- by Sam M
- The Guardian
- Issue #2205
Comic by Graham Drew
At the Toronto Hotel, in Lake Macquarie NSW, Pauline Hanson – who has planned ticketed dinner there – will be disrupted by members of the community in a snap rally.
Attendees to the rally are gathered to call out what they see as a vile expression of a racist, denialist, and sophistic ideology, something they say will never be welcome in Australia.
Locals have called on local venues to exclude Pauline Hanson’s One Nation event, as to prevent her followers from targeting vulnerable people and spreading her divisive rhetoric to Newcastle.
Gauri, a spokesperson and local high school student said, “I’m here to stand up for everyone, Hanson is not wanted here,” continuing that “Pauline is bought out by Gina Rinehart. For the ‘Aussie Battler’ she claims to be, she certainly didn’t catch the train to Fassifern when she arrived in Newcastle.”
Gauri finds Hanson’s racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rhetoric most reprehensible, stating that: “I am a first-generation immigrant, it’s pretty hard to get permanency, let alone citizenship in this country. It costs $10 grand to even start the application. This country gets so much out of immigrants for free, without needing to help them through education, or access healthcare, Pauline’s own money comes from the work of immigrants.” She expands, exclaiming “We all bleed red, I don’t know what Pauline doesn’t get, she’s already red on the outside!”
Finally, Gauri condemns Hanson’s attacks on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, stating that the discrepancy in life expectancy between these communities and white communities is on average 10 years, concluding that “If Pauline did a single Aboriginal Studies lesson, she’d see the real problems that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities face, and stop spewing these gross lies.”
Sam, another spokesperson from a local high school, also expressed his own rejection of Hanson’s rhetoric. He began by saying that “Pauline Hanson’s explicit policy of climate change denialism will only lead to catastrophe.” He added that “continuing to subsidise the coal industry is counterproductive to achieving Australian prosperity and avoiding job losses.”
Sam explained that unmitigated climate change “is expected to lead to 800 million excess deaths, and at least $4 trillion in damages by 2050.”
Sam continued to explain that “according to the National Climate Change Risk Assessment, by 2050, national disaster relief will cost approximately $40b annually.”
Sam now turns his attention to his home region of the Hunter, stating that “this problem is, unfortunately, much bigger than just Pauline Hanson. Who can blame coal miners for wanting to continue working in these mines when it pays so well? Who can blame them when the only politician promising this is that chronic liar Pauline Hanson?”
According to Sam although concerns about the coal industry are particularly relevant in the Hunter region, “the industry is dying, just look at Mt Arthur and Ashton.” He concludes, “by continuing to subsidise the coal mines without a plan to shift employment into other industries, we risk letting the communities around these mines die as well.”
According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics, Hunter coal mines plan to reduce their output by 43% between now and 2034.
