Pauline Hanson came out swinging yesterday against the media, the Qataris, Scott Morrison — you name it. A classic performance.She was appealing directly to her base, and history shows that One Nation supporters have stuck with her through thick and thin, though not necessarily with her party. This is the trap for Hanson.As much as she might try to distance herself from the boozy bumbling in Washington of her acolytes James Ashby and Steve Dickson, they were acting in her name and invoked it repeatedly to prevail on the US gun lobby and conservative Right to fund One Nation.
Hanson refused to take questions yesterday and it’s just as well for her, because the killer question would have been this: “Senator Hanson, do you support the ban on automatic and semi-automatic guns that was put in place after the Port Arthur massacre?”If the answer is yes, she must explain why she allowed Ashby and Dickson to fall into Al Jazeera’s trap and make that appallingly ill-advised trip to the US last September.If Hanson wants to see where the problem lies, it’s not on this page, or with the humiliating sting inflicted on One Nation by Al Jazeera, for all the ethical questions that surround its infiltration operation.
