An article about Mark Seymour’s appearance on the ABC television programme Q&A.

Author:  Bernard Zuel, Sydney Morning Herald.

Date: 28 March 2017.

Original URL: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/hunters–collectors-frontman-mark-seymour-calls-out-bogus-one-nation-on-qa-20170327-gv7ssk.html

Article Text

While a working class musician in Sex Pistol John Lydon was finding common ground with the rising tide of right-wing populism on British TV, another, in former Hunters & Collectors frontman Mark Seymour, was rising to oppose it on Australian TV.

Seymour, appearing on the ABC’s Q&A, took issue with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party calling it “completely bogus” and prone to using headline grabbing pronouncements to hide its lack of meaningful, or at least effective, policies.

The Hunters & Collectors frontman takes aim at Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, calling it ‘completely bogus’. Vision: ABC TV.

“When one particular politician stands up and deliberately cultivates hatred in the Australian community, what she’s doing is deflecting your attention away from what she’s really offering politically,” Seymour said. “It’s what’s on the rest of her policy agenda you should be looking.”

And those other policies suggest that the Hansonites are “not a party that’s capable of governing this country”, he argued.

Mark Seymour is no fan of Pauline Hanson. Photo: ABC

“She’s using Islam as a means of deflecting your attention away from all the other policies she has on offer like a two per cent flat tax and abolishing the GST,” Seymour said. “Really? She seriously thinks that’s going to work?”

The singer, whose first hit with Hunters & Collectors was called Talking To A Stranger, was responding to an audience member who had begun by citing the way the One Nation leader “identifies there is a problem and that it must be addressed”.

The questioner raised the threat of supposed Muslim efforts internationally to “establish a worldwide caliphate” and described this as a topic “other politicians” weren’t addressing.

This claim was quickly debunked by another Q&A panellist, former NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, who also expressed extreme scepticism at the need for changes to the racial discrimination law’s section 18C, and offered future support to anyone challenging the law if it were to be changed.

“I would encourage you and I’d be with you as you went to the Human Rights Commission to say this is not acceptable and you need to do something about it,” she told a rabbi who had talked about being abused on the street in Sydney because of his faith.

Chikarovski may or may not know that Seymour’s biggest hit was Throw Your Arms Around Me.

Comments

N/A.