Pauline Hanson’s history of blaming people for being persecuted or victimised is not new. She’s historically had a lot to say about the many wrongs meted out by Indigenous folks, immigrants, LGBTIQ+ folks, refugees, people concerned about climate change, and pretty much any other group of which she’s not a member.
And now she’s added victims of domestic violence to her list of marginalised people who have had it too good for too long.
“I’m saying to those women out there, don’t throw domestic violence orders at your ex-partners just to further your case or get control of the children, it is not fair or right and when you actually go out and you accuse your ex-partner of sexual molestation of that child, which is untrue, which they are using, and I’ve heard that from even lawyers, that it is cases being used like that, incidences, or stalking, that you know, these things are not true.”
Pauline Hanson, Radio National 18 September 2019
And the reason she’s all het up about women lying about violence from men? Scott Morrison just proudly added her as co-chair to the Inquiry into the Family Court, along with hardline conservative, Abbott-era minister and vocal opponent to Australia’s divorce laws, Kevin Andrews.
In other words, her appointment confirms that this will be a thorough and unbiased look at the court, coincidentally chaired by two people who have been active and vocal in their contempt for it by a government which is currently attempting to get rid of it altogether. Sounds cool!
It’s worth pointing out that despite Hanson’s rhetoric the claim that women regularly lie about domestic violence to the family court is just not true.
Also, that the sort of force-the-parents-to-sort-things-out-between-them approach that both Hanson and Morrison prefer to the Family Court goes against the advice of every actual expert on family violence, who all say that it mainly provides opportunities for further abuse.
Yet this has been a pet obsession of Hanson’s since at least 2016, when she made her return to parliament and declared that women were just making stuff up to hurt men.
“Some [women] are going out there and claiming domestic violence because they’re told ‘I don’t like the colour of your dress’. “They are making frivolous complaints and it’s time that our court system [was looked at] especially for men who are the subject of domestic violence themselves.”
Hanson to ARM Media 10 June 2016
But if a think-of-the-menz approach seems like a weird one to make in an environment where a woman is being murdered by a current or former domestic partner at a rate of one a week, then today she at least shed a modicum of light on it.
It turns out that there might be a less-than-entirely-unbiased reason for Pauline Hanson being so angry at women. As she explained to Radio National one of her sons had domestic violence allegations made against him during a custody battle and… well, you can’t blame a mother for wanting to protect her child but seriously? That’s her basis of dismissing decades of research?
In any case: what are the odds on the inquiry finding that the Family Court should be burned to the ground and replaced by a panel of aggrieved men? Seems pretty high right now.