Pauline Hanson has given a candid account of her time in in jail for electoral fraud in 2003, and how she overcame her depression that was made worse by her despair for her suffering children.
In a podcast interview with journalist and mental health advocate Jessica Rowe, the One Nation leader and senator said it was ‘devastating even now, to think back to that time’.
‘I thought they could never possibly bring down a guilty verdict,’ Sen Hanson said on the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show episode released on Wednesday.
‘My daughter…was going over to New Zealand with her boyfriend of the time, she was 18, and I said ‘Look honey, you go, everything should be right, there shouldn’t be any problems’.
Pauline Hanson (left) walks with her arms around her son Steven Hanson (right) after she was released from the Brisbane Women’s Correctional Facility in Brisbane in 2003.
‘When they stood up and gave that guilty verdict, I just shut down, absolutely shut down. I couldn’t believe it.’
The hard reality of what had just happened was crushing, as was the humiliating treatment dished out to prisoners.
‘They came and put the handcuffs on me, took me downstairs to process me. I was strip-searched, and then put into a van and taken to the watch house all night.
‘I was taken to the prison the next day and went through the whole process – photographed, put into the system and they put me into the hospital ward for a couple of nights just to keep an eye on me,’ she said.
Pauline Hanson’s (pictured) prison mugshot, taken in August 2003. She was released 11 weeks later as the conviction was overturned on appeal
The authorities were concerned for the wellbeing of Sen Hanson who was 49 at the time and already a highly-visible public figure after first being elected to federal parliament in 1996.
‘I wasn’t eating, I’d sort of shut down completely. They told me that if I don’t start eating they’d put me in a straitjacket and they’d put me in a cell by myself. And I thought, that’s not really the way I want to go, so I said OK.
‘Then I went into the mainstream prison, they put me in another cell with lights on all night long to keep an eye on me for another week that I was in there before they put me into my own cell.’
At first she just kept to herself as she began a three-year sentence, which ultimately lasted only 11 weeks as she was exonerated on appeal.
‘But then I started with exercising. They’ve got a personal trainer (in the prison) that you go to and I started doing that.
‘And then I started with the other prisoners, putting them through a training program. And then one day I actually got 13 of the other prisoners to go to this exercise class and the guy nearly dropped dead. He said “I’ve never actually seen this many come.”‘
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One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson (pictured) was wrongly convicted on political corruption charges in 2003
Ms Hanson said exercise was crucial to her recovery from depression.
‘It’s about keeping yourself body active. If you’re going to sit around and mope about the place, you’re going to get more depressed. You need to actually get yourself moving, put your mind to other things, start an exercise regime.’
Though she says she did not take anti-depressant medication herself, she acknowledges it can help people.
‘We all go through some depression in our life, whether it’s a break up with a loved one or a partner or some issue that we have in life (such as) losing your job.
‘Everyone goes through it. People handle it in different ways. So if taking anti-depressant tablets has helped, you’ve got to work out what’s best for you and what helps you through that time in your life.’
She says that seeing her daughter interviewed on television while she was in prison was the worst moment.
‘I was very depressed, awfully depressed, and I saw them doing an interview with my daughter from New Zealand and that really broke me. The kids had been through a hell of a lot with my time in politics in (the 1990s). She was 13 at the time, my son was 15.
‘Because I travelled extensively across the country, I was away for about nine months of the year. (My daughter) had to go in boarding school, she actually hated it. They had to get her out of school one time as a threat was made against her life. So they’ve been through a hell of a lot.’
Pauline Hanson (pictured) on June 27, 2002, the day she was charged in Brisbane’s Magistrates Court
Ms Hanson says her children are proud of the career she has made in politics over the past 25 years, but the events of 2003 had led her to swear to get out of public life altogether.
‘When I got out of prison I said I’d have to have rocks in my head to get back into politics,’ Sen Hanson said.
‘But you look at what’s happening in the country and in people’s lives – I cannot stand corruption, I cannot stand dishonesty.’
‘I’ve been given an opportunity to have a voice in this country and the only place you can actually change things is on the floor of parliament, so hence I went back to it, led the party again, got back into politics.’
Ms Hanson said her influence was not only through debate but altering legislation proposed by governments that often rely on crossbench support from minor parties.
‘I’ve got to say over the five years in politics I’ve been back on the floor of parliament, I have made a hell of a difference in a lot of areas of government legislation, because they can’t get anything through without my vote.’
Source: Daily Mail
