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How Pauline Hanson transformed herself · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March twenty five, twenty twenty six. After eight
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  Speaker 1: years of intense negotiation, Australia signed a ten billion dollar
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  Speaker 1: trade deal with Europe plus a security pact to work
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  Speaker 1: together on a defense industrial base. It'll mean me abolition
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  Speaker 1: of all tariffs on fruit and veggies, almonds, walnuts and macadamias,
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  Speaker 1: plus much greater access for Australian meat and dairy. The
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  Speaker 1: inside story of how the deal was done is live
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  Speaker 1: right now at the Australian dot com dot au. What
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  Speaker 1: does Pauline Hanson really believe in? And can we believe
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  Speaker 1: her when she says she hasn't changed over thirty years
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  Speaker 1: in politics? Dennis Shanahan is here for a conversation full
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  Speaker 1: of unexpected laughs. Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor
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  Speaker 1: and Dennis, without wanting to make you feel old, you
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  Speaker 1: and I have both been around throughout the rise and
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  Speaker 1: fall and then rise again of Pauline Hansen. She was
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  Speaker 1: first elected in nineteen ninety six. She was a Liberal candidate,
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  Speaker 1: but she'd been disindorsed by John Howard's Liberal Party after
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  Speaker 1: making what the party believed were racist comments about Aborigines.
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  Speaker 2: I come here not as a polished politician, but as
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  Speaker 2: a woman who has her fair share of life's knocks.
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  Speaker 2: My view on issues is based on common sense and
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  Speaker 2: my experience as a mother of four children, a sole parent,
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  Speaker 2: and a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop. I
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  Speaker 2: won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that
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  Speaker 2: has resulted in me being called a racist. That issue
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  Speaker 2: related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than
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  Speaker 2: non Aboriginals.
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  Speaker 1: She was then elected to parliament and you sent a bright,
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  Speaker 1: young reporter out to interview her. In that interview, Pauline
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  Speaker 1: Hanson said she was fighting for the white community, the immigrants, Italians, Greeks, whoever.
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  Speaker 1: It really doesn't matter anyone apart from the Aboriginals and
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  Speaker 1: Torres Strait Islanders. And for me, that's the phrase that
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  Speaker 1: has summed up who Pauline Hanson really is. Over all
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  Speaker 1: of these years, she's now saying that she has not
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  Speaker 1: changed her views in her whole time in public life.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, perhaps she hasn't changed her views, but I
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  Speaker 3: think she has certainly changed how she expresses her views.
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  Speaker 3: I think she has changed where she directs her views,
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  Speaker 3: where she directs her comments, and the tone of her
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  Speaker 3: rhetoric is definitely changed as well as there is a
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  Speaker 3: greater awareness of Pauline Hansen of what is actually required
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  Speaker 3: for her to continue success and to be even more successful.
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  Speaker 3: So this idea that I'll know I haven't changed. The
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  Speaker 3: times have changed and everyone's caught up with me, and
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  Speaker 3: now they understand what I'm saying. I think there's a
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  Speaker 3: little bit of frippery in there. What she's actually done
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  Speaker 3: is developed more nuance as politician. She's developed more nuance
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  Speaker 3: in the language she uses, although there are times when
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  Speaker 3: she flips back, but overall, I think she has become
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  Speaker 3: more sophisticated as a politician, certainly more sophisticated as a communicator.
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  Speaker 3: And while her views are essentially the same as far
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  Speaker 3: as i'm tax family, aboriginal dependency and immigration, I think
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  Speaker 3: that she has changed and she is adapting to changed times.
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  Speaker 3: And I think the South Australian election has proved.
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  Speaker 4: That I love you too. That's why I've never given up.
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  Speaker 4: And I say to people, stand your ground, if you're right,
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  Speaker 4: have a right to have an opinion. We are a
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  Speaker 4: strands to be proud of it, stand tall and strong.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting that she still presents herself as sort of
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  Speaker 1: the only one who'll tell you the truth and the
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  Speaker 1: only one who speaks for you, and the representative or
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  Speaker 1: avatar of free speech. Because in her maiden speech, you
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  Speaker 1: know later that year in nineteen ninety six, which you covered,
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  Speaker 1: she said Australia is in danger of being swamped by Asians.
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  Speaker 2: I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.
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  Speaker 2: Between nineteen eighty four and nineteen ninety five, forty percent
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  Speaker 2: of all migrants into this country were of Asian origin.
