Pauline Hanson's move into the footlights

This was political hypocrisy on a grand scale. It was also queue jumping on a grand scale by tens of thousands who had not demonstrated against events in Tiananmen Square; had not been identifiable from television or newspaper images and had every expectation that they would return to China in due course without facing imprisonment. Most had, in fact, kept their noses clean of trouble and at least partially in their text books for exactly those reasons.

If anyone had put their futures at risk it was unscrupulous and irresponsible Australian politicians, bureaucrats and others who had been touting special study visas around China. They cost an average of $5,000 each - a veritable fortune in China. Most offered six month courses at what were usually private colleges offering English language classes.

What the Tiananmen incident also exposed were rip-offs of subsequently impoverished Chinese students in Australia. A national “Clever Country” policy had imposed huge changes, commercialisation and deregulation on the education sector from the mid-1980s. This had also led to a proliferation of so-called English language colleges. Post-Tiananmen events shone a spotlight on corruption in what had become an education export industry and the plight of Chinese students left destitute in a foreign country by unscrupulous language college operators. The scandal that followed saw much of this industry collapse and a return to regulation by accreditation.

Meanwhile, Australia's immigration programme was in trouble. Australians had also heard Hawke's breathtaking announcement in November 1989, 5 months after Tiananmen, that 26 Cambodian “boat people” who arrived at Broome were “illegals”, not political refugees, and would be sent home. Twelve months later the government issued what it termed a “fair warning” to the “illegal community”. And, it went after visa over-stayers, who then numbered around 90,000, with a vengeance. A new term, “illegals”, had entered the national lexicon. And, a new form of xenophobia appeared in Australia that would eventually culminate two decades later in desert prison camps, Tampa and “children overboard”.

Perhaps Pauline Hanson has finally hit the nail on the head when she observed that what Australians saw in her was “entertainment value”. She is, after all, the redhead who was not afraid of having a “blue” with the tallest of tall poppies; a self-proclaimed “battler”; a proponent of the “fair go”; a martyr to false imprisonment; and now, apparently, a girl just having fun. She was also the politician who, more than any of her more illustrious contemporaries, forced Australians to face issues which were being swept under multiple carpets and debate matters well outside multiple comfort zones. Pauline Hanson broke the monopoly multiple elites had established over public debate.

In the 20 years since Bob Hawke first called for national “enmeshment” with Asia, Australians have taken their own paths into Asia as students, entrepreneurs, business people and, most commonly, as tourists. Any belief that this latter contact is entirely superficial can no longer be sustained. The generosity demonstrated by Australians to their Asian neighbours demonstrates a refreshing confidence about their relationships with these neighbours and a solicitude that betokens empathy worthy of a greater maturity than some rhetoric might bespeak.