Perhaps the best bit of news to come out of the Queensland state election on Saturday is that Pauline Hanson‘s One Nation was absolutely thwomped at the polls. You know what that means: time for a good old meme round-up.
All over the country, people rejoiced at seeing such a racist and divisive party collapse in its own heartland.
After getting over 13% of the vote at the last state election, One Nation suffered a massive swing and only got half as big a share of the vote time around, sitting at roughly 7% so far.
Making it even sweeter was the fact Hanson predicted Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wouldn’t win on election night, which she very much did.
Federal Labor MP Tim Watts said it best by simply quote-tweeting the official One Nation Twitter account.
Get in https://t.co/JelTHf4DXl
— Tim Watts MP (@TimWattsMP) October 31, 2020
Early on during the counting, TV presenters like the ABC’s election guru Antony Green kept repeating the magic word that One Nation’s vote had indeed “collapsed”.
It was music to our ears.
https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/1322470996792676359
happy to hear anthony say “the one nation vote has collapsed” as often as he feels like saying it #QLDvotes
— Scott Ludlam (@Scottludlam) October 31, 2020
Watever happens tonight one thing has given me enormous joy. Hearing the phrase “One Nation vote has collapsed” #QldElection2020
— Masericha (@masericha) October 31, 2020
https://twitter.com/maxblackhole/status/1322502018607407104
https://twitter.com/mikealsan/status/1322463064902434817
https://twitter.com/mynk29/status/1322465779640492032
Once we got over the overwhelming joy of hearing the words “collapse” and “One Nation” in the same sentence, we… kept on celebrating, of course.
It does seem that One Nation has died in the arse in Queensland. Cheers you up no end…
— Mike Carlton (@MikeCarlton01) October 31, 2020
What I respect about my extended Queensland family is despite spanning a broad political spectrum everyone agrees One Nation are utter deadshits. #QLDvotes2020
— Benjamin Law 羅旭能 (@mrbenjaminlaw) October 31, 2020
One Nation’s James Ashby says they’ve had a “net zero gain”. Yeah mate, from fucking irrelevant to fucking irrelevant. https://t.co/4qU3uEAQd0
— Possum Comitatus (@Pollytics) October 31, 2020
The whole night was poignantly summed up by this deepfake of Hanson conceding defeat.
Oh, and oldmate Clive Palmer also had a rough night, despite throwing $4.6 million into his party’s campaign.
As much fun as it is watching the One Nation vote collapsing, don’t forget to enjoy @CliveFPalmer getting one tenth of one percent of fuck all, too. #QLDvotes
— John Birmingham (@JohnBirmingham) October 31, 2020
But, there’s always a ‘but’.
As good as the collapse is, it hardly means the party is going away for ever. Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts are still Senators in the federal parliament, after all.
And don’t forget, the party still held onto its one seat in the Queensland state parliament, so while their vote did decrease, their number of seats has actually stayed the same.
Since the 1990s, the party’s vote has always ebbed and flowed, and yet they’ve always managed to stick around like the shart stain on Australian politics that they are.
https://twitter.com/Utopiana/status/1322495410988969986
It’s fun to celebrate small victories, but let’s not sight of reality, either.