Pauline Hanson, former leader of the One Nation Party and inveterate electoral campaigner, has once again lost in her bid to become a Member of Parliament, in this case the NSW Senate:

PAULINE HANSON has failed to make a political comeback after she came within 1300 votes of securing an upper house seat, only for the Greens and the National Party to narrowly beat her on preferences…

In Melbourne, tabloid columnist Andrew Bolt- who gave Hanson equivocal support in her losing campaign, arguing she is a much better alternative than the eventual winner (the Greens)- is currently being prosecuted under the Federal Racial Discrimination Act. The case may well have important legal ramifications for public discussion on race. Former Federal Attorney General Michael Lavarch writes:

Bolt has been asked by nine complainants relying on provisions in the federal Racial Discrimination Act to account for a series of articles published in the Herald Sun.

These provisions came into law in 1995 and were introduced by me as attorney-general in the Keating government. The bill I took to the parliament was substantially amended in the Senate with only civil, as opposed to criminal, sanctions for racial vilification making it into the law.

Satirist Ben Pobjie expresses his opinion here.