Pauline Hanson has, to use her exact words to the Senate, "had it up to here with my tolerance".

This may be the most honest remark uttered by anyone in the Senate for years.

Less expected was Senator Hanson's claim to expertise as a constitutional lawyer and an assertion about the genesis of what was known as the "race power" so breathtaking that it might render all previous scholarship on the subject redundant.

She was on her feet to argue that it ought not be illegal to have opinions that might "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" others because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.