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  Speaker 2: They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and
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  Speaker 2: do not assimilate. Of course I will be called race.
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  Speaker 2: But if I can invite who I want into my home,
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  Speaker 2: then I should have the right to have a say
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  Speaker 2: in who comes into my country.
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  Speaker 1: Now I cannot imagine her making that remark today, although
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  Speaker 1: she does say things like questioning whether there are any
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  Speaker 1: good Muslims. Just taking those two remarks in US, what
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  Speaker 1: do you think is the difference there? Is it that
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  Speaker 1: she is just more sophisticated and more nuanced now, or
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  Speaker 1: is it that she's curbed herself because she knows that
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  Speaker 1: to say something like that today would not fly.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I think a couple of things for a start,
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  Speaker 3: because of that speech she delivered in Parliament, and I
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  Speaker 3: watched and thought, this is going to be interesting. She
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  Speaker 3: doesn't actually have to continue to repeat the same messages
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  Speaker 3: people think have in the back of their mind. I
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  Speaker 3: know what Pauline's thinking. I know what Pauline is going
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  Speaker 3: to do. And in that speech she said she was
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  Speaker 3: just a fish and chip shop owner. She was speaking
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  Speaker 3: from common sense, and just in an interview with The
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  Speaker 3: Australian on Monday, she talked about operating from her gut.
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  Speaker 3: So she's still talking in the same way. So she
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  Speaker 3: doesn't actually have to come out and say that Australia
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  Speaker 3: will be swamped by Asians, because for those who remember
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  Speaker 3: that and for those who give her credit for it,
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  Speaker 3: she doesn't have to repeat it. But interestingly, in that
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  Speaker 3: first speech, where she did talk about the separation of Australia,
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  Speaker 3: particularly along race lines, with Indigenous Australians and white Australia,
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  Speaker 3: she also said while she was against immigration, she was
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  Speaker 3: against people coming in who couldn't speak English. They formed
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  Speaker 3: ghettos and that they stuck together and all that sort
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  Speaker 3: of stuff. She actually also said she also believed that
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  Speaker 3: Australians who were already in Australia of ethnic background were
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  Speaker 3: very good Australians. Now, I think what she said recently
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  Speaker 3: about Muslims is actually a way of how she has
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  Speaker 3: developed this more nuanced approach. Where she said, oh, I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if there are any good Muslims. It was
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  Speaker 3: not oh, we've got to ban Muslims from coming to
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  Speaker 3: Australia because they live in ghettos. She was just sort
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  Speaker 3: of tapping in to obviously a sense of Islamophobia after
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  Speaker 3: the Bondai massacre. Now I think that this demonstrates she
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  Speaker 3: is prepared to keep up the same message, the message
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  Speaker 3: from that original speech, but she's doing it in a
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  Speaker 3: different way. She's doing in a more nuanced way. And
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  Speaker 3: the other thing that I think is interesting is that
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  Speaker 3: her first speech and her first years, her first decades,
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  Speaker 3: it was all about Pauline Hansen. It was the Pauline
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  Speaker 3: Hansen One Nation Party. It was FOM. It wasn't just on,
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  Speaker 3: it was FONM. And she recently has realized that with
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  Speaker 3: the growth of support for One nation. She needs to
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  Speaker 3: gain some credibility. It's not just good enough to be
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  Speaker 3: a party of protest, a party of grievance. She resents
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  Speaker 3: the fact people call her a populist party because what
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  Speaker 3: she's trying to do is change that view. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: she plays with populism and says, oh, aren't we meant
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  Speaker 3: to be popular? Aren't politicians meant to be popular? Well? Yes,
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  Speaker 3: but populus means another thing. So it has to start
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  Speaker 3: to get a different view of what One Nation is
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  Speaker 3: and what Pauline Hanson is as well.
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  Speaker 1: I guess populism is saying things that are very easy
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  Speaker 1: solutions that you have no capacity or real intention of
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  Speaker 1: putting into effect. For example, well maybe we should just
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: hang all the criminals, or maybe we should just turn
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  Speaker 1: away all the immigrants. So when you look at her
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  Speaker 1: policies on the One Nation website, now the first thing
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  Speaker 1: you see is the family tax policy. This is about
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  Speaker 1: income splitting. This is a very old debating politics, Tennis.
