The Review - Fred and Pauline

April 2001

Fred and Pauline
Love in a warm climate

By Matthew Collins

A lot in common: Toben and Hanson meet in Adelaide

Love, it would seem, is in the air. The new improved Pauline, addressing the Adelaide Press Club, found out as much when joined on stage by Holocaust denier Herr Fredrick Toben, himself slightly inebriated at the time.

How Hanson had never previously heard of Toben (as she claims) remains a mystery to many. Among the cranks and lunatics who grace One Nation, Toben would rank as one of their most preferred Holocaust liars, but then Pauline does not seem to know much about One Nation herself, does she? Toben has been reported in the past as handing out How To Vote cards for ON, though he denies this, and her current thread of conspiracy theorising can do this love no harm.

"Pauline and I have a lot in common" Toben told me from his bunker where he was preparing to jet off to a Holocaust deniers conference in Lebanon, in early April. "For instance, we’ve both been divorced and vilified in the media, and both have a strong interest in certain matters, like getting families in order..." (Divorce it would seem, is one way of achieving this.) "There’s no reason for me not to like Hanson or her to not like me. We both suffer from people trying to silence us in the media. I go to the press club every month and it only rates a mention when Pauline is there."

Could it be those hidden forces silencing Toben?

"I don’t know what is wrong with Jews. They should like me, I’ve freed them from the Holocaust, I’ve proved it’s never happened. Nobody’s ever seen actual proof." Indeed, I remember last year Toben calling survivors "liars" at one of his meetings, therefore vilifying thousands of Australians and their relatives. Why shouldn’t they love him?

I also recalled his dislike of Jeremy Jones from The Review. "Jeremy Jones ignores me. Simply won’t talk to me, what has he got against me? I repeat, Jews should be ringing me to thank me for setting them free. Instead Jeremy Jones refuses to even acknowledge me." As I do recall, I did make note to take this up with Jeremy after my last meeting with Toben. "Why won’t he talk to me?"

I had to scratch my chin for a moment, but I could not think of one reason why Jeremy will not talk to Fredrick, except that Jeremy doesn’t talk to Holocaust deniers.

"I would rather be a denier than a liar" the Doctor tells me. "He can try to sue me, but I have nothing, so it does not matter. Jeremy Jones has put me in a conceptual prison for my beliefs."

Soon, he may move from a conceptual to an actual prison, given the renewed legal action against Toben in Germany, where Holocaust denial is illegal, following a 1999 jail sentence he received there. But how did we go from Pauline Hanson to the Jews, then to Jeremy Jones specifically? I mean, he’s a shocking soccer player, but isn’t he harmless?

"Jeremy Jones is a Zionist and under some law somewhere that is against the law" (He could try Iran or Syria where he is most feted, and who are paying for the Lebanon conference.)

"This year I am turning my attention to Jones. His Zionism makes him a xenophobe and a racist and I will not rest. It’s against the United Nations, you know." I did not know that, so I jot it all down while Toben continues berating Jones, Jews, Holocaust survivors etc.

But I really do need to get back to the Hanson love affair before my deadline. Did you laugh too, when Martin Plaza (from the rock group Mental As Anything) poured his wine in her lap?

"My Mother, who is 78, is voting for her this time," Toben declares. "I’m probably going to vote Liberal. I used to be a member, you know?" Yes, I did. That’s another thing you have in common.

What about the Port Arthur massacre, are you with Pauline on this one, too?

"I don’t have all the facts to hand as yet, so I cannot comment. But I will say this: They’ve locked the papers away for 30 years, and it’s Tattersalls money involved. With Bryant off the scene and the Catholic priest dying in a plane crash....I do wonder."

So do I, so I bid the Doctor farewell, as he rushed to remind me "I’ll talk to anyone, friend or foe. Tell that to Jeremy Jones."

While I haven’t spoken to him since, Toben must be disappointed to hear that the little Holocaust denier shindig scheduled for Beirut has now been cancelled, after the Lebanese Prime Minister declared the conference would "hurt [Lebanon’s] international standing and smear its name."

He would also, I am sure be very interested to know that it was his very favourite individual, Jeremy Jones, who specifically raised the issue of the Beirut denial conference at the Holocaust Education Conference in Stockholm in January. Since the Holocaust deniers at the pseudo-academic Institute for Historical Review have blamed the "International Zionist Movement" for engineering the cancellation.

That should give Toben something really good to talk about. Maybe he can bring it up with his good mate Pauline next time he bumps into her.