Three decades.
One rhetorical move.
From Oxley in 1996 to the Federal Court in 2024, Pauline Hanson has redeployed the same phrase, retooled for a new target, in every decade of her political career. This is the record.
1996 · 2006 · 2016 · 2022
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1996
I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.
2006
People from South Africa… they’ve got AIDS. They are of no benefit to this country whatsoever.
2016
Now we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own.
2022
Pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.
Australia is, she says,
in danger of being swamped.By Asians. By Muslims. By a colleague.
in danger of being swamped.By Asians. By Muslims. By a colleague.
Across thirty years, Hanson has redeployed the same rhetorical move: an out-group that “doesn’t assimilate”, threatening a vague Australian whole. In 2024 the Federal Court formally declared one such statement racist and unlawful. The phrase changes target. The structure does not.