you’re here. I’m asking why.’
She giggles at the overanalysis. He blushes. ‘I’m here because I wanted to see you,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what happens from there. I hadn’t planned this out very far.’
Another awkward pause; Mark plays with the chips on his plate.
‘We really don’t work out very well,’ he finally says, haltingly. ‘You knew we don’t. There’s something wrong with me. I’m...obsessive. Single-minded. A workaholic. And you...you spat on me, last time we saw each other.’
‘I know,’ says Samantha. ‘It was a difficult time. You got us thrown out of government. We did a lot of good stuff, more than any other Australian government. We changed the world, you and me, and you threw it all away. I worked my whole life towards that and you threw it all away.’
‘Then...’ He gulps. Everything is predicated on this one moment. ‘Then why are you here?’
She smiles. ‘Like I said. I’m on my holiday. But...if you wanted...another explanation...then I suppose it’s because some things are more important than the revolution. I don’t know why I like you. You’re not good-looking, that’s for sure. But...you interest me, with your ideas and your obsessions and you’re kinda charming, in your own way.’
He looks down at his plate, to hide his embarrassment. She shrugs. ‘And...I suppose...well, the real estate boom in Queensland’s fading, as the economy slows. But with the investments you’re making here, there’s a population shift. I think it’s a real growth market.’
Without looking up from his plate, he mumbles, ‘I don’t know if we can sustain...something...just based on me being kinda interesting.’
He looks up. He sees her smiling – a sight that he would once have given the whole world for. Something he tried to give the revolution for. He may be badly-made. He may be not quite human. But for a while, she almost made him so.
He finally smiles. ‘But I suppose it’s worth a shot.’
The End
Now that's the Aussie reaction I was expecting! I don't think I've ever said 'bonza' or 'ripper', but it makes me feel good that people do. Thanks!
Ooh, yes, I forgot the coda!
In the 1998 Queensland state election, One Nation gained 22.7% of the vote. In the 79 seats they contested, they gained over 25%. This was a third-party result without parallel in Australian history.
All they needed was a few butterflies. A new leader. New advisors. A few scandals and a few economic hiccups. We came so close.
We must never forget.
Ah, yes, that would explain it. See, I'm meant to be studying at the moment (and I am, I am!) So I've set myself to only write this after 8 PM at night. Since every update takes about an hour or two, that means it gets updated really late...
Good point, I'll consider that next time I write a TL. Although for now, all I want is a break...
Just thinking about this today:
My initial intention was for it to be a much more sad coda, the two of them in Tasmania realising that their essential personality flaws (especially Mark) mean they can never be together. But as I wrote the scene, I realised how much I enjoyed writing the two together, and how much I came to like Mark (with his hopeless, thwarted idealism) and Samantha (because I like writing strong female characters, even though I'm not particularly good at it). So I decided to let them stay together.
The thing is, the main thrust of the scene was to show storm clouds gathering: the economic crisis we're feeling now was beginning to build, Mark Latham was Prime Minister (with all that that implies), the Liberals were divided and self-destructive...and Samantha would darkly imply that Hanson's forces are re-massing, that from her seat in Oxley she will sweep to power on economic disenchantment and post-9/11 xenophobia (except, of course, that if this does happen in the Fifth Hamlin TL there's no 9/11; still, we can have President Hamlin threatened by a similar event instead.)
But I decided to write a nice scene about love in a coffee shop instead. I'm a sap.
when you titled this thread "Revolutionaries - A Queensland TL" I thought you were making that Queensland would go independent, however I would of liked to see Hanson and Samantha (I think she is a ringleader not Hanson in this TL) to both get a bullet in the back of their skulls for their crimes against the aboriginals (say by some poor disenfranchised soul), pity
good though (I don't like the racist Hanson in real life)
See Ya
Mark
good though (I don't like the racist Hanson in real life)
See Ya
Mark
Now THAT is what I call a TL!Excellent job.
