The Australian newspaper's Paul Kelly characterised the new ‘racist’ and anti-intellectual political force mobilised by Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party as ‘an echo of our Anglo-Celtic origins.
The claims of the once mighty bush to define the Australian Legend; a descendant of the romanticism and racism of Henry Lawson whose hold on national identity was once so comprehensive …the latest manifestation of our reflex to distrust authority, abuse our elites and damn our leaders'
Of course he had his prejudices, and they were widely shared by his readers. He was capable of offering over simple stereotypes about races and nations … In his concept of the universal brotherhood, he excluded the Chinese and probably most Aborigines but gladly embraced the American blacks. He is now looked down upon as racist by many historians and critics, some of whom, without realising it, are less than accurate
