Pauline Hanson: Please Explain

Last November when SBS first announced its documentary originally titled Hanson: The Years That Shook Australia there were many in the media asking why the multicultural broadcaster should give a platform to a xenophobic former politician.

Fast-forward to July 2016 and it’s a completely different political landscape. Pauline Hanson now has a seat in the new Senate, prompting SBS to bring forward its renamed documentary Pauline Hanson: Please Explain.

Produced by Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder (the same company behind Go Back to Where You Came From), it documents her rise to prominence, downfall and re-emergence. Hanson has co-operated with the filmmakers in interviews and footage, returning to key locations as she looks back on her political career: her Ipswich fish and chip shop and farmhouse, Parliament House, political rallies -but not Brisbane Correctional Centre.

As you would expect Hanson never shies away from her firebrand arguments, maintaining she is driven by patriotism, speaking what the “majority” of Australians are thinking and blaming her political foes, the media, Asian, Indigenous and Muslim communities for everything else.

Following the break-up of her marriage Hanson was running her take-away shop as a single mother, buying stock in a male-dominated fish market, but threatened by a rise in Asian take-aways (the doco even visits the shop, now owned by a Vietnamese-Australian, whom she proceeds to instruct on best batter…..look for the waving Lucky Cat statues). Following a wave of multiculturalism under former PM Paul Keating, Hanson sets her sights on Canberra, originally as a Liberal candidate before being abandoned and running as an independent.

Notably, her rapid rise in Oxley came despite being shunned by the political establishment and her inexperience with the media.

“The more they bashed me the more public support I got,” she declares.

There are interviews with her speech writer John Pasquarelli, who drafted her infamous maiden speech prior to her own re-write, plus One Nation co-founders David Oldfield and David Etteridge. They detail Hanson wrapping herself in a flag that belonged to Tony Abbott, and the rise of the party. Hanson blankly says Oldfield stayed the night after they first met.

An array of other mostly-opposing commentators also reflect on her rise. John Howard, whom many blame for not speaking out against her views earlier, insists “I thought the wrong thing to do was to launch an all-out attack labelling all the people who agreed with her as racists.”

Indigenous MP Linda Burney, former NSW MP Helen Sham Ho and Dr. Thiam Ang from the Chinese Australian Forum all recall a rise in racist outbursts following her maiden speech. Observers in Hong Kong, who initially dismiss her as a “crank” also recall international students turning their back on Australia.

Former 60 Minutes reporter Tracey Curro remembers that xenophobic question (which Hanson concedes she considered trying to bluff with an answer). Seekers composer Bruce Woodley says Hanson completely missed the point of his lyrics when One Nation hijacked “I Am Australian.” Simon “Pauline Pantsdown” Hunt is described as an “idiot ratbag” by the target of his hit single, whilst Alan Jones says Hanson upturned Canberra politics.

There’s also the downfall of One Nation and Hanson’s 11 week incarceration for political fraud.

By far the most fascinating counterpoint to Hanson’s rise is offered by ex-Fairfax columnist Margo Kingston who doggedly tracked her career for years. Years after One Nation’s downfall, the two meet in the documentary’s most interesting exchange. Watching these two meet for the cameras is like watching battery cells spark -yet it is drastically edited down. It’s a disappointing cut in what is actually an overly-long production.

After scratching the surface of Hanson, who spends considerable time trashing multiculturalism whilst wearing foreign animal prints, Please Explain doesn’t unveil much more depth to the woman nor politician. But it does put political context onto a troubled era. Whether we have learned anything from history remains to be seen.

Pauline Hanson: Please Explain airs 8:35pm Sunday July 31 on SBS.