Bruce Whiteside, former national chairman of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement is the latest Hanson acolyte to break ranks and go public over his disenchantment with the controversial independent MP. Whiteside has revealed the inner-workings of the Hanson camp in his forthcoming book, The Female Fuhrer, a manuscript copy of which was provided last month to the Review by Whiteside.In his manuscript, Whiteside reveals the machinations and cover-ups behind the notorious book Pauline Hanson: The Truth, and makes serious allegations against the leaders of the One Nation Party including David Ettridge, its National Director, and Pauline Hanson herself.
Long before Pauline Hanson arrived on the political scene, Bruce Whiteside was well-known in Queensland as a vocal opponent of foreign land ownership. In the late 1980s, Whiteside had organised mass protest meetings on the Gold Coast. In subsequent years he had stood for State Parliament for the extremist Confederate Action Party. Yet his fame, or notoriety, had never reached the politically uneducated Member for Oxley. "Hanson never knew who I was or never bothered to find out," he writes.
In September 1996, Whiteside established the Pauline Hanson Support Movement. "By this time of course Hanson was news, day in and day out," Whiteside explains. "We called a meeting to form an interim committee. We packed (a) hall that night with 800 people and from that moment on the life of my wife and myself was never the same." By the time of the third committee meeting in November 1996, Whiteside and his wife Iris had established 12 regional branches.
"We had a dozen groups of people armed with comparatively simple starter kits all chafing at the bit. Yes, we were excited. So too was Barbara Hazelton, Pauline's private secretary. I still hear her words in my ear, 'you guys are doing a marvellous job down there.' I have no reason to believe that Barbara was not 100% sincere. In any case it was the only words of encouragement that came from anywhere near Pauline. I often got the impression that we didn't exist as far as Pauline was concerned."
Yet despite Whiteside's glorified picture of the progress of the support movements, things were not all smooth sailing. "She did neither because unlike the false image that she portrays she could never make a decision. Here was the woman a self appointed leader of a nonexistent party, yet she was prepared to take everything and give absolutely nothing in return. 'I'll do what I like with the Movement in my name and I'll tell you what to say, but I'll do nothing to support or help it.' That was Hanson from day one."
Whiteside didn't help matters with his outspokenness and impatience. "Interviewed by Channel 10 a day before (Hanson) was due to speak to the Independent Retirees Association, I commented that her 'communication skills' were 'bloody appalling.' It is an opinion that I have not changed to this day. ... In a brief and fiery exchange (on the phone), she tried to bawl me out for daring to criticise her in public. I told her that she was 'arrogant', thought she could walk on water and that she was 'heading for a fall.' Not surprisingly the call was abruptly terminated."
Whiteside's communication problems with Hanson escalated when John Pasquarelli was appointed her senior adviser. "John went on to tell us that there were problems with allowing branches to be autonomous. 'You'll have problems controlling them. Your role will be that of being the workers. Come election time it will be your people who will man the polls, do the letter drops and generally be the dogsbody.'
"'Like hell,' was my immediate response."
On March 23 1997, the Pauline Hanson Support Movement was finally incorporated. But Bruce Whiteside was no longer involved. He had been sacked. He sought a meeting with Hanson, but it came to naught. "Talking with Hanson is frustrating. She is programmed. Like some of these toys kids play with; push a button and you'll get a given response. You cannot have a reasonable conversation for the simple reason she is not with you. It is almost as though you are speaking a different language. I know that she cannot be blamed for not being able to come up with all the answers but to tell me that she had left school at 14, one year into high school cuts no ice with me. I did precisely the same thing, but if you are going to lead a party, then listen to what those who genuinely worry about you, have to say."
Whiteside describes how the movement was "hijacked" by newcomers like David Ettridge and David Oldfield (Hanson's senior adviser). He writes that he remembers "Ettridge waxing lyrically about this new direction that lurked behind the new One Nation Party that was going to sweep all before it. With the suitable voice inflection, we were all sworn to secrecy, for Australia was about to be blessed with a mysterious Mr X."
Mr X, as we were to discover, was David Oldfield.
"This man was going to be the inspirational force behind the new wave of Hansonism. For those who witnessed the puppet-master clad in blue jeans crouched uncomfortably to the side of the 2GB studio console, Mr X hardly made an auspicious television entry. During the commercial break he stumbled not once but twice. First he 'advised' his charge that sole parents were more likely to be harbingers of 'homosexual children' and secondly he had committed a classic faux pas in failing to recognise that Hanson herself was a sole parent. Politicians have to think on their feet. This man had trouble squatting."
There has been much controversy surrounding the publication of Pauline Hanson's book The Truth. There is "perhaps no better illustration of the opportunistic nature of Ettridge than that of the furore that surrounded the book," Whiteside writes. At one stage, Ettridge threatened legal action against, among others, the extremist right wing League of Rights, to stop further distribution of what he described as a "pirate copy" made without authorisation.
The author of the book has yet to be revealed, although Whiteside offers some important clues. He claims that Denis McCormack of Australians Against Further Immigration wrote parts of the book and edited it. He also says that he first heard of this book "back in November or early December of last year" in a phone call from "an old acquaintance" by the name of Joseph Wayne-Smith of Flinders University in Adelaide.
