When One Nation leader Pauline Hanson sets foot in the Shamrock hotel in Bendigo on Saturday, she will likely remember it – the venue provided her refuge from protesters during her visit to the city in 1998.
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As the controversial politician’s popularity swelled in July that year, Ms Hanson, then a member of the House of Representatives, arrived in Bendigo hoping to harness regional support for her far-right nationalist policies.
She had planned to walk through Hargreaves Mall, meeting and greeting the public. Instead, Ms Hanson spent most of her brief stay in Bendigo holed up in the Shamrock as protesters – among them hordes of senior secondary students – converged on the venue.
“To the words of We Are Australian sung by the teenage protesters at the front door, Ms Hanson was whisked out the back,” Australian Associated Press reported at the time.
Speaking to the Advertiser this week, Ms Hanson said she believed university students had been paid to attend the rally, while other students had fallen victim to “biased” teachings that favoured the left.
Whatever people’s reasons for protesting, though, Ms Hanson was essentially run out of town.
More than 17 years since she held a seat in parliament, Ms Hanson returns to Bendigo today to launch One Nation’s Victoria Senate campaign alongside lead candidate Elise Chapman.
So how different – and how similar – is Bendigo and the broader political climate to what it was in 1998?
“There’s been a significant shift to the right in politics since then, especially in the Howard years,” said Ian Tulloch, honorary associate in politics at La Trobe University Bendigo.
“A series of quite reactionary policies on refugees … has played into the hands of the right-wing warriors. But there’s also a lot push-back against that, which is demonstrated by the refugee rallies.
“Bendigo’s also a lot more diverse was it was in 1998.”
David Jones, a former Bendigo mayor, was the Greens candidate at the 1998 election.
“(Ms Hanson) had a lot of support. I saw it. There was a degree of fear of the other,” he said of her supporters’ views. “What has transpired since then has been the consolidation of that fear, manifested in the fear of Muslims, refugees and terrorists.”
At the same time, however, Labor has managed to keep hold of the federal seat, despite significant turmoil within the party over a number of years. Poll results show the Greens have grown their support base in the city since 1998, while One Nation – until Ms Chapman declared her Senate candidacy this year – had disappeared as a local contender.
Region a base for state strategy
It would be hard to imagine Ms Hanson’s profile being any bigger than it was when she came to Bendigo in 1998.
A platform of railing against multiculturalism had catapulted her to a level of notoriety rarely seen in a first-term politician.
With a much lower profile in 2016, Ms Hanson has made Bendigo the epicentre of her party’s Victorian Senate campaign, where Elise Chapman is One Nation’s lead – and so far only – candidate.
Ms Chapman has been a vocal opponent of a proposed mosque, but Ms Hanson said One Nation’s focus from a campaigning perspective was on a broad range of issues – from the foreign ownership of agricultural land to the impact of drugs.
“There are far greater issues in Australia,” Ms Hanson told the Advertiser this week in relation to the significance of the mosque debate.
In fact, she described Bendigo as “not unlike any other place in Victoria or Australia”.
In Ms Chapman, Ms Hanson said she had a strong lead candidate.
“There were some other people (interested) but not everyone is cut out to be a politician,” she said.
Mr Tulloch said One Nation would resonate with a small section of the community.
“It’s the same mentality (as in 1998) – attacking so-called outsiders, people with different religious beliefs, from different cultures,” he said.
Mr Tulloch believed it would be difficult for One Nation to make a mark in Victoria with a lead Senate candidate “not well known outside the region”, adding that Ms Chapman’s top billing showed how difficult it was for Ms Hanson to find support in Melbourne.
Ms Chapman said she had no doubt she had a challenge ahead.
“I’ve been underestimated many times and I think I have a lot of support in the Bendigo region,” she said.
Ms Chapman estimated she would need some 500,000 primary votes across Victoria to be elected.
“When my campaign goes into full swing, I will be campaigning in Melbourne.”
Ms Hanson said more Senate candidates would be announced soon.
Residents plan protest outside Shamrock
A group of Bendigo residents will march to the Shamrock hotel on Saturday to protest against the venue hosting One Nation’s Victorian Senate campaign launch.
Resident Chris McInally said the venue’s decision to play host was in “poor judgment, owing to (leader) Pauline Hanson’s divisive and xeophobic rhetoric”.
”Her statements in particular, over the past few decades, have aided in the marginalisation of Asians, Aboriginal peoples, AIDs-sufferers, and more recently Muslims,” a statement from McInally says.
“Now aided by anti-mosque advocate and Bendigo councillor, Elise Chapman, the potential exists for One Nation to further the divide between White Australians and non-White Australians, as it has done in the past.”
Mr McInally was also part of the successful push for the Foundry Hotel Complex in Golden Square to pull the plug on hosting the campaign launch.
The group will march from the Bendigo Trades Hall at 11.45am.