Review 22.10
25 July - 7 August 1997

FEAR & LOATHING: "Get too close to Pauline and you'll wind up on your backside," David Graham, Pauline Hanson's Victorian media guru, warned the assembled TV crews and journalists. And with that, a fleet of slightly bemused journalists and yours truly took off Friday morning to join the Pauline Hanson One Nation Geelong media circus. First stop: TRG Engineering, a local machinery maintenance company where Pauline addressed the blue overall-clad boys. "She's no dummy, but I suppose you think I don't know anything," one of the workers tells me. It was going to be a long day.

Pauline mixed it up well with the boys from Geelong's industrial belt. If her four inch stilettos were a tad inappropriate for those factory sites, no one bothered too much. The ham sandwiches that TRG turned on looked lovely - but not for the media and certainly not for the Australia/Israel Review. "I flew down from Sydney just for the sandwiches," said Hanson money man David Ettridge as he shoved down three. Pauline chattered about tariffs, immigration and how to discipline young people. "I'm not averse to a slap on the backside", she suggested, as the employees laughed. At first I misunderstood the context and searched desperately to see David Oldfield's face.

Several weeks earlier, TRG boss Russell Grant had attended a One Nation meeting in Belmont, left his name if they wanted further assistance and was later contacted by Hanson's people to see if his factory could be used for a stage managed event. An employee of TRG popped up on TV that night telling all that no Federal or State member of parliament, not even a local Councillor had ever bothered to visit them before Pauline, who was, of course, the greatest.

Across the road Pauline inspected a jean factory, bought two pairs of jeans - size 34 - at $10 a pair and lamented the end of tariffs. After that it was off to inspect Metroof Industries, which had lots of BHP steel sheeting lying around. David Ettridge didn't seem to be getting into it, as he dawdled behind the Hanson A- team. The Metroof workers weren't too excited either. Actually, you were hard pressed to find one. Forty workers the Hanson media machine promised us - I counted two workers, six Federal policemen, eight members of Pauline Hanson's private security squad who looked like they'd just left a Timothy McVeigh family reunion, 52 journalists and one Federal policewoman who was reading New Idea.

"Do you have the answers for the economy, Pauline?" a journalist asked during a doorstop interview outside Metroof Industries. "Yes I do", she said and moved on to the next question. Another reporter asked Hanson how she felt about the violent demonstrations " It's totally un-Australian the way they threw-urine filled condoms," she said. "Urine-filled condoms - that's typically Australian," muttered a journalist.

Then it was off to Queenscliff. The Review's intrepid researcher Lillian was more interested in Mietta's restaurant, but we paid a courtesy stop to the ceremonial opening of Hanson's Queenscliff office anyway. The office turned out to be the ACE FX electronics store on Hesse St. ACE Electronics has seen better days; there was one clothes drier and three washing machines for sale.

"Is this the One Nation headquarters?" I asked.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

"I thought Pauline was meant to do an opening here."

"Listen mate, Pauline's coming but it's not for the press."

"Can I come in and just watch?"

"Get lost!"

So we got lost in the lovely wines of Mietta's Restaurant. I bet David Ettridge would have preferred to have been there, but alas, One Nation people don't indulge - except, perhaps, for the occasional 0055 number.

By 5.30 it was time for the real party. A Cocktail reception had been organised for One Nation true believers at the South Barwon Civic Centre. At $120 a head it attracted 24 devotees. It was meant to be for the cream of Geelong's business community, it ended up being a gathering of dysfunctional extras from the Goon Show.

There was Brett Tunbridge, who is currently establishing the Dandenong branch of One Nation. " I'd kill myself if I didn't do something to help Pauline," said Brett, who was once a shop steward with the SDA. David Ettridge had a quiet word in young Brett's ear as I was leaving: "Don't worry mate, I'll pull some strings for you."

