Stating that Pauline Hanson‘s political agenda is a line-of-best-fit for whatever fears are currently stirring isolated rural Australians whose sole world view is based on sensationalist and panicked mainstream media shouldn’t exactly be a brain-breaking statement for any of you.
Last week Hanson moved quickly to distance herself from the Fair Work Commission who took a butcher’s knife to penalty rates in a move that will impact thousands upon thousands of Australians struggling to make ends meet.
A video posted to Hanson’s social pages asserted that she had nothing to do with the Fair Work Commission (we know) and that she had made no submissions to the FWC on the matter (we know) and that any assertions that One Nation is responsible for these cuts are mere Labor-fuelled lies. This, y’know, ignoring the fact that Parliamentary support for the Coalition is, by extension, implicit support for cutting penalty rates, which would render a conservative One Nation guilty as sin. But that’s neither here nor there.
As it turns out, however, it was a mere three years ago when Hanson went on the record on national TV to state very clearly that she wanted to see penalty rates abolished altogether.
During a 2014 appearance on Sunrise (that fakakta morning show who paid Hanson to appear regularly which in turn fuelled her Phoenix-like rise back first into public prominence and second back into the Senate thank you very much David Koch you blithering spud) Hanson asserted that she’d like to see penalty rates scrapped “across the board,” as well as 17.5% leave loading and the payroll tax as well.
Curious that she’d point out that “they’re gearing up to bring in workers from overseas who will be competing for Australian jobs,” given that (should that happen) they’d at least legally be on the same pay rate regardless. Curious.
Fast forward three years and Hanson’s now insists that she “believes in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” for her Queensland constituents. So judging by all of this, she’s either flipped her script entirely on the subject, or she believes that Queenslanders (and the rest of the country) are currently getting paid far too much.
Either way, it’s a bit bung.
Source: Sunrise.
Photo: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty.
