The reaction to Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech was a reminder that like Disraeli’s England, Australia is now two nations , the Australia of the elites and the real Australia of the rank-and-file .

Except as tourists and when viewing their ruling class, the rank-and-file do not normally enter the Palais Fraser, that vast barnacle which dominates Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle. Exceeded only by the Roumanian communist Nicolae Ceaucescu’s Palace of the Parliament, the Palais Fraser is a permanent reminder of the fact that over the last half century there have been few tribulations and few burdens which the Australian nation has suffered which have not been the work of some or other politician.

The centrepiece of the current parliamentary repertoire, Question Time, is a disgrace. Half of the questions asked are fraudulently described as being ‘without notice’, and unlike Westminster, the high office of Speaker is compromised by the incumbent being instructed on whom he must call.

Pauline Hanson’s and Malcolm Roberts’ maiden speeches, reflecting the real concerns of the people, were a refreshing change. Respondents to the Essential Poll overwhelmingly confirmed that Pauline speaks for many ordinary Australians on issues others are too scared to tackle.

This was not the view of the elites. According to an ABC interview, even people on the streets of London were ‘in shock’. But rather than the elites, the senators addressed the rank-and-file, including Labor voters dismissed as ‘rednecks’ and Menzies ‘forgotten people’ abandoned by the Coalition. The latter include self funded retirees who would be significantly better off even under Labor’s plan, those appalled to see the defence budget ransacked to sandbag Liberal seats, those paying medical insurance premiums loaded to cover massively overpriced implant devices and in NSW, ratepayers whose councils are forced to amalgamate, owners of houses resumed without being paid adequate compensation, greyhound racers stripped of their legal rights to sue for the forced closure of their business and the increasing numbers appalled by these events.

Even before she was first elected, Pauline had already become a familiar figure. An attractive slim redhead with a distinctive voice and delivery, she became known for her plain speaking and her strong adherence to her clearly professed principles. Even her opponents recognised her third quality, courage. This she displayed whenever she was almost carried by the police through bands of screaming, threatening thugs into some dusty hall or more recently, alone on the ABC’s Q&A panel where she was subjected to the ineffective ridicule of the elites.

Aided by an electoral system which not only permits but encourages fraud and which, until recently, also commandeered voters’ Senate preferences, the major parties had long ago determined together to block her re-election by preferencing her last. But the voters’ moral right to allocate their Senate preferences was restored by the Turnbull government in alliance with the Greens. As we pointed out at the time, this correct decision was adopted for the wrong reason; the mistaken belief they would profit by this. To their surprise both were rewarded for their bad faith: their Senate representation was reduced.

In the eyes of the elites, Pauline’s principal offence is that she refuses to accept their ever-evolving catechism. Unlike the Pope, who in over 2,000 years has formally exercised his teaching authority on little more than a handful of occasions, new elite dogmas are constantly transmitted to the faithful Australian elites through a magisterium entrusted jointly to the ABC and Fairfax. From the introduction of multiculturalism, subsequent dogmas have included a ruling that the science on global warming is settled, the corollary that farms should be turned into wildernesses, that the live cattle export trade must be closed down, that no new dams must be built, that the family must be weakened and extended, and that in any conflict, white males, Israel and/or Christians are always deemed to be at fault. The latest dogma is the mandatory indoctrination of the nation’s children − the younger the better− into gender fluidity, including the practices of penis tucking and breast binding. The compulsory sharing of lavatories and change rooms by both sexes is next.

It is now a core belief among the elites that without the introduction of multiculturalism, white Australians would have continued to discriminate against all other races and cultures. This is just not so. Australians have long been a welcoming people, as my grandparents and their young family found a century ago when they came from what is now Indonesia. Passing the dictation test with flying colours, they bought a farm near Sydney. Until he could afford his own transport, my grandfather’s neighbour, another farmer, would take him every week to the market in her horse and cart. She was a gracious Aboriginal lady. She had the vote and her children went to the local school with white and Chinese pupils.   There was never any need to import the alien academic doctrine of multiculturalism; our multiracial society long ago offered tolerance and equal rights including the precious right to private property.

Pauline too has no need for multiculturalism. Wherever she goes she is recognised and welcomed. I have seen a group of Asian women clustering around her, seeking photographs and telling her to keep on fighting. Yesterday, my Malaysian-Chinese Uber driver, an intelligent and sophisticated woman, told me what she thought about Pauline’s speech: ‘She talks common sense,’ she said. The elites are making the same mistake they made in the 1999 referendum; Australians from other races are not their captive.

Both senators have spoken as few politicians do on the front rank issues that concern the Australian heartland, including the grossly incompetent and at times sinister mishandling of the immigration power, taxation levels beyond theft (we learn that the average Australian works for government from Monday to Thursday mid-morning), the foolish, unbelievably costly attempt to control the climate which is de-industrialising the nation, closing down farms, creating unemployment and impoverishing the rank and file.

Dismissed as having nowhere else to go, the nation’s rank-and-file are more and more noticing those who address their concerns and who have as the centrepiece of their platform a belief in the sovereignty of the Australian people. That this is not a mere platitude is demonstrated by a clear commitment to introducing Swiss style direct democracy.

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