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  Speaker 1: You must need a trigger warning before anyone talks about
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  Speaker 1: income splitting. But basically, it's if a couple earns two incomes,
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  Speaker 1: you can combine those incomes and then average them out
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  Speaker 1: so that you can access more family support. There are
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  Speaker 1: things like constitutional recognition of free speech. There is abolishing
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  Speaker 1: the Department of Climate Change means testing the NDIS so nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: would you characterize those policies as kind of pure populism
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  Speaker 1: with no real practical possibility of either being accomplished.
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  Speaker 3: Or working well. This is another thing where she has changed.
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  Speaker 3: She has recognized that just being grievance and protest party
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  Speaker 3: is not enough, and she is putting out policies family
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  Speaker 3: income splitting. Ironically, she's also talking about abolishing the Climate
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  Speaker 3: Change Department of downgrading solar and wind so it doesn't
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  Speaker 3: take up agricultural land. These are all very popular policies
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  Speaker 3: in the regional areas, but she is actually putting these
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  Speaker 3: up as policies because what is hurting her And this
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  Speaker 3: is the line that Matt Canavan, new Nationals leader, has used.
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  Speaker 3: She hasn't built anything in the years she's been in politics.
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  Speaker 3: There's not one road, not one bridge, not one dam
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  Speaker 3: she can point to and say I did that, And
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  Speaker 3: so she realizes she needs to do this. And the
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  Speaker 3: irony here is that with income splitting. Various people have
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  Speaker 3: looked at this over the years, including Peter Dutton, who also,
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  Speaker 3: by the way, wanted nuclear energy and less emphasis on renewables.
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  Speaker 3: So in a way, Pauline Hanson is coming in and
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  Speaker 3: eating Peter Dutton's leftover at lunch. You know, she's just
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  Speaker 3: picking up on that, but she can see that she
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  Speaker 3: needs that credibility. Now part of that as well is
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  Speaker 3: her adoption, not just as the policies, but the personnel.
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  Speaker 3: She now has Cory Bernardi in the Upper House. In
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  Speaker 3: South Australia, she has former Deputy Prime Minister and National's
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  Speaker 3: Leader Barnaby Joyce in the House of Representatives. She has
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  Speaker 3: now two former ministers in coalition governments representing her party
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  Speaker 3: and it's interesting to see that she's been able to
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  Speaker 3: pull them around her Now people are saying she's always
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  Speaker 3: had this problem of translating polling support into seats, and
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  Speaker 3: she's achieved this in South Australia. Well, actually, when you
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  Speaker 3: look at it, she still has a real big problem.
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  Speaker 3: In lost in translation because one got more primary votes
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  Speaker 3: than the Liberals, much more. The Labor Party lost some
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  Speaker 3: seat and the some evidence of course that some of
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  Speaker 3: those loss of votes for Labor Party went to one Nation.
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  Speaker 3: And yet what's happened the Labor Party has increased its
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  Speaker 3: number of seats. The Liberal Party is holding on and
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  Speaker 3: may actually end up with more seats than one nation.
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  Speaker 3: So what we are still seeing is a problem that
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  Speaker 3: paul Enhansen faces, and she will face in farrh in
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  Speaker 3: the by election and in Victoria in the state election.
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  Speaker 3: There is that she still hasn't convinced enough people in
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  Speaker 3: the right places to change their vote to one nation.
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  Speaker 3: She says, I don't want to be prime minister. I
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  Speaker 3: don't want to be a leader of the opposition. But
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  Speaker 3: she wants to express herself for Australians. Okay, that's good,
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  Speaker 3: but she can't continue to do that unless she is
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  Speaker 3: credible alternative to the parties she's out polling.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. What the major parties can learn from Hanson.
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  Speaker 1: Every so often in the corporate world, they come up
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  Speaker 1: with a new obnoxious phrase. It used to be moving forward,
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  Speaker 1: which we saw politicians adopting very keenly. Now it's thought leadership.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone's a thought leader all of a sudden, and Pauline
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  Speaker 1: Hanson kind of is a thought leader, isn't she.
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  Speaker 2: I've led a lot of the policy and the agenda
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  Speaker 2: for both the Liberal and the Labor Party over the years.
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  Speaker 2: I was the first one to come out against the Voice. Also,
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  Speaker 2: you know my opposal to the COVID nineteen jab Then
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  Speaker 2: I've got the code of conduct for these sugar cane growers.
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  Speaker 2: I got the Senate inquiry up into the banking system,
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  Speaker 2: which led to the Royal Commission, the Family Law Act.
