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BRISBANE - Like a punch drunk boxer, Pauline Hanson can't stay away from the political ring.
Despite being a loser in her last four attempts to get elected, the former One Nation leader is planning yet another political comeback.
Just like the famed Australian opera diva Dame Nellie
Melba, Ms Hanson just doesn't know when to quit.
She's contested all four federal elections since 1996 and she even had a tilt at the NSW upper house in 2003.
Thrown into that mix is an 11-week stint in a Brisbane jail in 2003 for electoral fraud which ended when an appeal court overturned her conviction.
Ms Hanson said after she was released that she'd have to have rocks in her head to consider a political return yet she had another crack a year later.
And this week she said she was prepared to stand for office yet again, with a decision on whether it's for the Senate or lower house to come in the New Year.
In her five attempts at getting elected since March, 1996, Ms Hanson's only been successful on the first occasion when John Howard's coalition drove Paul Keating's ALP government out of office in a landslide.
As an independent she won the south-east Queensland seat of Oxley after being disendorsed by the Liberals for her comments about welfare for Aborigines.
During her only parliamentary term, she co-founded the right wing One Nation party, which had early success in her home state of Queensland before imploding.
She switched from the seat of Oxley to neighbouring Blair at the 1998 poll but lost as the major parties preferenced against her.
Her last political foray was trying to win a Queensland Senate seat as an independent in 2004.
Ms Hanson failed but she still attracted about 100,000 primary votes, enough to secure her A$190,000 ($218,000) in funding from the Australian Electoral Commission.
Since then Ms Hanson has popped up as a B-grade celebrity, appearing in TV programs such as Dancing With The Stars.
The 52-year-old's also had a go at the real estate industry and is now finishing off a book detailing her political life and time in jail.
Whether her renewed political interests are merely connected to promoting the book remains to be seen.
But Ms Hanson still espouses views in her nasally, whining voice on issues such as immigration and deregulation that are strongly supported by many Australians.
Muslims and Africans
The woman who warned in her maiden political speech in 1996 that Australia risked being swamped by Asians has now turned her attention to the Muslim community and African immigrants.
Ms Hanson said she was concerned by the ease with which people were able to gain Australian citizenship, especially Muslims and Africans.
"We're bringing in people from south Africa at the moment, there's a huge amount coming into Australia, who have diseases, they've got Aids," she said.
"They are of no benefit to this country whatsoever, they'll never be able to work.
"And what my main concern is, is the diseases that they're bringing in and yet no one is saying or doing anything about it."
Ms Hanson also said our politicians had gone too far in affording rights to minority groups and she was angered at the loss of Australian traditions because of Muslims.
"Our governments have bent over backwards to look after them (Muslims) and their needs, and regardless of what the Australian people think," she said.
"You can't have schools not sing Christmas carols because it upsets others, you can't close swimming baths because Muslim women want to swim in private, that's not Australian.
"Surely can't we look at what's happened in other countries around the world with the increase in Muslims that are there?"
Ms Hanson, who also objects to the Howard government's industrial relations laws, said she had been encouraged to re-enter politics by people who wanted her to represent the average "Joe".
Her latest comments, criticised by the immigration department and refugee advocacy groups, are sure to strike a chord with some Australians, particularly middle aged and older people annoyed by political correctness.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who has earned the ire of Ms Hanson for rejecting her bid to be compensated for wrongful imprisonment, said although he disagreed with her ideas he supported her democratic right to run.
Mr Beattie said disillusionment in Queensland with the Nationals would boost the cause of Ms Hanson and other right wing political movements such as Bob Katter's "The Beast".
"It's really going to be an interesting time in the next federal election," Mr Beattie said.
"I think the heart of it is disillusionment with conservative politics in the bush and the regions."
Ms Hanson believes new Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his deputy, fellow redhead Julia Gillard, have a strong chance of ending Mr Howard's decade-long reign.
"I think that John Howard's got a tough fight on his hands come the next election," she said.
"The fact is John Howard's shot himself in the foot with the IR laws, with the immigration issue, and he still hasn't addressed what the people are concerned about.
"Until he addresses those, he's on the pathway to losing the next election."
- AAP
