When Pauline Hanson announced she was running for the Senate she made a remark that she was putting her own money on the line. It sounded like a good fundraising pitch, but it’s only right that she stump up. If today’s Sunday Mail is correct, she will be close to being a millionaire by the close of polls on October 9th. No-one should feel sorry for her, let alone donate to her cause.
Candidates and parties who receive more than 4% of the vote in the Senate receive 193.397 cents per vote, irrespective of whether they spend the money or not. The Sunday Mail says that on the basis of their poll Hanson will win 22% of the popular vote. Using this year’s percentage and last election’s voter turnout, that is gross income of $896,155.48.
Pauline’s costs will be minimal. A cheap how-to-vote card will cost maybe 2 cents a copy, while in each of the state’s 28 electorates she may need to put up say 6 signs at each of 10 booths. The cost of all of that would be no more than $70,000. Hanson is so newsworthy in her own right that she won’t need to place television advertisements or letterbox drop, so I can’t see any other outlays apart from her deposit, which will be refunded to her. So, Hanson’s nett take, just from the public pocket will be a shade over $800,000.
Of course it won’t stop there. She will receive donations, and raise funds. Just recently she reportedly sold a jumper she knitted in prison for $3,000 at a memorabilia auction.
And, if the Sunday Mail is correct, she will be elected, returning her at least another $600,000 over 6 years.
Even if the Sunday Mail is not correct and she only does as well as last time, she will still nett around $346,000. Not bad for three weeks of appearances on late night TV and the odd Women’s Weekly feature.
Hanson went to jail because she was so keen to get her hands on the public funding dollar that she rorted her party system to ensure that candidates and members had no control over it. In that case she had to pay it all back. This time around she’s smarter. Running as number one in an independent team in tandem with her real estate agent sister Hanson doesn’t have to answer to anyone else.
Pauline lists her occupation as self-employed. The next three weeks promise to be a bumper profit reporting season for Pauline Hanson Inc.
September 19, 2004 | Graham
The Professionals
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It is vital that One Nation gets the balance of power in the senate and puts up a good showing in this election because:
If the Liberals & Nationals control the Senate they will sell Telstra
If the Liberals and Nationals or Labor control the senate they will implement the full requirements of the GATS treaty such as privatising Australia Post and all other public utilities and services
if Labor controls the senate, with Labor governments in every state, they will initiate unconstitutional no-choice “plebiscites” to bring in their kind of republic, do away with the flag, re-write our history and force on us a sinister new “politically correct” pro-multicultural, pro-globalisation constitution.
We need to keep whichever Government is in power to the proposed Family Law Reforms the Howard Government has begun, first suggested by Pauline Hanson in her maiden speech in 1996 and initiated last year by Len Harris’s private member’s bill
We need to stop the so-called “free trade” deals both major parties are acquiescing to which are killing off manufacturing and many rural industries, including the sugar industry, banana industry and prawn industry to name a few, and destroying country towns
Both major parties are committed to National Competition Policy & Industry De- regulation which are destroying small businesses, putting all power in the hands of multinationals and forcing farming families off the land
Both major parties are committed to continuing high immigration which is forcing up the price of real estate, increasing water shortages, choking our roads with traffic and changing our traditional life-style
Both of the major parties are committed to multiculturalism, making ordinary Australians strangers in their own country
The government is softening it’s attitude to illegal immigrants making it closer to the “warm and fuzzy” open-door, come-one come-all Labor policy
Pauline Hanson was persecuted, jailed and humiliated by the forces of darkness for starting a party that would take give power back to the people of Australia
Don’t give up now – don’t let them win!
Step forward to be one of the people who will be able to say in the future
“I SAVED AUSTRALIA”
Comment by ozzibloke71 — September 20, 2004 @ 5:03 am
Graham
So your argument is that people shouldn’t donate to Pauline Hanson because she’s going to get public funding anyway if she gets more than 4% of the vote? But of course the same is true of the Liberal Party. I’m awaiting with great anticipation your post advocating that people should refrain from making donations to the Libs. Should I hold my breath, do you think?
Comment by Ken Parish — September 20, 2004 @ 5:52 pm
Hey, surely this is still Australia, bias and political correctness and all… One of the good things about this country is that there is a right for people of differing opinions to be heard. When did that change? For political correctness to be compounded by cheap petty niggling about the system that applies to everyone is crass, uneducated and frankly pretty bloody poor. Hanson expresses the views held by about a quarter of Australians. Don’t you thin skinned control freaks think that their viewpoint should be heard. Shame on you – go away and live in some country which limits opinions and controls thought process and see how you like that. And in the mean time get off Hanson’s back. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she says but I’ll bloody well die for her right to say what she wants to. But don’t force me, I’m fairly fragile.
Tom
Comment by Tom — September 20, 2004 @ 5:54 pm
My argument is that if she is going to represent herself as being “needy” in terms of money, then it is legitimate to point out that she is actually going to do quite well out of it financially.
In the past I’ve taken the Queensland Liberal Party to task for running their campaigns at a profit because they are so incompetent they can’t raise money any other way.
The public funding of elections is a bit of a rort, and there is a need to at least make parties account for the funds against real expenditures.
There is also little reason to give such large amounts of money per Senate vote. There is no way any of the candidates spend anything close to that earning their votes. I have a suspicion there was some sort of a trade-off with the Dems on this one, as I suspect a large part of their operating funds also come from public funding for elections, but they haven’t been crying poor.
Comment by Graham Young — September 23, 2004 @ 6:28 pm