An analysis.

A personal analysis of Pauline Hanson's Maiden speech and the persuasive techniques used to position her audience into accepting and ultimately adopting her dogmatic opinions and views.  

Pauline Hanson, former Australian politician and leader of the ‘One Nation’ political party, expressed many views and personal opinions in her Maiden Speech, targeting key issues of concern to the Australian public. Hanson’s speech was underpinned by many cultural assumptions about the immigration process, Aborigines, the Australian Government and many of its enactments, which at the time were significant concerns of the Australian public.

By positioning herself as an ordinary but patriotic Australian, Hanson gives authenticity to her views and thus leads her audience to identify with and ultimately adopt her view. Through her emotive language and her appealing to the needs and desires of her audience, Hanson presents Aboriginal welfare as an undeserved privilege, immigrants as a threat to Australians’ jobs and lifestyle and progressive legislation such the Family Law Act as the cause of social ills.

By employing methods and techniques such as strong, emotive language, repetition, generalizations, clear bias, authoritative tone, fact and opinion and several analogies, Hanson attempted to persuade her audience that the government’s policies need to be ‘radically reviewed’ and Australia could not possibly be ‘strong and united’ without abolishing multiculturalism and halting the process of migration.

Hanson quickly establishes herself as an everyday Australian to whom other Australians can relate. Forming this connection in her opening paragraph she stated: “I come here not as a polished politician but as women who has had her fair share of life’s knocks.” Hansen continued the relationship technique of identification with ordinary Australians throughout her speech. By the use of other various statements such as “as a mother of four children, as a sole parent, and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop” she reinforces this position. Hanson forms an understanding and an empathy with her audience, who can relate to her as a ‘battler’ and an average woman who understands the reality of life for many people. She states she represents Oxley, “which is typical of mainstream Australia.” This provides her with an authenticity which sets up a springboard from which she can launch her message.

Having established her credentials, she compounds her position by appealing to the needs and desires of her audience through statements that posed either negative or positive connotations, depending on her viewpoint. As a person in a position of power, Hanson was able to gently persuade her audience to a preferred position and thus accept her belief and opinion on the matter. Hanson stated that the government daily performed ‘reverse racism’ by favouring Aborigines above other white Australians. Through further statements such as “politicians… are not truly representing all Australians” and the government was “not prepared to take action” Hanson’s attempted to underline the government’s lack of nationalism and ‘commitment’ to the Australian public. Hanson then went on to challenge the government to be “fair dinkum" and face the reality of their policies. Through these statements, Hanson captured her audience’s approval, instilling a sense of trust in her, whilst appealing to the parochial side of her audience and all the time creating a need and desire for a more efficient government.

Hanson further applies the technique of appealing to the needs and desires of her audience by appealing to their ‘hip pocket nerve’. Having attracted their interest and approval, she then presented the ‘unjust’ and ‘bias’ system of reparations to the indigenous population. During her speech Hanson paints the Aborigines as over-privileged Australians who deserve no extra benefits for “something which happened 200 years ago.” She goes on to say that Australia tax-payers should not have to pay taxes which would ultimately contribute to compensation and to the welfare of Aborigines. This approach no doubt appealed to the ‘hip-pocket-nerve’ citizens of Australia, who instantly react negatively at the mention of additional taxes or payments and thus appeals to the need and desire to save money.

Emotive language peppered Pauline Hanson’s Maiden Speech and nowhere in her speech is this emotive language more evident than in her comments about the Family Law Act. Hanson’s selection of words infer a negativity with Hanson stating the Family Law Act created “upheaval” within families and “brought death, misery and heartache to countless thousands of Australians.” Hanson further commented that the financial demands were “punitive” and Senator Lionel Murphy, who introduced the act was “disgraceful” who “should be repealed.” This technique of emotive language negatively reflected the Family Law Act and was intended to sway the reader against the legislation and thus the government.

However emotive language was also effectively used to highlight many positive aspects of Hanson’s campaign. She particularly appeals to the patriotism of her listeners and when referring to her ‘One Nations’ political policies, Hanson describes her actions as necessary to result in “peace and harmony’. Abolishing multiculturalism she says will pave the way for a “strong united country.” Positive emotive language further litters Hanson’s speech whenever reference is made to the ‘One Nation’ party and the related themes such as when she states “we must have one people, one nation and one flag.”

Tone was also employed by Hanson in her speech to create a sense of righteousness in her arguments, reflected through the language used. In attempting to persuade her audience Hanson uses words such as “I worked for my land. No one gave it to me.” to establish her credentials as a ‘worker’ in contrast to Aborigines who gain extra benefits without working. Hanson subtly implies a sense of displeasure at the reparations allocated to the aborigines that the tax payers ‘ultimately’ pay for stating “Welfare is killing them (aborigines).” Hanson’s attitude towards the matter soon becomes clear through her use of perceptive tone and choice of wording.

Ms Hanson further compounds this barrier to impartiality by the use of generalisation which reinforce her views. Through the use of broad, outlandish statements such as “Immigrants must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues are not added to by… unskilled immigrants not fluent in our language”, Hanson appealed to the individual self-orientated audience. By making veiled threats to their jobs and the burden of dole payments she again generalised immigrants and lured her audience into a mindset of concern. Many of the public were already drawn to her views and persuasive speech but personal threats close to home enticed her audience further, aided by the air of fear Hanson had created.

Through several of these techniques including bold statement that appeal to needs and desires, strong emotive language and many generalisations, Hanson’s subtly leads her audience towards her biased viewpoint. Hanson, throughout her speech makes several comments regarding numerous ethnic and cultural groups. Hanson representation of Asians citizens included influencing statements such as “Asian immigrants… have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.” Soon following this is her comment of “I believe Australia is in danger of being swamped by Asians.” This use of generalisation, emotive language and  the appeal to her audience’s needs and desires, all help create an authoritive, although biased view, which is transmitted to the reader and subtly prevents them from being impartial.

The presentation of Ms Hanson’s opinion as facts was yet another technique employed by her to further cement her arguments to the audience open to her persuasion techniques. Arguments such as “Abolishing the policy of Multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia paving the way for a strong,  united country,” were read and considered as a fact, however when closely analysed are indeed another opinion of Ms Hanson.

 It is now easy recognizable that the arguments presented by Pauline Hanson in her maiden speech are extremely biased, do not correctly represent the true values, beliefs and attitudes of the different cultural groups and misinform the audience through persuasion of accepting her views and beliefs on many matters. Hanson clearly has conservative views reminiscent of ‘The White Australia Policy’ era but through her establishment of identity, appeals to the needs and desires of her audience, emotive language and many other techniques, touches the vulnerability of her audience to leads them to think as she does.