They all came together last night. Between the rows of flagpoles, before the surreal curving walls of Parliament House, beneath a moonless midnight sky, Pauline Hanson danced with rugged copper miners to a country and western ballad belted out by a twelve year old girl star.
It was a magic, tragic moment. Underneath the smiles and the swaying bodies there was an air of grim determination. And beneath that, a feeling of helplessness.
"We've had three fucking owners in three weeks", said Peter Fisher, a copper miner from Cobar in far western New South Wales, sketching out the events that had left him suddenly unemployed after a long career. "We've had an administrator, a liquidator and a receiver."
I couldn't follow the twists and turns, but I could sense the frustration as he explained the bottom line -- a company called Ashanti Gold, based in Ghana and owned by that country's government had ended up as the owner of the Cobar mine. "They just fucking closed it.", said Fisher.
The scale of the disaster became apparent as one miner after another told their stories. Ashanti had taken over the mine and promptly locked the gates. The workers had been left with arrears of pay and no chance of receiving entitlements built up over years, some men with three decades of employment behind them out of pocket by well over a hundred thousand dollars. Years of long service leave, accumulated holiday leave and other entitlements vanished in a single day. Little or no redundancy payout for the workers -- the money had already been spent by the company.
"Not just the union blokes -- it was everyone got screwed, management as well.", said one union bloke. Miners, management, contractors, railway workers, suppliers and shopkeepers -- everyone in Cobar, a town relying almost entirely on the copper mine, faced disaster.
"We've got big mortgages and little kids.", another offered, looking around the temporary camp set up on the lawns of Parliament House, where children were playing together, enjoying the adventure.
The last steaks were being served from a gas barbecue, a chugging generator powered lights and a microphone; outdoor furniture was placed in a rough circle and swags and sleeping bags were appearing on the fringes.
The miners had driven from Cobar, leaving before dawn and arriving in mid afternoon. A few politicians had come down to address them, including their local member, Michael Cobb of the Nationals, who had gained fame last year by claiming that he had slept in his car in order to receive a night's travelling allowance. "You can show us where to camp, eh, Mike?" shouted one miner.
That might have been the highlight of a pretty serious day. Now, as children were carried off by parents to sleep in their cars, the camp was winding down for the night.
Then Pauline Hanson arrived. Alerted by a radio story, she had come down to listen to the miners. Red hair and blue jeans, she was a distinctive figure, even in the half darkness. As the word spread, the miners and their families clustered around her. Steve Roach, the protest organiser, found that what had begun as a quick bit of background briefing was turning into a town meeting, with salty comments being offered from all sides.
They moved across the road to the microphone, where Steve made an entirely superfluous introduction. "She's the first politician who has come down to listen to us without making an appointment.", he said.
Pauline made a short speech before taking questions. In Parliament House, she is listened to in silence, but these miners were a bit less restrained.
"I've driven to Cobar.", she began "I know where Cobar is."
"About the only politician who does!" yelled one wag.
"The Australian people have been underdogs for too long.", she went on "Walking in the halls of this place," (indicating Parliament House behind her), "I feel proud to be a representative of the people. Other times, I see my colleagues and I feel disgusted that they have let the people down. I don't have the answers, but I am here to listen."
And listen she did. Everyone, it seemed, had a tale to tell, and the story poured out from the miners and their families. It was the old story of the workers being done over by big business, and Ashanti was very big business indeed, with a profit of $480 million last year.
"They're in Africa, not here.", one miner complained. "How do you get to them? What's the government going to do?"
"Fuck all.", said Peter Fisher.
Pauline agreed, in more polite terms. It wasn't just the foreign companies standing over and standing down Australian workers -- the government was also selling them out by signing the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which concedes some sovereignty in return for a stable foreign investment climate. Pauline has been warning of the threat posed by the MAI for months now, but only recently have politicians started to take her seriously. The Parliamentary Library has been swamped with requests for information, but they don't have anything on the subject. Doubtless one of their famous Research Briefs will be produced the day after we sign the agreement.
Pauline listened to the miners. When she moved away from the microphone she went from group to group, hearing what they had to say. Someone thrust a mug of coffee into her hand, and she took sips as she heard the frustrated miners explain how they had had not just their jobs, but their futures taken from them. Inevitably, the autograph books came out, and the cameras appeared, and before too long, she found herself posing with almost everyone in the camp.
Smiles and laughter replaced the grim expressions, extraordinary girl singer Dominica Singleton appeared at the microphone ("She won six awards at Tamworth.", her proud mother explained), a burly miner took Pauline's hand, and they danced on the lawns of Parliament House.
For a while, care was put aside, and the miners lined up to dance with Pauline. "What other politician would do this?", they wondered, as the clock ticked on past midnight.
I think Pauline won a few hearts in this group of staunch Labor voters. Peter Fisher was impressed. "She speaks the fucking truth."
Peter, Steve, 260 other workers and many "unsecured creditors" are hoping against hope that they will get more than just a token amount of the money owed to them. I hope so too. It would be a tragedy if Cobar became just another decaying country town with no shops, no bottom to the housing market and no jobs for willing workers.
And the workers themselves, decent, ordinary family men, left to drift away to the big cities, maybe finding new jobs, maybe finding the dole instead, unable to offer the future they wished for their children. It's a tragedy that is all too familiar nowadays.
I guess the politicians will wait for the camp to disperse as the money runs out and the kids go back to school, and then it will be business as usual in Parliament House once again. The politicians know what to expect, you see, because they've seen it all before.
But Pauline Hanson is different. She's had a real job, a real life as a single mother and small businesswoman, and she has a knack of listening to people who are sick of being ignored. She won't forget the copper miners from Cobar, their worried wives, or the sleepy kids and their uncertain futures.