Return To Politics
In 2003 Hanson was an unsuccessful candidate for the NSW State Election, running for a seat in the Upper House. In January 2004, Hanson announced that she did not intend to return to politics. but then stood as an independent candidate for one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2004 Australian federal election. She declared, "I don't want all the hangers on. I don't want the advisers and everyone else. I want it to be this time Pauline Hanson." She was ultimately unsuccessful, receiving only 31.77% of the required quota of primary votes, and did not pick up enough additional support through preferences. However, she attracted more votes than the One Nation party (4.54% compared to 3.14%) and, unlike her former party, recovered her deposit from the Australian Electoral Commission and secured $150,000 of public electoral funding.
On 24 May 2007 Hanson launched Pauline's United Australia Party. Under that banner, Hanson again contested one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2007 Federal election, when she received over 4% of total votes. The party invokes the partial namesake of the historic United Australia Party. Speaking on her return to politics, she stated: "I have had all the major political parties attack me, been kicked out of my own party and ended up in prison, but I don't give up." In October 2007, Hanson launched her campaign song, entitled "Australian Way of Life.", which included the line: "Welcome everyone, no matter where you come from."
Hanson contested the electoral district of Beaudesert as an independent at the 2009 Queensland state election. After an election campaign dominated by discussion over hoax photographs, she was placed third behind the Liberal National Party's Aidan McLindon and Labor's Brett McCreadie. There were conflicting media reports as to whether she had said she would not consider running again.
On 15 February 2010, Hanson announced that she planned to deregister Pauline's United Australia Party, sell her Queensland house and move to the United Kingdom. The announcement was warmly welcomed by Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP).
On 23 July 2010, while at an event promoting her new career as a motivational speaker, Hanson expressed interest in returning to the political stage as a Liberal candidate if an invitation were to be offered by the leader Tony Abbott in the 2010 election. No such offer was forthcoming.
Read more about this topic: Pauline Hanson
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or politics:
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“If a man, notoriously and designedly, insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)