The Wicked Witch of the North?
by Alison Cotesi
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 61
Winter 1998

Introduction

What sort of a scape goat is Pauline Hanson?

Alison Cotes
Alison Cotes won two major 1998 awards (best social justice story, and best feature article on a religious theme in a secular newspaper or magazine) from the Australasian Religious Press Association, for her work in The Courier-Mail. Some parts of this article have appeared in her religious column in that newspaper.

THE DAY AFTER THE Queensland election when I, like most people in the state, was still in a state of shock, I received a phone call from my six-year-old granddaughter in Canberra.

"Grandma," she said in the middle of our conversation, "when is Pauline Hanson going to have her party?"
Out of the mouths of babes . . .

This comment from a political innocent made me aware of a sobering truth, that Hanson has already become part of the Australian mythology.

Whether demonised or idolised, she is now part of our collective consciousness, and whatever the ramifications of the political triumph of One Nation, she is not going to go away.
What is it about this unimpressive woman that has rocketed her to such fame? She has captivated the media, been fictionalised in the national television series Wildside, and for good or ill has calculated the pulse of the nation.

Being a woman has something, but not everything, to do with it. No redneck male politician would attract such attention-Graham Campbell, who is more intelligent and articulate, regularly makes more inflammatory statements, but he has sunk almost without trace. She unashamedly uses her femaleness in a way that no self-respecting feminist would countenance, but she has struck a chord with men who feel that they have been sexually disenfranchised by the women's movement.
Male journalists who have met her speak with grudging admiration of her sexiness-she flirts outrageously, lets big burly guys embrace her, sits on their laps and, above all, makes them feel powerful again. She is no power-dressing ball-crushing femocrat, but a fragile creature who appeals to men's sense of protection, and her very inarticulateness reinforces that image. By voicing their deep-seated resentments, but with that hesitant delivery that suggests a basic insecurity about her right to speak out, she empowers men to take control of their world again, so that they can be proud of her as one might be of a dutiful daughter. And along with that goes just a hint of incestuous adoration.

This is an interesting reversal of the way women are usually treated in politics. Everything for which her critics disparage her-her lack of education, the facile remedies she suggests for complex problems, her inability to get the mathematics right and, above all, that fish-and-chip shop background-actually works to her advantage. The sneers directed at her by her politically sophisticated opponents might have a deplorable sexist sub-text, but it's because she is seen as "only a girl'', with all the weakness that the phrase implies, that the hitherto disregarded underclass flock to her side. Her voice is not an articulate one, but as a woman she speaks powerfully for the voiceless, both men and women, and empowers them to admit what deep down they really feel.
That's why she is One Nation. Her male minders might feed her the lines, but only she can speak them, and that's why the two Davids have to nurture her, because they know that without her there is no future for them.

Even though Independent Peter Wellington has now delivered a tenuous power into the hands of the ALP in Queensland, national polls show clearly that One Nation will not go away. Pauline Hanson may not vote very often or even turn up in the House, she may neglect her electorate and be shunned by other federal politicians, but even in her absence she is always there.

She has become an Australian icon, both for those who support her and those who detest her. In a sense, she is necessary even for those who oppose her racist policies most strongly. For she fills a role that we may not recognise as necessary for our collective consciousness, the role of the scapegoat.

In ancient Hebrew culture, the scapegoat was an animal selected by lot to bear the sins of the people, led out into the wilderness and left to its fate.

It's always handy to have something or somebody else to carry our guilt for us-it relieves us of the need to admit our shortcomings individually, but satisfies our desire that sin should not go unpunished. In Christian tradition the scapegoat is sometimes called the Judas-goat, after the disciple who betrayed Jesus and thus symbolises the sins of all humanity, but the concept is used in the secular world as well.

To: Part 2