It was a cold winter night on the edge of the Snowy Mountains when we launched the Cooma branch of One Nation. Four protesters huddled together in the frigid air outside the CWA hall, a faint echo of the hundreds who had enlivened the Canberra meetings.
There was a sprited response and lively participation from the Cooma folk and we finished just before ten at night. As I drove back to Canberra, glad that we had got the branch off to a good start, I listened to the adjournment debate from Parliament on the radio. I knew that Parliament House remained open to the public during proceedings, and there I was, a late-night political junkie looking for a fix, so I decided to take a look in.
There was a friendly young security guard manning the door when I turned up. He told me that the proceedings were almost over, but having come this far, I was intent on going the whole hog, so he called up a colleague, who escorted me up to the gallery for the final few minutes of the sitting. As I'd expected, the gallery was deserted and there were maybe five members reading their short speeches into Hansard, but Parliament House at any time is a grand place and I'd demonstrated to my own satisfaction that it remained the People's House even on a cold Canberra night.
Our next meeting was a week or so later, and this time we'd beaten the demonstrators. We held a quiet branch meeting and got a bit of business done, including the election of a Vice-President, who turned out, to my surprise, to be the Parliament House security guard I'd met earlier. His name was Chris Spence (a Queenslander like myself) and as time went on and his participation in branch affairs expanded, I grew to like and respect him. He stood in for our branch President Shaun Nelson at one meeting and gave a well-researched talk on ATSIC.
As a security guard, he had more access to Pauline Hanson than the rest of us, he told the branch members over coffee and Anzac biscuits after the meeting. We hung on his words as he explained that Pauline Hanson had been allocated one of the smallest and most remote offices and there was very little room for volunteer helpers, but that he had gained special permission from Black Rod to do some work and research for her in his spare time.
Black Rod, I might point out, is the name of the administrative officer who runs the Senate side of Parliament House, does the hiring and firing and oversees services. His counterpart on the Representatives side is the Serjeant-at-Arms, and I could not help but supress a smile when I later heard Pauline's researcher, Brett Hocking, call up his office for some help with a recalcitrant laser printer. One almost imagines a gent in knee breeches and cocked hat setting aside his pike and halberd to thumb through a computer manual.
Pauline's Canberra team is small but impressive and her office a hive of business. Phones ring constantly, there is a steady stream of visitors, and every flat surface overflows with paper: press releases, newspapers, notice papers, copies of Hansard. Pauline is the focus of activity, always cool, relaxed and utterly charming. Even in her absence, she is referred to as "The Boss" by her staff, impressive people in their own right.
Chris fitted in well whenever he had some time off-duty to help out, but all too soon, Pauline's enemies were at work, and he found his permission to work in her office withdrawn, he was restricted to duties which kept him away from the Representatives side, and when his contract came up for renewal, it wasn't.
He turned up at my door after his last shift, and I poured him a cool beer on a hot Canberra afternoon as we waited for the other members of the branch executive. Shaun Nelson had returned home to his family in Queensland, and Chris was now acting President. We roughed out a schedule to kick off what looks like a very busy year here in Canberra and toasted our future success and that of the party.
February is the Constitutional Convention in Old Parliament House, which promises to be a very lively debate by a bunch of very confused people.
March sees Parliament resume and doubtless the Wik Bill will be returned to the Senate, with the ball firmly in the Opposition's court. Either they knuckle under and pass John Howard's bill, or they reject it and expose themselves to an election they cannot possibly win.
Pauline Hanson is proof of the pudding, her presence in Parliament as member for what was once the safest ALP seat in Queensland a constant reminder that the people will not support special treatment based on race.
Regardless of the abuse she has copped from fringe elements, politicians of all flavours, and the supposedly unbiased media, Pauline remains firm in her views. Australia remains a democracy, and in the end the people decide.