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  Speaker 2: There it goes on and on.
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  Speaker 1: She has captured a kind of vibe about patriotism and
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  Speaker 1: optimism and plane speaking and so on Trumpian kind of
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  Speaker 1: vibe that the Coalition, the Liberal and National parties just
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  Speaker 1: cannot get. Is that the lesson for them that they
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  Speaker 1: need to be talking more about ideas, maybe even instead
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  Speaker 1: of policies.
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  Speaker 3: Could I just say, I'm so sick of off ramp.
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  Speaker 3: There's off ramps all over the world. I'm sick of
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  Speaker 3: off ramps. I wish they'd take an off ramp on
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  Speaker 3: thought leadership. You're right, because the difficulty for the Coalition
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  Speaker 3: is that they are a party of government, and so
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  Speaker 3: when the decision was made to oppose the Voice, they
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  Speaker 3: had to go through their processes. Pauling Hanson, effectively as
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  Speaker 3: an independent loaner, could just come out and say I'm
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  Speaker 3: against it.
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  Speaker 4: Now.
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  Speaker 3: The Nationals came out and did it, and eventually the
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  Speaker 3: Liberals came out and did it. So she may have
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  Speaker 3: been the first, but only because she wasn't held back
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  Speaker 3: by any sort of those demands of being a party
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  Speaker 3: of government. It's the same with other issues with the
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  Speaker 3: net zero Okay, well the Coalition has got that now,
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  Speaker 3: and I think again the new leader of the Nationals,
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  Speaker 3: Matt Canavan, recognizes this, and I think Angus Taylor is
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  Speaker 3: making a bit of a mistake if he starts to
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  Speaker 3: attack Paul Enhanson, and certainly not to attack Paul enhanced supporters.
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  Speaker 3: You know, someone suggesting, oh, we're not going to talk
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: about deplorables. Well, if you're talking about deplorables, you're talking
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  Speaker 3: about deplorables. The danger here is that the Coalition has
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  Speaker 3: to go back and say, well, actually we looked at
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  Speaker 3: income splitting, we are looking at income splitting, we are
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: not adopting a net zero target, we're doing all these
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  Speaker 3: other things. So it's the advantage that she has where
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  Speaker 3: she can operate like a gorilla and she can then
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  Speaker 3: just come in, do what she wants and duck out again.
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  Speaker 3: So a bit like swamp fox, you know, she can
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  Speaker 3: come in move against the other characters. And this is
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  Speaker 3: the other thing where she has changed, because initially she
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  Speaker 3: was talking about the swamp. She talked about it before
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Trump did. She talked about in that initial speech fat
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  Speaker 3: cat bureaucrats making money telling people what to do. And
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  Speaker 3: now she is actually in a position where she has
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  Speaker 3: to actually start to act with a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: the idea of the apparatus around her. And so I
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  Speaker 3: think this is where the Nationals and the Liberals need
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  Speaker 3: to say, yes, we've been talking about this, we are
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  Speaker 3: talking about this, get out there with policies, because it's
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  Speaker 3: not rhetoric that will defeat Pauline Hanson as far as
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  Speaker 3: the coalition parties are concerned, or Labor for that matter.
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  Speaker 3: And South Australian Premier of Peter melanowskis said that you
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: don't attack the supporters. You try and appeal to them.
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  Speaker 3: You offer alternative appeals to them, whether it's patriotism for progressives,
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  Speaker 3: and interestingly the Premier of South Australia was citing Henry Lawson.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if they really want to go back
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  Speaker 3: into Henry Lawson too far. Wide Australia just ann you know.
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  Speaker 1: Exit ramp.
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  Speaker 3: But I think it's great, Henry Lawson being quoted Matt
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Canavan quoting Banjo Patterson. Great, that's all to be done.
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  Speaker 3: But these are things that need to be tapped in.
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  Speaker 3: As you say, clear, they need to be offering some
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: sort of a vision for people, and people feel without
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  Speaker 3: hope and that's why they have turned to one nation.
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  Speaker 3: It's a quick remedy, but it's one that they can recognize.
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  Speaker 3: It's simple. But her leadership has changed, while remarkably the
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: times are fitting her new appearance.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Dennis, you've hit all your key performance indicators, so
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  Speaker 1: thank you. Your deliverables have been met, so thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much. Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. You
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: can read all his analysis anytime at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au