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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1015 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

a basis where people are not equal, it is entirely appropriate for us to level systems of affirmative action, to redistribute some of the wealth in this country, in order to give people who would otherwise start behind the eight ball a chance to have an equal opportunity for reasonable outcomes in their lives.

This is the part, the fundamental premise, that is missing from this sort of shallow analysis of how Australia operates. Mr Speaker, it is that kind of affirmative action that I think is fundamental to giving Australian people a reasonable chance in a democratic society. I think the danger of Pauline Hanson's ideas is that they are based on truth, because whenever somebody tells a blatant lie we can dismiss it immediately, but even our children learn very rapidly that the most effective lie is the one that has three-quarters of the truth in it. That is the real danger.

The other thing about the sorts of statements made by Pauline Hanson in her speeches and throughout this text, which I read last night, is that it is divisive. It actually sets up in Australia something that we have not had at anywhere near this intensity. It puts emphasis on a situation which says, "Ordinary Australians are missing out". We are in a situation, after 13 years of Labor government and a year or so of Liberal government, where there is widespread unemployment, where the wealthy are getting wealthier and where there is a reluctance to do what taxation is really about, namely, to redistribute wealth from the very wealthy to those who are starting on a basis that is simply not equal.

There is a reluctance, and it comes out in a whole series of things like "user pays". There is a whole range of policies which are about reducing taxation levels and which are about ensuring that that redistribution of wealth does not occur. The shallowness of what Mr Wood describes as "these pseudoacademic writings" is part of the danger that goes with Pauline Hanson. I must say that when I saw that Mr Wood had put up this motion I wondered whether it was wise and whether we should do what some people suggest and just ignore Pauline Hanson. But, if it is not Pauline Hanson, it will be somebody else.

Mr Speaker, those of us who were members of the first two Assemblies will recognise a great deal of what she says. Dennis Stevenson stood in this chamber and in the previous chamber on many occasions and said many of the same sorts of things, missed the fundamental premise, said things that were three-quarters true and then just put a spin on them that would appeal to people's uncertainty and their fear; and he used deceit to do it. We heard it so many times, and it will not surprise me one iota if Mr Stevenson turns up as part of the One Nation party somewhere. I do not think it will be a surprise to anybody else who was here when Mr Stevenson was here, having heard him speak.

We know that these ideas are the same ideas as those that you can read in the New Citizen, the paper of the Citizens Electoral Council which is affiliated with the League of Rights. It is hard, right-wing propaganda; it is reactionary. The worst part about it, Mr Speaker, is that it is divisive. At a time when Australia and Australians are accepting each other as people, when we are looking for reconciliation, when we are looking for affirmative action to correct inequalities, we get this sort of divisiveness. It is dangerous; but, as I say, she certainly has the right to put her perspective.

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