Review 22.2
15th - 28th February, 1997

One would have thought the silly season would have been perfect for Pauline Hanson, but with the holidaying member for Oxley as hard to pin down as a slab of VB at a Graeme Campbell prayer breakfast, Australians have generally been spared the sight and sound of her over the break. Of course, those among us suffering withdrawal symptoms can always switch on the Internet. There you will find a wide range of sites paying homage to the little Ipswich battler.

Few of these are Australian. Indeed, most of the local Australian sites are somewhat scathing, admittedly often in that inarticulate way that so defines material on the Net. Her supporters, however, seem to predominantly come from overseas, which is ironic for someone so maniacally nationalist as Mrs Hanson. But if her opponents sometimes get a little overwrought in their attacks on her, you should see the things her supporters say - and do.

One notorious foreign pro-Hanson site is the British Nationalists Home Page, whose slogan is "Fighting anti-white racism." Accompanying this is a testimonial of sorts from The Web magazine of March 1996: "Some of the most extensive material to be found at any extremist home page in the world." That, presumably, is there for the benefit of British Nationalists who will never make it to the end of a paragraph.

The British Nationalists Home Page is theoretically "an independent resource for those who support British nationalism", but it is in fact the site of the notorious neo-Nazi British National Party, led by John Tyndall. For those readers unaware of Tyndall's background, he is a former leader of the National Front, and one-time deputy leader of the British National Socialist Movement. In 1959 he was convicted of threatening behaviour outside a memorial meeting for the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In 1962, he was jailed for organising and controlling a paramilitary organisation. In 1966 he was jailed for possession of a gun and ammunition. In 1986, he was jailed for offences under the Race Relations Act. His organisation, the BNP, is a haven for thugs, gun runners, drug runners and unreconstructed Hitlerites.

Contents of the January issue of Tyndall's BNP Home Page included: "The Propaganda War Against the BNP" (no prizes for guessing who's behind it all), "Video Review - Jewish Holocaust revisionist David Cole visits Auschwitz", "Racial attacks - myth and reality" (attacks on blacks - myth, attacks on whites - reality) , and "Speech to the Australian Federal Parliament by Mrs Pauline Hanson, who did the unspeakable - she stood up and spoke up for her race."

Mrs Hanson also features in the site's monthly news section. The listings for October 1996 feature no less than three sympathetic pieces: "Australian parliamentarian threatened after calling for white controlled country", "Australia faces civil war without curb on immigration, says MP Mrs Hanson", and finally, "Hanson gets standing ovation for immigration speech". By now, the editors can rest assured that their readers know just who "Hanson" is without further explanation in the headline.

One assumes that much of the information on Mrs Hanson is sent to Tyndall by his dwindling band of Australian groupies, most of whom went belly up when the short-lived National Front of Australia faded away. But thanks to modern technology, even hardened reactionaries like Tyndall can keep up with the latest news via an Internet-directed international Nazi network. For example, the last named news item on Hanson, was provided to the BNP courtesy of Stormfront.

Now Stormfront, as the name suggests, has none of the pious subtlety of the British National Party site. It comes out of America, as do most of the hardcore Nazi net sites, and is edited by Don Black, a former lieutenant to one-time Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard turned Republican legislator David Duke. Between 1982 and 1985, Black served a three-year federal prison term in Texas for conspiring to overthrow the government of Dominica. Stormfront's articles include "My Indian Odyssey - former Louisiana legislator and current US Senate candidate David Duke describes his racial awakening in India" and "History of the White Race - Learn about your heritage in this synopsis of another soon-to-be-published book by Odin".

Stormfront's links to other web sites include "Independent History and Research: Michael Hoffman III's site dedicated to conspiracy research, white slaves in early America, gas chamber revisionism and the Israeli holocaust against the Palestinians", "Grupo NuevOrdeN: Miami's own neo-fascist Spanish group aimed at our comrades in Spain and Latin America", Volksfront, Skin-Net, National Alliance, Aryan Nations, and of course, our very own Holocaust deniers of the Adelaide Institute, which itself lauded Mrs Hanson in issue 52 of its online newsletter. (This must have been a rare treat for Mrs Hanson, as the newsletter usually confines itself to odd rants against Holocaust survivors.) Stormfront also features its very own Aryan News Agency, from where the BNP got its Hanson updates.

Another American neo-Nazi who has taken to plugging Mrs Hanson's utterances, is Richard Barrett of the American Nationalist Movement. His site, Crossstar, announces: "Anti-nationalists call patriots white supremacists, racists, neo-nazis, bigots, white separatists and haters. Some say militiamen, klansmen, segregationists, the New Right or white nationalists. Nationalists are, simply, real Americans, speaking for the American People, advancing the American Way of Life and fighting for the American Nation.

" Yeah, but why are you wearing that bedsheet? In January 1989, Barrett more honestly spelt out his political views. "I'm trying to stop the Africanisation of America ... The first step is non-majority disenfranchisement. After that, you can start talking about repatriation - Jews to Israel, Puerto Ricans to Puerto Rico, Negroes to Africa, Orientals to the Orient, and so forth."

Barrett's All the Way, "the fighting journal of the Nationalist Movement", published Mrs Hanson's speech under the slightly undignified headline: "Voters reject both major parties to thrust Fish and Chips Lady into power." An earlier edition had also given a plug to her erstwhile comrade from Kalgoorlie, Graeme Campbell. "Australia has its own version of Georgia's Lester Maddox, who raised ax handles to stop minorities trying to bust into his restaurant and who was elected Governor by his appreciative electorate. Graeme Campbell was fed up with Asian immigration flooding his country.

"Despite opposition from the Labour Party, of which he was a member, Campbell called for revival of the White Australia policy with laws to keep all Asians out."

Great. First there was Iron Bar Tuckey. Now we've got Ax Handle Campbell.

In Australia, the pro-Hanson banner is most proudly flown on the Net by one Jeff Hill of Sydney. Jeff is not a Nazi, apparently, but his vocal advocacy of atheism and his rather belligerent manner has put offside other Hansonites.

For example, Hanson-groupie Gray Hodge of Tasmania complained to Hanson's office that Hill's "unwarranted attack on religion" would only harm her cause. Hill's reply was blunt: "I wish to provide a site for educating Australians to have well deserved pride in themselves, without a need for the absurd hoaxes of lying Jews, Christians and Moslems. A belief in Nature as the creating principle is sufficient, and nothing further is proveable (sic) or necessary or helpful to anyone except people WHO WANT TO CONTROL THE MINDS OF OTHER PEOPLE."

Other, more sympathetic email came from the National Socialist White Peoples' Party of America and the Terra Australis Patriot Organisation ("philosophy - national socialism"). Richard Barrett writes: "We published the Hanson Speech at www.nationalist.org/ATW/dec96.html#Right. You might want to check on it. [It features in the "Nationalist Oratory" section.] Getting rave reviews. We also are featuring her on our hotline: 601-Free-Tip. Could we extend an invitation to her to speak at Spirit of America Banquet here in March? Let me know. Regards, Richard."