If there was anything to be learnt from both the Australian and US elections this year, it’s that, despite what our little inner city bubbles indicated, there are far, far more racists in the world that we’d be lead to believe.
The world was surprised when the reality TV show orange skin man beloved by racists won the presidency, and we here in Australia were pretty surprised to see the reality TV show orange hair woman beloved by racists manage to take out four entire seats in the senate – because it turns out Australia wasn’t quite done with almost laughably out-of-date 90s-style racism.
But cracks are appearing in the facade, the once proud and unified collection of oddball xenophobes and climate change deniers known as One Nation are going the way of the now very ironically named Palmer United Party, with Pauline Hanson saying she can’t work with embattled senator Rod Culleton.
Culleton’s been in the spotlight over the possibility that he was ineligible as a candidate in the election thanks to at the time having been convicted of a crime that carries a sentence of over a year. He gained further attention still for a threatening letter he sent to a Queensland magistrate.
He also hilariously knocked over a whole stack of mugs when trying to reassure the press that everyone was fine:
“Everything’s fine.” ?? #9Today https://t.co/Sigzjm3Bi1
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) November 23, 2016
And now it seems he’s just gotten too big for his britches, according to a chat Hanson had with Ray Hadley on 2GB:
“He’s not a team player at all. We can’t work with him, you can’t reason with him. You can’t give him advice, he runs his own race. That’s not teamwork. It’s just absolutely ridiculous.”
“He loves the limelight, he loves the publicity. I think the whole lot has gone to his head.”
Truly dismal stuff, if our passionate racist politicians can’t work together, who can?
It seems like old mate Rod doesn’t look up to Hanson as much as your weird uncle who hates Chinese people does:
“I start talking to him, laying down some ground rules, and then he says ‘stop, stop, don’t go any further otherwise I’m outta here. You can’t have a decent conversation with someone telling you ‘stop’ because they don’t want to hear these things.“He would make a very good senator if he could only take direction. I don’t think he likes my authority.”
Culleton faces the High Court tomorrow to determine whether or not his appoint to the senate was invalid, if so, it will go to a recount, with the seat potentially going to his brother-in-law Peter Georgiou.
If the court finds that it was indeed valid, shit’s going to be really, really awkward in the office.
Source: SMH
Photo: KC Green.
