January 1996. The Urdu-speaking uncles were furious when they received the invitation for a dinner hosted by my small Young Liberal branch. 'You want me to pay money to see that bloody racist Howard?' asked one. 'I will happily give for your branch but not if it means sitting in the same room as that nasty man.'
When we started promoting our Bankstown Young Liberals dinner, John Howard was a shadow minister. In the week before the dinner, he was elevated to Opposition leader. When we showed up to the Chinese restaurant opposite the Bankstown Sports Club (where Paul Keating gave his famous 'True Believers' speech), there were TV and radio news crews everywhere.
The man who a few years earlier had called for a reduction to Asian immigration and an end to multiculturalism was now shaking hands with Australians of Thai, Chinese, Taiwanese, Sri Lankan and Indian (yes, some uncles showed up at the last minute) heritage.
Was it all a façade on Howard's part? David Marr, in his latest Quarterly Essay The White Queen: One Nation & The Politics of Race believes so. Though the essay is ostensibly about Pauline Hanson, much of it deals with the broader issue of race politics. Marr claims Howard cynically used race when it suited his arithmetic calculations of drawing votes from marginal sectors of the electorate.
Hence Howard was happy to have Hanson disendorsed when she was a candidate for a safe ALP seat. But when she surprised everyone with her 20 per cent swing and delivered her first of many ridiculously racist speeches, Howard turned Voltaire and labelled Hanson's maiden speech a triumph for free speech. He refused to condemn her or her followers.
"If there is really a threat of this happening, Muslims might have to get the lawyers for Scientology to represent them."
Marr writes that Howard 'would keep his mouth shut and nudge the Coalition into One Nation territory'. Howard's strategy was to destroy Hanson by mimicking her.
And giving her One Nation Party preferences when it suited. Howard believed this was the only way to save the Coalition in the Queensland State election. The big winners in that ballot were Hanson and Labor. Brisbane voters abandoned the Libs.
This disaster led to pressure on Howard from other powerbrokers such as the NSW and Victorian leaders and then Treasurer Peter Costello to place Hanson last on all subsequent ballots. The practice lasted for two decades until the recent West Australian debacle that delivered a massive landslide to Labor and a few seats in the WA Upper House.
Thanks to the 'put Pauline last' consensus, Hanson's efforts in three subsequent state and federal ballots failed. Marr writes: 'The same parties that filched her policies in the campaign organised against her at the poll.' This didn't stop Howard from adopting a Hansonesque stance on a range of issues, especially refugees. The electoral returns by way of One Nation preferences seemed to assist Labor more than the Coalition.
So who are these One Nation voters? One Nation attracts next to no migrants, not even UK or New Zealand migrants. One Nation voters are even more 'Aussie' than the National Party. The gender split is fairly even and around one third are under 44. Most identify as working class.
Hanson doesn't pretend to be religious and neither are her followers. Her anti-Islam agenda isn't inspired by some rightwing evangelical passion like Danny Nalliah's nor by a conservative moralistic Catholicism like Cory Bernardi's. But she clearly can feel the pulse of many in the electorate who worry about terrorism and national security.
Hanson's politics really only work when there is a 'them' for 'us' to worry about. But where does she get this idea that Islam is not a religion but an ideology? And seriously, even if it is an ideology, what does that have to do with the price of halal Vegemite? Democracy is an ideology, as is liberalism. And Australia is ... yep, you guessed it ... a Liberal Democracy. So surely we can fight the single Islam ideology with our two ideologies.
But this isn't a matter that social justice warriors like those who read Eureka Street can deal with (or indeed this allegedly moderate deceptive Muslim contributor). We need a Royal Commission to decide this issue, apparently. Because if we strip the religious tag from Muslims then this will lead to ... um ... not quite sure. But if there is really a threat of this happening, Muslims might have to get the lawyers for Scientology to represent them.
One Nation is driven by a perceived loss of cultural privilege. As one pollster told Marr: 'What worries this group is the cultural, social slippage they feel in their life. They imagine their fathers' and grandfathers' lives were better, more certain, easier to navigate. Maybe they were and maybe they weren't, but it's the loss of that that is worrying for them.'
For the One Nation voter the world is getting all too complicated thanks not just to Muslims but to immigration in general. The anti-immigration sentiment gets more extreme. Migrants don't just take jobs away from real Aussies. They increase crime. Don't let 'em in. And if some manage to slip through and do the wrong thing, lock 'em up. Oh, and bring back the noose. Yes, One Nation voters strongly support the death penalty.
One Nation worries me. But each time my worries hit a crescendo, the party implodes. We should all dread what could happen if the implosions cease.
Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney based lawyer and blogger.