Fed: The rise and fall of Pauline Hanson
By Joe Hildebrand
SYDNEY, April 18 AAP - They say it's better to burn out than to fade away, to go outwith a bang not a whimper.
Unfortunately for Pauline Hanson, whimper is too strong a word to describe her exitfrom politics at the hands of NSW voters.
The former One Nation leader slipped from political relevancy on Wednesday night aftershe failed to snare a seat in the NSW upper house.
Indeed her entire campaign was largely plagued by irrelevancy from the "will she? won'tshe?" way she entered the contest to her somewhat farcical final campaign performanceof a country duet with a singer under her management.
After initially protesting - perhaps too much - that she was not planning on a tiltthis year, Ms Hanson, who had moved to the Sydney suburb of Sylvania Waters, threw herhat in the ring.
But it was not an auspicious start for the former fish and chip shop owner from Ipswich.
In launching her campaign she caught the foot in mouth disease that put the phrase"please explain" on every Australian's lips all those years ago.
Ms Hanson said she was going to campaign on law and order issues but then made it clearthat she had no idea who the NSW Police Commissioner even was.
Having apparently learnt her lesson, she then seemed to steer clear of serious politicsaltogether and put forward no policies to speak of.
In the midst of this she failed to register a political party to appear on the ballotpaper and so found herself inconspicuously listed under Group L.
Her two most memorable campaign moments were posing in a fish and chip shop and, twodays before the March 22 election, recording a duet of "What a Wonderful World" with hernewly acquired country music talent Brian Letton.
That was pretty much the last anyone saw of Pauline Hanson.
Since the election she has gone to ground, refusing to talk to the media in the longglitch-filled weeks it took to tally the upper house vote.
Old Hanson adversary and former Nationals leader Tim Fischer revelled in her finaldefeat as did NSW Premier Bob Carr but there were no front page farewells for her thistime.
Political consultant David Britton said had Ms Hanson just had the sense to registera party and thus place herself more prominently on the ballot paper she could have pippedthe Shooters Party's John Tingle for the last vacancy.
But he said she had also cursed her electoral chances with a string of mistakes and misjudgments.
She had chosen the wrong battleground (NSW is not exactly home turf for a proud Queenslandersuch as her), she had not had enough people working for her on the ground and she hadn'tbothered to take a firm position on anything in particular.
"Like so many other passengers who try and guarantee themselves a pension for lifein the NSW upper house, she thought she could just sneak in," Mr Britton told AAP.
Her low profile in the NSW poll could not be more at odds with the publicity - andpower - she commanded seven years ago.
In 1996 Ms Hanson rocketed into the headlines after being disendorsed by the Liberalparty in the Queensland federal seat of Oxley for making racist comments.
Elected as an independent, her maiden speech in Canberra sent shockwaves through theAustralian community when she accused Aborigines of receiving too much welfare and said:"I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians."
Two years later Ms Hanson was riding a wave of popularity that decimated the Liberalsand Nationals in Queensland and threatened to do the same federally.
At the height of her power she dominated the airwaves and front pages and commandedaround one million votes via her ultra-conservative One Nation party.
But since then the One Nation star has faded in the midst of party infighting, allegationsof electoral fraud and the inevitable voter disillusionment that followed.
Indeed another factor in Ms Hanson's latest defeat was the formation of David Oldfield'sbreakaway One Nation NSW party that split her potential vote.
But some pundits - including Mr Britton and Ms Hanson herself - suggested her and OneNation's decline was due to the party's policies being absorbed by an increasingly rightwing federal government.
In 2001 she observed that Prime Minister John Howard had stolen her policies when hewon that year's election on the back of his hardline stance on border protection.
For better or for worse, in this sense Ms Hanson has left an indelible legacy on theAustralian political landscape, even as she goes quietly - in fact silently - into thenight.
AAP jh/nf/mo/de
KEYWORD: NEWSCOPE NSW (AAP NEWS ANALYSIS) REPEATING
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