Immigrants join an anti-Hanson protest in Australia. A newspaper columnist says that "in retrospect Hanson will be seen as the piece of grit which produced the magnificent pearl of '90s Australian anti-racism." (By Alan Porritt for The Washington Post)

Backed by Angry Working People
Continued from Page One

Hanson's supporters are often portrayed as racist zealots; in fact, most are simply working people who are angry and scared, worried about a world that is changing in often-difficult and confusing ways. They have modest-paying jobs and fear that they could lose them to immigrants, or to foreign owners buying their companies and cutting the work force. They say they fear Aborigines who receive discount mortgage rates and welfare benefits are getting an unfair leg up on them. Hanson has offered these people something to cling to.

At one table, she greeted a 64-year-old retired photographer who immigrated to Australia from his native Slovenia when he was 16, learned to speak English and served in Vietnam with the Australian army. The photographer, who, like many others attending the dinner, asked not to be identified, said he sees no hypocrisy in a former immigrant supporting a politician who wants to ban most immigration.

"We're getting a lot of people coming over here now who don't adapt to this country. When in Rome, you do as the Romans do," he said. "I don't hate Asians. I have many Asian friends. But we're getting a lot of people coming over here who bring their problems with them. Australian people want peace. They want their own country to stay the way it is."

The photographer's son, a 36-year-old federal government employee who also did not want his name publicly associated with Hanson for fear of retribution, agreed: "Some cultures have religious and political wars going back 2,000 years. These people are coming here with their own political agendas, and I think they should be screened much more carefully."

The son, neatly dressed in a suit and tie, wears his hair in a short blond buzz-cut. He and his wife said they are thinking about starting a family soon, and they worry about the Australia they will leave for their children. He said immigrants and Aborigines are taking jobs and welfare money that should rightly go to white Australians. "I don't think it's fair to expect us to fund money going into their pockets," he said.

He had been fidgeting nervously waiting for Hanson to make her way to his table. He said he loves that Hanson gives people "straight English, cutting out the legal talk." As soon as she arrived, he shook her hand and told her he was grateful someone is finally telling "the truth."

"I don't think finding a balance between controlling immigration and maintaining our national identity is a dirty thing," he told her.

Hanson nodded and leaned toward him, locking his eyes with hers and telling him: "If standing up for what we believe in and for the Australian flag makes me racist, then I am racist."

Neil Emmerton, 56, a retired sheep farmer with a ruddy face and a thick tweed jacket, drove 60 miles from his small farming town to see Hanson. Emmerton started a One Nation chapter there, and he said 25 people came to the first meeting, including shopkeepers, sheep shearers and the local optometrist.

"Pauline Hanson is not racist," he said. "We can complain about immigration and Aborigines' welfare policies without being called racist."

Success at the Ballot Box

(The Washington Post)

In recent months, Parliament has twice rejected Prime Minister Howard's proposals to effectively scale back land rights won by Australia's 350,000 Aborigines in the nation's high court. The court in 1996 said that aboriginal people could claim some rights to vast tracts of land leased from the government by ranchers and miners.

The so-called Wik decision, named for the aboriginal clan that brought the case, caused an uproar in Australia. Many saw it as a just decision for native people who were pushed off their land by European settlers in the last 200 years and are now a disadvantaged minority facing serious social problems. Others saw it as a misguided attempt at justice that unfairly gave away the rights of ranchers and miners. An angry Hanson gave that sentiment voice in her maiden speech: "I am fed up with being told, 'This is our land.' Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children."

Howard, while noting past injustices to the Aborigines, said that he thought the "pendulum has now swung too far" toward them, and that he intends to ask Parliament again to limit the effect of the court's decision. But to avoid a third rejection by Parliament – which could trigger early national elections with Hanson-fueled racial overtones – Howard last week moderated the land-rights legislation, giving Aborigines concessions without further antagonizing rural lease holders. He called the last-minute deal "an honorable compromise," but key aboriginal spokesmen said some parts of it might be challenged in court.

The deal is a relief to many who fear that race-based elections would worsen the fear and resentment stirred up by Hanson and be a disheartening setback after decades of embracing immigration and atoning for any crimes committed against the Aborigines.

Phillip Adams, a social commentator in Sydney, recently edited a collection of essays in which he described his hope for an Australia where racial tolerance would win out over hatred, where the many colors of people's skin would form a peaceful, "majestic mosaic."

"Let us hope," Adams said, "that we can wait patiently, even proudly, for that picture to emerge – that we can save it from the Hansonites who pound at the pieces with their fists."

Special correspondent John Shaw in Sydney contributed to this report.