One Nation Pauline Hanson Malcolm Roberts

 
Anyone who watched Q and A last night will be flabbergasted, bewildered and frankly very angry by the performance of One Nation’s new senator, Malcolm Roberts who is reported to have become a senator having received less than 100 below the line votes.
 
His mantra that he makes decisions on empirical evidence, (someone tweeted that he said this more than 30 times), was completely undone by the reality that he only accepts ‘empirical evidence’ that suits his conspiracy ideologies.
 
It is a wonder that Professor Brian Cox did not explode. The man kept asserting his conspiracy theories as ‘fact’ with no evidence at all.  Apparently scientists can provide all the evidence they like but he will consider this a conspiracy unless they produce material to back his theories. At the same time he asserts as ‘fact’ (something he did on multiple occasions) theories for which he provided no evidence other than his assertion that it is so.
 
How has it come to this that Australians vote into parliament people who will apparently loudly shout that black is white and go to the barricades demanding that they be taken seriously?  Greg Hunt’s limp assurance to Malcolm Roberts that he respects his point of view was itself pathetic. How can a statement that black is white be respected? It is of course no different in the US where Donald Trump daily makes assertions that are not only divisive but are designed to be so.
 
It is extremely worrying that in order to pass its legislation through parliament the government will at times be tempted to do deals with ‘One Nation’.    ‘One Nation’ needs to be named for what it is, a party that peddles mistruth, exaggeration and fear, with the sole intention of falsely comforting Australians that our problems are caused by someone else and that we have no obligation to be part of the global community in solving issues which stretch well beyond sovereign borders.
 
As Brian Cox said on Q and A, immigration, climate, gross inequity, environmental degradation, are all global problems which require full cooperation with the global community if they are to be met let alone solved.  To suggest that Australia and Australians can or should protect themselves through isolation may be comforting to a few, but it is dangerously misleading.
 
I had thought that exposing Malcolm Roberts and Pauline Hanson to people like Brian Cox would be helpful, clearly it is not, because the evidence shows they show absolutely no respect for rational thought.
 
 
 
 
 
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