"When Joe told me about the book, I understood it to be one he was writing himself. It was all but completed ....We never discussed its content other than to say it underpinned what Pauline Hanson was saying. (Whiteside also refers to the minutes of an earlier meeting which state that a Joseph Wayne-Smith had written a book and needed a publisher).
"Ettridge had spoken to me about the book... and told me that he was going to put it in every bookseller's outlet in the country. Although the initial run was only a thousand copies, fifteen thousand were already in the process of a second print. At $20 a copy, I could hear the cash register ringing in his voice. $320,000. Still this was the man who told us that One Nation had to raise $15 million."
But only three weeks after the book's launch, "Ettridge was quick to distance himself from the fall-out ... saying it 'had put too much strain on the party's resources and would not be reprinted despite its popularity. We are not running a mail order business. We don't want to become book publishers. It's been a distraction, really, as we've had hundreds of calls about it.' "Strain on the resources?" writes Whiteside. "What an absolute fabrication of the true position. The Hanson juggernaut has been nothing more than a leech attached to willing workers and believers. It has rolled into every branch that the original movement put in place, plundered, accepted the adulation and credit and simply left. The strain has not been on One Nation, but rather on those who have been left holding the expenses. Like so much of the aura that surrounds Hanson, it is anything but scrutiny-proof."
"The book in proof form, did not impress Hanson," Whiteside writes. "Immediately she threw aside the suggestion of 'Pauline Hanson, Expose' and announced it shall be called 'The Truth'."
An outline of the development of the PHSM and a foreword to the book was to have been written by Whiteside . But when Hanson insisted that it be "pulled" Whiteside was angry. "Bloody angry ... My long suffering patience with Hanson had run out. No longer did I respect her. I rang her and told her that if she insisted on calling the book 'The Truth', then she was asking for trouble. She was her usual gracious self. 'It's my book, I'll call it what I like', she snapped with customary venom."
Whiteside feels that he was effectively gagged when David Ettridge became the National Director of One Nation. "...Ettridge completely captivated the committee. Nearly half were women and it became clear that they leaned on every word he said. Ettridge announced that as from this visit he had been instructed by Pauline Hanson that the movement of which Hanson had never claimed or refuted, was as of right, going to be taken over. I opposed this vehemently, not so the general committee. We would surrender all our property, information and most importantly revenue to this trusting man's care."
Ettridge, says Whiteside, "came to us with absolutely no credentials, other than a glossy brochure promoting young champions that was going to be marketed through McDonalds food chain" (McDonalds subsequently withdrew support from the magazine when they became aware that it was published by the One Nation Director).
"I saw him as a phoney and tolerated what he was saying until he announced that he would control the organisation, that he would take control of the newsletter and that we would be removed from the political side of Pauline Hanson. In other words to jump to his tune. I challenged this man and accused him of doing precisely what Pasquarelli (Hanson's former adviser) had done, only much worse and with a damned sight more ineptitude.
"He was going to package and market her. They would cut and polish her, round the vowels, improve the diction and sell her to an unsuspecting public. Call it what you like, but I was completely out of sync with the remainder of the committee on this 'fly by night assassin' from Sydney. To say that those present where totally besotted by this glossy circular-toting Clark Gable was to be kind.
"Ettridge places great store on an art paper pamphlet extolling the virtues of young champions of Australia. Its name dropping catch that impressed was that this idea was endorsed by the McDonalds fast food chain. Impressive stuff or so thought the committee. I can see the awe now that Ettridge spun over the women in the committee. It was sickening."
Whiteside writes that his involvement with the PHSM and Pauline Hanson herself had a devastating effect on his personal life and his marriage. "Ettridge had, through Hanson, picked up the information of a private conversation and informed Kerrie Webb of New Zealand's Sixty Minutes, that I was 'manic depressive, a media-junkie and more seriously psychotic.' He repeated similar remarks to several people in Queensland who rang his office. On one occasion he warned the caller that 'I'd better be careful what I say ... I could be up for slander.' Pensioners don't have the sort of money to pursue these sort of gutter politics."
When Hanson finally turned up at Whiteside's front door for a final confrontation, he had no wish to speak to her and Barbara Hazelton (her secretary). He reluctantly let them inside. Whiteside writes that "what (Hanson) said next will never be erased from my memory. 'Bruce, we'll only speak to you provided you go back on to your medication.'
"For all the fancy footwork and strategic softening up that followed, the damage had been done. Hanson had not only ventured into the domain of a man's private life but she had been party to a womanly tete- a -tete with her personal secretary and my wife, the contents of which were to be used by One Nation to blacken my character. Both David Ettridge and David Oldfield have made it known to many media outlets that I am mentally depressed, psychotic and just plain mad."
Whiteside's response? " Any 'medication' that I have ever taken has been to placate my wife's insistence that I needed it. If I can be justifiably accused of being 'mad' then I will accept it from those who say anyone having anything to do with Pauline Hanson is so affected. On that charge I stand condemned."
Copyright © 1997 J.O.I.N.