Janet CollinsPauline Sticks to her Guns
May 1st 2010 20:23
Controversial ex-politician Pauline Hanson has been in the news again this week and this time it is about the sale of her home.
Her reported million-dollar property in Coleyville, southwest of Brisbane was put up for sale recently but when prospective buyers turned out to be Muslims, she withdrew the property from sale.
The whole episode has landed others in hot water too. She had listed the property with an L.J. Hooker local representative, a simple real estate sales person who ended up being not only the piggy-in-the-middle but the butt of a whole lot of abuse.
If we were to sit back and look at this whole scenario, you would have to say that Hanson, if nothing else, sticks by her laurels. She may be racist and she may be wrong, depending on a point of view, but she didn’t put a sale of her house ahead of her convictions. While most of us can accuse her of a lot of things, a hypocrite is not one of them.
When it comes to a sale or making some real money, most people can change their perspective on things or their view of things and justify their decision. For most people, anyone’s money is good enough and the best bidder usually wins.
To take a property off the market because the only people willing to buy it are people of a particular race says something too. Hanson can hardly be accused of raising these views just to get attention, even if every time she makes some rash statement her words are not only reported nationally but often internationally as well. I noticed that this story went as far as India where it was reported in the Indian Times. Even so, she is certainly putting her money where her mouth is.
The "please explain" this time fell onto the shoulders of L.J. Hooker and the company's local agent who was selling the home. Not only were they caught in the middle of a racist outburst and a business transaction, the whole incident triggered a whole lot of vial emails into their mail boxes.
Of course it has inflared the whole race argument again which is unpleasant to say the least. The agents too have been caught up in media attention they would have rather done without. But, in the end, we can surely only admire the fact that for Pauline Hanson at least, the prospective sale of her home didn’t alter her position one bit.
That is commitment that is rarely seen these days, even if I loathe her views or what she is doing.
Image credit: www.smh.com.au
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Comment by ShaunK
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Comment by Janet Collins
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I guess it probably sounded like I was patting Hanson on the back. That wasn't the intention. I only wanted to point out that she had stuck by her beliefs even it it meant forfeiting the sale of her home.
Many people with views very oppossed to my own (and obviously yours) would relent when it came to making a profit.
That is probably what I was getting at. It was not about patting her on the back about her views. It was more about the fact that she didn't falter about those views when it came to making money.
You have to a least give her that.