so you were too young for conscription, without even having a vote my friend

The whole of the Menzies campaign to pass the National Service Act was based on "we need to steal young men from their mothers [and Fathers] anf Fathers, even though too young to vote and send them to Fight the Yellow Peril who as we speak are amassing on the Simpson Desert

Many of my friends never returned from that Asian sh**hole mate

give me a straight talking Pauline any day than a menzies who mentored the displaced Rodent just now with their un Constitutional devices

he dropped vote to 18 but WE never got to vote for NSAct - it was the PC masses of the day who voted on our behalf, thinking ah well they dont even understand Xenophobic [or homophobic] so they MUST be good cannon fodder

TRTL ... if I remember rightly she was manipulated - by her own party.

Yes TLTR you are right in most of what you said.
I heard her say "Please explain" and I remember thinking, they will
hammer her with that.
It was just what the chattering classes were looking for to show her
up as an uneducated fool.

However it did backfire because many said to me that "She is one of us
not one of those would bes". She is a fish & chips shop lady !

The media was relentless in their insulting and humiliation of her.
It was just what the politicians wanted but she was still a thorn in
the side of the Queensland Government so they knew they had to do
something about her and she became the first real political prisoner
in Australia since the first fleet arrived.
I define a political prisoner as someone who is imprisoned at the
behest of politicians for purely political reasons.

The bad thing about Pauline was obvious, she was clearly operating outside her intellectual weight class when it came to national politics, somehow, bantam weight suits chooks.

However, the good thing about Pauline was she got up and had a go.

She would have inspired more people to take their politics seriously, of only to keep her out.

So all credit to her for having a go and all credit to the system which allows her, you and me to seek to aspire to what we believe in and see if we can get more to support our view.

It was in Queensland, a state whose historic racism had, in the late nineties, demonstrated its resilience in the election to Federal Parliament of Pauline Hanson as an independent candidate, on an anti-Aboriginal, anti-immigration platform.

Her Oxley electorate had one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia. More than half the young people could not find work. Having identified the scapegoats, Pauline Hanson made the time-honoured connections. Most importantly, she promoted herself as 'just a naive, hard-working mother' who spoke 'on behalf of the ordinary, average person who's fed up with the pollies (politicians).'

That refrain had a resonance in a country where cynicism about dissembling politicians and their rich 'mates' may be more prevalent than in any western democracy.

Hanson said the Aborigines were 'privileged' and that 'millions' were spent on them to no avail. She maintained, in a book written for her, that they 'killed and ate their women and children and occasionally their men.'

This was Howard's opportunity. Apart from calling Hanson an 'empty populist,' he pointedly refused to criticise her. In truth, her message was his; only the language was adjusted. Her 'One Nation Party' bore every resemblance to his 'One Australia Policy' which, he had promised in 1988, would be pursued by a future government led by him.

Once in office, Prime Minister Howard - demanded that Aboriginal communities give up even the right to negotiate land development. His adviser, South Australian Senator, Nick Minchin, used code familiar to black Australians, and one echoed by Pauline Hanson.

If Aborigines got 'too much,' he said, the 'community' would resent their 'special rights' and this would 'undermine the reconciliation process.' That Aborigines had no rights to their own land was a given.

Today, neither Hanson nor Howard exist politically.

The test for popular 'decency' now depends on the actions of the newly elected Government.

Like Col Rouge I respect Pauline for having a go - no matter how much I disliked her personally.

Bazz she was not a thorn in the side of the Qld Govt. She was a thorn in the side of The National Party, who lost seats to One Nation in Qld. Ron Boswell could see this happening on a Federal level and started the put Pauline last campaign on the conservative side of politics.

Pauline was nobbled by the conservative side of politics.