ABSTRACT
Pauline Hanson had been disendorsed as the Liberal candidate for the Queensland seat of Oxley before the March 1996 election. The grounds ‘related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals’ as she explained to Parliament. For John Howard, the rise of Pauline Hanson represented a dilemma. Howard sympathised with Hanson supporters’ nostalgia for a lost, more culturally united Australia. Hanson’s economic populism meant that Howard had to think about the Liberals’ business constituencies as he pondered his response to Hanson. The 2001 election was centred around the issues of Tampa and ‘children overboard’ and fell only weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. It marked the decisive turning point in the way Howard governed. The growing role of religion in politics under Howard came to the attention of most Australians only after the 2004 election campaign.