Thank you, and thank you for all your comments during the process, but...
...it's not that much a TL. See, this was meant to be my try at writing a serious, straight TL: a historical account, in omniscient-third-person, tracing out the government's rise and fall. I was going to use Mark and Samantha just as talking heads to illustrate what was going on 'at the ground'.
But then I ran out of stuff for the government to do. I'd begun the story trying frantically to shape One Nation as 'Labor, circa 1951' -- but the more I read, I realised they weren't really like that. Beyond protectionism and pork-barrelling, they were far-right in every respect. And the problem with far-right movements opposed to privatisation is that there really isn't much they can do in state government, especially not with a federal government opposing their every move. Pauline Hanson was Joh Bjelke-Petersen, not Ben Chifley, and the Bjelke-Petersen government was fanatically opposed to 'big government' 'socialist' 'welfare' programs. Mark's ideal One Nation party never existed, in OTL or ATL.
So I ran out of interesting things for the government to do, and focused more on Mark and Samantha, to the point where Mark's personal eccentricities played a far larger role in the fall of the government than they should have. What happened was pretty much what I had planned all along, but it would be more gradual; One Nation would be a mess from the beginning.
But, hey, next time I reckon I'll manage not to get absorbed into characters and dialogue and all that. Next time I plan to write something so boring it'd alienate the phone book.
I didn't write the bad ending, as such. Samantha would turn up, it would be largely along the same lines, but they would realise that his crippling emotional flaws were such that they could never be together; he could never let go of his obsession with 'the program.'
But that was much more suited to the earlier plan for the story. Steven blows up the government, One Nation move towards fiscal discipline, and Mark rebels: he takes his caucus across the floor, bringing down the government, which is clobbed at the election. Samantha turns up in the coffee shop years later and they share a brief, wistful 'what might have been' moment, because in that version of the story Mark is much less likeable and more obsessive.
But I decided not to write that because I developed the Mark/Samantha thing further than I thought I would. I still planned to write my earlier ending: that Samantha would turn up, she'd defend the Hanson government, Mark would make a few morose comments, and she'd leave disconsolate, leaving Mark alone -- penance for his sins. But the version I ended up writing evolved, I think, better from Mark's experiences -- it's better he learns his lesson and becomes more human as a result than that he remains this socialist automaton.
Thanks for the interest, though.
Ah, when will be your next work? ARe you planning to get this published at all? Would you mind if I used your work as a basis for creating a scenario? and used your characters in this scenario? I also have a few ideas in my head at the moment about Mark Voss going to England to help an aspiring 'radical' party, perhaps the RESPECT party, if I do that, may I please use Mark Voss?
I would be flattered beyond belief if you carried out any of the above; RESPECT does seem to be a good fit for someone with Mark's absolute dedication to the cause and megalomanical tendancies. You are absolutely welcome.
What's next? Well, I have to finish my exams, for one, and then a good, long break. I might get to writing up my opus Marvel Comics Politics story, but it's probably the sort of thing best left inside my head.
If you're familiar at all with the game President Forever, Prime Minister Forever or any of those derivatives, expect to see an electoral simulation of the elections during the Hansonite years, just out of curiosity, would you know of any good electoral maps for Queensland?
EDIT: Mark being in RESPECT would also be a good way to show his move away from the 'social stuff' into the realm of economic socialism.
I found some Queensland electoral maps on the Queensland Electoral Commission website (http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/asp/index.asp), but they're not particularly distinguished. I made a chart of the most marginal seats to One Nation in preparation for this, based on the data in http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/Pubs/cib/1998-99/99cib02.htm. While really not wanting to get into specifics, since I'm no psephologist, I assumed that in ATL 1998 One Nation won all their OTL seats, as well as those seats requiring a 7% 2PP swing from Labor and those seats requiring a 9% 2PP swing from the Nats, with some seats swinging from Coalition to Labor to further weaken the Nats. Then for 1999 I just made stuff up.