On Tuesday night the ABC screened the first part of Al-Jazeera’s documentary about the shadowy world of the pro-gun lobby, ‘How To Sell A Massacre’, in a tour de force of undercover journalism, blithe disregard for human life, and the sort of interstitial 90s fonts which you might have assumed went out of vogue when Hard Copy went off air.
“Coming up next: tenants from hell and the shonky landlords that love them!”
They set up a fake lobby group, Gun Rights Australia, and its frontman Rodger Muller who as actually an undercover reporter. And they offered to hook One Nation up with the deep pockets of the NRA and other American conservative donors. Coincidentally, at the same time One Nation were trying to shut down overseas political donations that might help groups like GetUp!, but y’know, consistency is for small minds.
And it’s a must-watch purely for the way that it shows how cynically pro-gun organisations exploit murders, manipulate public opinion and gain political power, all shown through the eyes of two wide-eyed dufuses from Australia.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking B1? It’s trade the safety of our nation for blood money time!”
One Nation’s Queensland party leader Steve Dickson (who is running in the senate at the next election, by the way: just keep that in mind) and Pauline Hanson’s chief of Staff James Ashby are the unwitting stars of this doco and ooh, they say some interesting things.
In fact, it’s hard to see how they’ll top themselves in part 2 given their choice quotes they were dropping while, they now insist, having a James Bond moment while drunk – which means they were on one heck of a bender.
Let’s pick some of the choice quotes, shall we?
“We’re not even allowed to own guns in Australia for the self-protection for women. They’re not even allowed to have mace. It’s insane. We’ve been importing all these Muslims into Australia. We have about 230,000 people coming in a year. Our population’s only 25 million. Some really dangerous people, they’re just breaking into people’s homes with baseball bats and killing people. Basically stealing everything the own. Gangs. Our country’s going into chaos.”
Dickson, explaining day to day life in… um, some other Australia, we guess?
“If we can get a million dollars f****** US towards social media I don’t even need the money, I just need the grunt… They are a third party punching this s*** in and we’re giving them the stuff they’re punching in. There’s the trick.”
Dickson, working out a way that the NRA can support One Nation without necessarily donating money and therefore undergoing scrutiny.
We want to get funding. That is really the nuts and bolts because we can change everything in this country. We can make that happen. This is the thing I want to get through your head: if we can get $10 million we could f****** win a heap of seats plus a shitload of seats in the senate.”
Dickson laying out his plan like a supervillain
“We would win potentially the balance of power if we took two seats in the lower house. And you know what? I reckon we can do that with two million dollars.”
Ashby, following suit.
Artist’s impression.
“This is about getting [the NRA] a political wing in Australia that can actually work hand in glove with the United States in a way that the United States thinks. I want to be in bed with the United States and I don’t think Pauline is too much different to me.”
Dickson, redefining that whole “patriotism” thing.
“We need to be mindful that anything in writing can always be tracked and traced and used against you… If this gets out, it will f**king rock the boat.”
James Ashby, being uncharacteristically correct.
Cannot wait for part 2! To the popcorn, nation – stat!