Hoodwinked: How Pauline Hanson Fooled a Nation

by Kerry-Anne Walsh

This is a critical look at Pauline Hanson, the woman and politician. Does she really stand for the battler, or has it only ever been about her personal pursuit for power and infamy? Has she duped her loyal supporters, who have kept her in the public eye and propelled her back into parliament because she "speaks for them?" Kerry-Anne Walsh's conclusion is, yes. Woven into this compelling narrative is the rise and rise of the disaffected voters who now control political destinies and the future of our two-party system and the collapse of the "conviction politician" and trust in the system that has given rise to chancers such as Hanson. With biting observations and and a deep probing of evidence, Hoodwinked looks at Pauline Hanson from her time as an accidental local councilor to her emergence as a surprising national figure in 1996 and her resurrection in 2016, her careful profile-building through the media during the intervening years, the friends she's used and discarded, the men who control her, the money trail of her party and her personal finances. Be prepared for a wild ride.

Genres: Politics

320 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2019

Reviews

[Tom J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pauline Hanson is clearly a divisive, shitty person and I can empathise with the author's clearly blistering hatred of her, but landing a series of fairly tepid burns on one of the dumbest humans in Australia's already deeply stupid political system is less interesting than you might think. If the book went a bit more deeply into the history of the party and was less focused on getting a negative adjective in every paragraph it might be a bit more cohesive but as it stands it reads like a blog post with delusions of grandeur.

Also it's ironic that the acknowledgements specifically call out the editors because the editing in the first few chapters was dire. At one point the book refers to a fish and chip chop, which makes me feel like the editing primarily consisted of a spell check.

[Sarah King-Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting insight into one of Australia's most controversial politicians whose party is currently in the headlines for all the wrong reasons (AGAIN but as Walsh points out not uncommon)