This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The Queensland senator-elect Pauline Hanson has been publicly derided as a “racist redneck” by an outspoken Aboriginal activist at a Cairns Indigenous art fair.

Murrandoo Yanner, a Gangalidda man and long-time native title campaigner, began yelling at Hanson as she left the exhibition.

“Now you are kicking the Muslims around, you are just a racist redneck with your red hair,” he told Hanson to cheers from the small crowd.

Pauline Hanson gets a little mixed up in Facebook video to supporters Read more

“Go away. Go back to Ipswich and your fish and chip shop. You’re disgraceful, you are a woman lacking moral fibre, you are intellectually dishonest and you are not welcome here.”



Hanson did not react to his tirade.

Video of the confrontation has attracted hundreds of thousands of views on social media. Hanson was brought to the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair by a crew from the tabloid current affairs TV show 60 Minutes, raising tensions among artists and visitors, organisers said.



A spokesman for Hanson said she would not be commenting on Yanner’s attack.

The return of Hanson to parliament – 18 years after she left the lower house – has attracted an extraordinary amount of public and media attention.

Hanson has been a serial but unsuccessful candidate in state and federal elections since losing her seat in 1998.

However, in this month’s federal election she was elected to the Senate in Queensland with a significant primary vote and her One Nation party may end up holding three seats in the upper house.

The One Nation leader, whose policies include a ban on building new mosques until a royal commission into whether Islam is a religion or a political ideology has been held, and installing CCTV cameras in all existing mosques, said the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called her on Friday night to congratulate her on winning her Queensland seat.



“He said ‘you have every right to take your place on the floor of parliament, over half a million people voted for you’ – and that is correct,” she told supporters in a video posted online.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pauline Hanson addresses supporters in video posted to Facebook

Hanson said Turnbull was “taken by surprise” when she told him she would have four and possibly seven senators.

While the final Senate results may not be known for weeks, it appears, at best, One Nation will hold three Senate seats, two in Queensland (including Hanson herself) and one in New South Wales.



However, the One Nation candidate for a West Australian Senate seat Rod Culleton said his votes were “rocketing ahead” and that he was confident he would win the 11th Senate spot for that state.

On current AEC first preference figures, One Nation has attracted 0.51 of a quota.

“The way it’s rocketing ahead ... I could even get in on a primary vote,” said the 52-year-old farmer from the wheatbelt town of Williams.

However, even if Culleton is elected, there are concerns over his eligibility to take his seat.

Culleton is still be to sentenced for stealing a truck key – which he says was worth $7.50 – from a tow-truck driver who was trying to repossess a car his company was leasing.

He could also be barred from the Senate over a second charge in WA, relating to the alleged theft in 2015 of a $37,000 hire car from bank-appointed receivers who had begun foreclosure proceedings at the farm of friend Bruce Dixon. Culleton is accused of surrounding the receivers’ car with hay bales to prevent them leaving. The car was later missing when police tried to retrieve it.



The Australian constitution bans a person from taking a seat in parliament if they are awaiting or serving a sentence for a crime that carries a sentence of 12 months’ jail or more – a criteria that applies to both of Culleton’s charges.

Culleton described the matters as trivial.

“As a farmer as opposed to a politician, my hands would be a bit more soiled,” he said. “I’ve always been open and transparent – it’s been on social media and it’s been on national TV. All of a sudden it now starts to come into the media.”

Culleton said his actions saved not only his friend Dixon’s farm but his life.

Culleton has vowed to continue to push for a royal commission into what he describes as the heavy-handed approach by banks imposing new, tougher conditions on rural loans, which have pushed some farmers to suicide.

Pauline Hanson to defend Nauru guards punished for being in photo with her Read more

Hanson told the prime minister, who before the election said she was unwelcome in Australian politics, that she wanted to work with the government to “get good legislation for the people”.



“But I also told him I will not back down on my issues to do with Islam,” she said.

“We have a right to protection in this country. We cannot back away from these views and we cannot just ignore a religion or an ideology that does not and is not compatible with the Australian culture and way of life.”

Hanson said Turnbull had assured her that border security was “very big on his agenda” and the pair would meet when she travelled to Canberra.

She told her supporters by video: “I just want you to know I have got the ear of the prime minister now. On your behalf because I’m working for you and it’s very important, as I said to him, that we all work together to find the right answers.”

with Josh Robertson and AAP