If I were to grant myself a wish, “erasing Pauline Hanson from my mind” would have to come under decent consideration. To take a pad of steel wool to the specific, millimetre-exact places in my mind that her existence occupies would be a great treat to me. To shove my head into a brain cooker and Eternal Sunshine Hanson outta there? Buddy, I’d love it. It would be an almighty thrill. Unfortunately that is simply not possible. So instead, I will be living vicariously through this clip of Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe “forgetting” Hanson’s name forevermore.
It has truly been a banner day in the annals of Hanson in Hansard. The Queensland One Nation dumbass covered herself in further glory during debate on the Government’s extremely bad Cashless Welfare Card bill, asserting that people who are on welfare have, in essence, no actual rights.
The common defence to a quip like this is that it’s been misconstrued or taken out of context. But the reality here is that these are the very real words that Hanson spoke with her allegedly human mouth. The video does not lie.
from 22 seconds in this clip: “It’s not about talking about a person’s rights. When you go on this card, you basically lose your rights as well. When you go on the welfare system, you’ve lost your rights.” pic.twitter.com/JdH55vw12X
— James Elton (@JamesEltonPym) December 9, 2020
“They [welfare recipients] are not spending taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars on alcohol and drugs and gambling,” Hanson says, inadvertently defining the unwritten double standard that it’s perfectly alright for politicians to do exactly that. The mask always slips. Or, in this case, keeps slipping in perpetuity.
“When you go on this [cashless welfare] card you basically lose your rights as well. When you go on the welfare system you’ve lost your rights,” Hanson concluded, once again saying the quiet part very loudly.
And while the temptation to rail against every bone-achingly dipshit word Hanson said is quite real, Senator Lidia Thorpe found a much more effective strategy: Weaponised “she doesn’t even go here”-ism.
In commencing her response, Thorpe took the fairly bulletproof comeback of simply “forgetting” Hanson’s name, forcing the Senate to formally identify her like some Day One scrub.
#WhatsYourNameAgain? pic.twitter.com/UhKPtpdNLs
— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) December 9, 2020
Honestly? I love it. I could kiss this seven-second video.
And that one simple gesture reveals the brutal, honest truth about serial agitators like Hanson and her band of merry numbskulls: If we all try really, really hard – together, as one big group – the maybe, just maybe, we can all collectively forget her.
What a nice thought that is.
