The Queensland Senate race has come alive, with the prospect of Indigenous LNP Senator Jo Lindgren facing off against Pauline Hanson - a person not known for her charitable views of Aborigines - for the last senate seat.
It is all the more interesting as Senator Lindgren would be the only remaining Indigenous woman in Parliament following the shock resignation of Nova Peris.
![Pauline Hanson could battle indigenous LNP Senator Jo Lindgren for the final senate spot in Queensland.](/web/20160829214312im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/2/h/b/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gp2zjf.png/1465521980653.jpg)
Senator Lindgren is unfazed, declaring: "Voters will have a clear choice. It is going to be a battle between new hope and old hate, for what sort of future we want for the country."
Ms Hanson, who denies she is a racist, is certainly not short on hate. Her comments on Aborigines and Asians could most charitably be described as indelicate. In 2010 she announced that she was leaving Australia to migrate to the UK, where she was welcomed with open arms by the neo-fascist British National Party. However, after spending two weeks in Europe, she returned, complaining that Britain was "overrun with immigrants and refugees."
![Queensland LNP senator Joanna Lindgren.](/web/20160829214312im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/j/3/0/m/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gp2zjf.png/1465521980653.jpg)
Hanson is believed to have some chance because of the fact the quota for election in a double dissolution is half of what it is in a normal Senate election.
Lindgren is a first term senator, although someone with considerable political pedigree being the niece of ground-breaking Aboriginal Senator Neville Bonner.
She has cut her own path through parliament, though, and is seen as someone who might be able to break the malaise crippling Indigenous politics in Australia. One thing is sure; the old formula of angry black men and old white men carving deals in Canberra has failed a generation of Aboriginal children and something has to change.
"I live on hope that Australia in 2016 is not the best that we can do. I believe we can do better, especially in education. As a school teacher, I know that better education is the key to the future for all our children, whether they are indigenous or not," Senator Lindgren says.
She recognises though that change needs positive ideas.
"Every leap forward in this country has started with someone's ideas, and freedom of speech. It was freedom of speech that changed women's rights, and it was the freedom rides of Charlie Perkins that inspired changes to the treatment of indigenous Australians," she says.
For all that, Senator Lindgren is unashamedly a social conservative, who was not afraid to speak out on the failed Safe Schools experiment, not to advocate for the abolition of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
All of this presents the Labor Party and the Greens with a real problem. The Greens will get one senator elected, but probably not two. Their preferences, as well as the left over Labor votes, will have to go somewhere. Will they preference Pauline Hanson over an indigenous woman senator?
It will also be interesting to see how the media approaches this. Will they give Hanson unquestioning coverage because she is Hanson, and will they afford Senator Lindgren the same degree of exposure?
For her part, Senator Lindgren is staying positive. She declined to comment on Hanson's string of unsuccessful election bids in Queensland and New South Wales.
"Hanson merely wants to recycle the same old hatreds, rather deal with helping Australians. She relies on fears not ideas," she said.
"I want to focus on helping farmers and rural families, providing better education, and building a country where we get on with each other, not pull each other down."
Whether the Greens and Labor agree with her is something we shall see.
Bill O'Chee is a consultant and former National Party senator.
For independent news coverage, be sure to follow our Facebook feed.
47 comments
Comment are now closed