Hunting Hanson

Hunting Hanson

BY CHRISTOPHER HARRIS

Simon Hunt, also known as Pauline Pantsdown, has said that it may be time to head back to the studio because Australia may need another dose of Pauline pop parody.

The two time pop star told City Hub that he was hesitant to fan the fiery Ms Hanson during the election campaign, but said now it was time to start challenging the tenability of her position.

Pauline Hanson’s election into the Federal Parliament of Australia this month coincides with the 20 year anniversary of her first election to the house in 1996.

Now she has been elected for the second time, with a vote from four per cent of the population, he believes it is time for One Nation Voters to see her fail, and her personality to once again implode.

For Simon Hunt, the return of Hanson to public life is a double edged sword. The political consequences of Hanson for minority groups could be devastating but the artistic potential for work akin to songs  like his 1997 hit Backdoor Man and 1998 follow up “I Don’t Like It.”

Now, he says that the time has come for Hanson to receive a proper grilling over her policies which says are copied from Wikipedia pages and extreme websites from the USA.

“Nobody has grilled her on what she said back in 1998 when she said they would be swamped by Asians, and we would have ghettos of Asians. It hasn’t happened. Nobody has asked her why you were wrong?”

Hanson was voted out of Parliament in 1998, and was subsequently jailed for electoral fraud (a conviction that was subsequently quashed).

During the noughties, Hanson appeared in a litany of Woman’s Day stories, as well as a number of television appearances. Pauline’s reputation recovered from electoral defeat and reached new heights of populism.

According to Hunt, the success of Pauline has a lot to do with her ability to play the role of ‘the battler’.

“I think it has got a fair bit to her success, she has managed to grasp the mantle of the battler, no matter what she does she is under attack, she has been in jail, and it has had nothing to do with her politics. For example she was on Dancing with The Stars,” Hunt said.

He believes Hanson’s frequent appearances in the mainstream media have lent support to her notoriety, as well as continually casting her as the victim.

“My approach was always about, if you shout back, that feeds her.”

He says his approach was not about shouting, but something more clever than that.

Watching Pauline in the lead up to and following this year’s Federal Election, Hunt says that she hasn’t changed.. He believes the things that were the One Nation Party’s undoing at the 1998 Election will haunt Hanson again. He says he doesn’t believe she knows how government business is conducted and how laws are made. He cites the example of her listening to dairy farmers and promising that she is going to fix a problem, but according to Hunt, she “doesn’t have an idea”.

“We need to avoid treating her as a popular culture figure, and feature her in Woman’s Day specials, and perpetuating the artifice of what she is, and talk about the fact her climate change policy is copied from a Wikipedia page.”

Hunt is not sure when, or if, another song is on the cards.

“I’ll back a bit longer, it is much easier to gather material these days with social media.”

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