I hoped they weren't talking about the Dandenong branch that Brett wants to be President of. Perhaps that's democracy, One Nation style. Andrew Carne, One Nation's Victorian convenor, said he had sent out 3000 membership applications. "We've got 1000 paid up members in Victoria at between $20 and $50", he told me. One of the paid-up loyalists owned a fish and chip shop in Geelong; if it's a trend, we're all in trouble. Brett was still giving me the ear-bashing from hell so I grabbed a glass of the green lemonade, muttered some excuse and slipped off to join Lillian, who was deep in conversation with Gordon.

Gordon was the kind of character the Review loves to meet at these functions. "I've had the League of Rights over to my house, and Eric Butler too," enthused Gordon. "A lot of what they say is true. Especially about the fluoridation of the water supply." League supremo Eric Butler believes that there is a secret plot by Communists to poison the water supply through fluoridation. Apparently Gordon has taken preventative measures. "We've got a special water tank at home so we don't have to use the fluoridated water - it's dangerous you know," he confided. Gordon wouldn't tell us his second name nor where he lived, except that it was a "very expensive suburb in Melbourne". Gordon was beginning to salivate as he talked about the Rockefellers and when some landed in my green lemonade I went to see what Pauline was up to.

She was working the crowd. She's actually rather tactile, hand on the arm, friendly gestures. "I have a lot of closet supporters," she told Gordon while we stood there. And then along came David Oldfield. I was going to broach the closet thing with him, but thought better of it.

A young supporter, Mark, came up to Pauline and gave her a bit of a hug. The men really go for her it seems, or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, Pauline puckered up and Mark (pictured on the opening page) was in heaven. So were the photographers as they shot them kissing. The next morning the photo appeared on page one of The Australian, with a good report by Jamie Walker. It was a damaging blow to the Hanson camp.

After cocktails it was a gala dinner for the 120 guests who were prepared to hand over $60 a head. A few journalists got some rough treatment. At one point a young man with an ear plug, who with the help of hormonal therapy looked a dead ringer for Mario Milano of World Championship Wrestling fame, was refusing to allow Sally Sara from ABC radio and myself into the dinner. A fat boy with long hair shouted at Sally "You're from the ABC, no wonder they won't let you in." Then he exhaled three times and started to wheeze. I wondered what he would say if I told him I was from the Australia/Israel Review. I considered telling him just to see if it would bring on a coronary.

David Oldfield, Hanson's new puppetmeister kept the affair from tipping into the surreal. Tall, well groomed, with black hair and glasses, he stands out from the Del Monti suit brigade that trail after Hanson. The demonstrators outside had started to mass and Pauline Hanson's One Nation security force began twitching and adjusting those ear plugs and wires.

David agreed to do an interview for the ABC crew on the scene. Before the camera came on he turned to me "They're like killers on a spree out there. They've all been watching Woody Harrelson before coming". Then he pointed at my notebook, "Did you get that down," he said. I got it down, although I couldn't help wondering what David had been listening to before coming. I so desperately wanted to grab his portable phone and press the redial button.

When the ABC camera started rolling David did too, railing against the "Marxists outside", but they had to cut the interview short when One Nation Geelong branch President Bill Croft took to the microphone to tell the guests about the silver teaset about to be raffled off.

The 800 demonstrators outside were a motley lot. A few locals, some ring- ins from Melbourne, the usual ISO, DSP, ISO, SWP, NAACP, collectives. The poor cops took it well, the Hanson security brigade broke out in pimples from the testosterone overload and three anarchists fell on top of each other because they hadn't cut big enough holes out for their eyes from their black balaclavas.

Inside, Hanson told the crowd that the "majority of Australians do not accept the culture of gangs and crime and drugs that many new Australians are used to living with" and later spoke darkly about what to do when "Asianisation is forced upon us". Then she told the press off for falsely depicting her as a racist. I wondered if I was the only person there who had passed Logic 101 at school, but when the crowd started cheering I concluded that yep, I probably was.

MICHAEL KAPEL