‘The question of the day’: The maintenance of racial rhetoric in Queensland, Australia: William Lane and Pauline Hanson as racial ideologues

Since the late nineteenth century Australian racial ideologues have identified retrogressive immigration policies and practices with the national interest. They have consistently argued that ethnic and racial diversity will led to rapid decay and national fragmentation. In the vast north‐east state of Queensland, the most racially diverse area of Australia historically, the arguments have been most persuasively articulated. Queensland has produced, not unsurprisingly, the most vehement and obsessive racial ideologues both on the left and right of politics. William Lane and Pauline Hanson, though separated by a century, both argue that the possibilities of imminent invasion from the north, the polluting effects on national strength from non‐British immigration and ethnic diversity will destroy national cohesion. The continued and widespread acceptance of these ideas demonstrates both the virulence and persistance of racial ideologies in Australia.