Australia’s most controversial politician has said she plans to move to Britain after selling her house in rural Queensland.
Pauline Hanson, the far-right, flame-haired, fish-and-chip-shop owner who campaigned for the Australian Parliament on an antiimmigration platform, complained that the country had become a harder place to live in, with fewer opportunities. She said that she was selling her property southwest of Brisbane and, after taking a cruise and visiting New Zealand, wanted to live in Britain indefinitely.
Ms Hanson’s grandfather emigrated to Australia from England in 1908 and her mother’s family are Irish.
She is understood to hold dual citizenship. She will leave her four adult children behind. “Australia will always be my home. But I love England and Ireland. My mother’s family come from Limerick and my father’s from London. I love the culture,” Ms Hanson said. “Every country has something unique to offer and I want to experience that.”
She told the Australian Woman’s Day magazine: “Our governments lack enough people with the fortitude to speak up without fear or favour. Over-regulation, increasing taxes and lack of true representation are affecting our way of life.
“I feel very much for the young ones. Once it was common for them to own their own home. Not now. It’s a harder place. Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable.”
Scepticss speculated that Ms Hanson’s announcement was a ploy to help to sell her 147-acre property, which went on sale yesterday. The property, which she named Serendipity, is located in Coleyville and is expected to fetch more than A$1 million (£600,000).
Ms Hanson, 55, the former leader of the One Nation party, entered Australian politics in 1996 when she famously said that she believed that her country was “in danger of being swamped by Asians” and questioned multiculturalism during her maiden speech to the national Parliament in Canberra.
Shee has been the subject of controversy throughout her 14-year political career and caused an international furore after demanding an end to special welfare benefits for indigenous Australians in 1996. When asked if
she was xenophobic during a television interview in 1996 Ms Hanson famously asked the journalist to “please explain”. She was briefly jailed in 2003 for electoral fraud.
Her most recent foray into politics came last year with an unsuccessful bid for the Queensland state seat of Beaudesert as an independent MP.
Ms Hanson did not say whether she planned a political career in England and would not comment to The Times when contacted.
Pauline Hanson on ...
Multiculturalism, 1996 (speech to the House of Representatives)
“I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians . . . they have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country”
Her career, 2007
“It’s been a very rocky road. I have had all the major political parties attack me, been kicked out of my own party and ended up in prison, but I don’t give up”
Cutting the number of African refugees that are admitted to Australia, 2007
“Do you want to see increased crime on our streets? Do you want to see increased violence? Do you want to see your daughter or a family member end up with Aids?”
The economy, 1996 (speech to the House of Representatives)
“I may only be a fish-and-chip-shop lady but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not let one of them handle my grocery shopping”
Source:timesonline.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment