Pauline Hanson — who gets rooly, rooly upset when you accuse her of running for Parliament just for the cash — has received $213,000 in funding from the AEC in the wake of the 2007 federal election. This is a 12% improvement on her $189,000 haul at the 2004 election.

Nice work if you can get it. Run for Parliament every three years with a campaign budget of virtually zero and rake in a few hundred grand of taxpayer coin. Why a campaign budget of nothing? Well, Pauline doesn’t need to spend the money that other independents do on getting their name and face into the heads of voters; there’s a hardcore group of rusted-on Pauline voters out there who will continue to tick her name forever. And the media gives her a free run every time — the sort of advertising that other independents simply can’t buy.

In related news, independent candidate for the Senate in Victoria, Lachlan Connor, has missed out on AEC funding to offset the costs of his campaign. “Theoretically I was owed about six dollars for my two votes,” Mr Connor said. “But I fell a little short of the funding threshold so once again independents suffered and our democracy was weakened in Australia.”

Steve Fielding being a dick just now on ABC’s Insiders, jousting with the leaders of the Democrats and the Greens. He trotted out all the usual quotes about how evil the Greens are, including my personal favourite: “free heroin”. Fielding crapped on about petrol prices, grocery prices and bank fees, firmly positioning his “party” (let’s be honest about his “party” — it consists of one Parliamentary representative representing 1.88% of Victorians) as the consumer affairs micro party. Surprisingly, he only said the word “family” twice (excluding when he said his Party name) in contrast to Kevin Rudd’s now ad nauseum chanting of the “family” mantra. So maybe Steve Fielding should get in touch with the AEC and lodge an application to change his micro party’s name to the Today Tonight Party.

It was also revealed on Insiders that Family First in Queensland having been discussing a preference deal with Pauline Hanson which raises a very interesting question: is Pauline Hanson a Pentecostal?

And in a non-Steve Fielding aside about Insiders, Piers Ackerman said the Kyoto Protocol was “so 1990s” which was hilarious in the context of the 1970s haircut, shirt and jacket that cloaked his toad-like body.

Come and get me, laydeez

A shame for Lachlan Connor that he isn’t dating a third-rate country singer like Pauline Hanson, then he too could have his own nifty campaign jingle:

Ms Hanson yesterday launched her theme song with … Callaghan on the Gold Coast. Entitled Australian Way of Life, Ms Hanson joined guitar-playing Mr Callaghan as the crowd clapped. “For our freedom, for the future of our children, for this nation . . . the Australian way of life,” the duo sang.

Bonza. Later, Pauline cheerily endorsed immigration minister Kevin Andrews’ recent diatribe about Sudanese refugees. She went on to demand testing of immigrants for AIDS, HIV, TB and any other unhealthy acronyms. Oh, and lepers too. “There is a case of leprosy which has been recorded in South Australia”, she added.

Apart from the singing and gee-tar playing, boyfriend Chris Callaghan (shown here wearing black hat at oblique angle to obscure eyes) was noticeably silent. His musical credentials are indeed impressive, in stark contrast to Pauline’s record as a legislator:

Support act for Gloria Loring (Liz from Days of our Lives) in the mid 80’s.
Selected as Australian representative at the Bourail Festival in New Caledonia. Wrote and recorded “The Curse of the Rivers” for NSW phosphorous campaign.

Chris is seven years younger than Pauline, 52, proving that James Blundell doesn’t hold a monopoly on C&W cradle-snatching. But Chris isn’t just after Pauline’s electoral funding; his love is true. He’s even dedicated a song to her, a three-chord strum called “How Proud Are We?” (MP3 via news.com, three-minutes-of-your-life-gone warning). Admittedly, it was originally intended for Keiran Perkins, whom I hope received Chris’ admiration for different reasons.

Pauline Hanson is very sensitive about the perception that she’s launched another doomed bid at election to Parliament for the money. She walked out of a Channel Ten television interview the other day because the rude, rude hosts dared bring up the topic. Hanson’s so touchy about electoral funding that she’s devoted a whiny, poorly punctuated web page to it.

There has been a lot of media hype with regards to the electoral funding I received from the last election. There are suggestions from media and my opponents that I am running in this election purely for the electoral funding. This is not the case. Why am I the only one who appears to be targeted when it comes to electoral funding. (sic) Go and ask all the other candidates who are standing are they doing it for the money? (sic) Go and ask the registered political parties why they don’t pay tax on electoral funding they collect from elections. As an Independent and unregistered political party I am obligated to pay tax on electoral funding.

My expenses far exceeded what I was required to report to the Electoral Commission as to the cost of running my campaign. Is there one set of rules for Pauline Hanson and another for the political parties and everyone else. (sic)

And check out the neatly rigged table of electoral funding at the 2004 election.

Very misleading, Pauline. Please explain.