Then, on July 5, it was announced that Hanson and former One Nation director David Ettridge are to face fraud charges in Queensland in relation to the party’s registration in the 1998 Queensland election which, a court has already ruled, was obtained by "fraud or misrepresentation." The fraud charges could deny her the right to run for the Senate.

Moreover, while Hanson has ostensibly made up with Campbell and the new leadership of her party, the fact is she is losing control of the party to the West Australian branch, which is the new national party headquarters, and especially to allies of Mr Campbell.

But while Hanson’s discomfort may seem to be good news for those opposed to her anti-immigration and anti-multicultural nativist populism, the political resurrection of Graeme Campbell definitely is not. In fact, the prospects for the far right in the next federal election look as bright as they have at any time in the last few years.

Graeme Campbell, former ALP MP for Kalgoorlie until he was dumped from the party in 1995 for his extreme views and refusal to follow party discipline, not only shares Hanson’s general hostility to immigrants, Asians and Aboriginal Australians, he is, if anything more extreme in a variety of ways. Campbell also clearly identifies strongly with the League of Rights, Australia’s most important racist fringe group for many years.

Moreover, Campbell is politically more astute than Hanson, with a history as a strong political campaigner and a veteran parliamentarian, good at manipulating the political give and take in Canberra to maximise his influence.

Campbell is basically an open advocate of the old White Australia policy. He wrote in 1998, "Contrary to multicultural propaganda, ethnic and racial diversity retards economic growth, especially the kind originating from the public sector. It also tends to destabilise countries politically with significant economic consequences…. Australia must remain a predominantly white society as was the national will to Federation in 1901…" He has said immigration is "cultural genocide." (1993). He has repeatedly argued that immigration and multiculturalism are policies "imposed from above" at the behest of "big business" at the expense of ordinary Australians.

He sets this view out in the conspiratorial book he published in 1995 with his researcher Mark Uhlmann, entitled Australia Betrayed: How Australian democracy had been undermined and our trust betrayed (to go with the hysterical sounding title, the book cover depicts a bloody dagger thrust through the Australian continent). "The call for Australia to integrate itself with Asia is essentially a call to the majority to deliver itself into the hands of the economic imperialists. These economists, bankers, and big businesses would benefit individually, but Australia would merely become a colonial satellite, a quarry and construction dump, with the bulk of the locals a cheap labour pool without unity or a sense of national purpose," he wrote.

There is good reason why former Prime Minister Bob Hawke labelled Campbell a "grubby little racist". Campbell has had a number of nasty things to say about Muslims, Aborigines and Jews at various times in his career. He has suggested at least twice that Australia should accept no immigrants from Islamic countries, adding in 1993, "I don’t want the Islamic people in this country…If that makes me a racist, then I am a racist. But if I am going to be a racist, then I want to be a big racist."

On Indigenous Australians, he told the Adelaide Advertiser in 1998 that Aborigines were conning tax payers, saying "There is not one sacred site in this nation that is not negotiable for cash," adding, "If [an Aborigine] gets the dirty on an off-pay week, he’ll sell the land for a corned beef sandwich."

With respect to Jews, he has repeatedly reiterated the antisemitic conspiracy theory that a powerful Jewish or Zionist lobby is evilly dominating the country. In 1994 he claimed that "it is a pity that the narrow idealogues of Judaism seem to have such an influence in Australian public life." During a parliamentary debate on racial vilification laws he described the "Zionist Lobby" as a group "composed of authoritarian zealots…. Due to a combination of money, position, relentless lobbying and the manipulation of their victim status, they have a very powerful influence, both in Australia and abroad." That same year, he insisted "It is quite clear that the Zionist lobby can command half the cabinet or half the shadow cabinet any time it feels like it." He told a television interviewer on Channel 9 in 1994 that it is the "wont of leadership of both the Liberal and Labor parties" to "kowtow" to the "Jewish Lobby".

But it was Campbell’s League of Rights connections which seems to have most upset Pauline Hanson, leading to her temporary threat to resign from her own party. But Campbell told ABC news he would not distance himself from the League even when asked by his new party leader.

Campbell often insists that his relationship with the League is limited to his occasional speeches to their gatherings, which he defends as part of a policy of speaking to any group which will have him. This is simply obfuscation.

Campbell has given League founder Eric Butler good reason to declare about Campbell, as he did in 1993, that "here is an Australian, here’s a man who’s got it right, perhaps here is a man about whom some grassroots movement could emerge…someone who’s going to represent the real Australia."

In fact, Campbell’s Australia First party, which was recently de-registered, leading to his switch to One Nation, was in large part an attempt to fulfil Butler’s vision of a "grassroots movement" around Campbell. And it was paid for largely by Butler and other prominent League stalwarts and supporters. Butler gave $6000 to help start his party, another $4300 came from former South Australian mayor and League of Rights supporter Peter Davis (who enjoyed five minutes of fame a few years ago after he described the children of mixed marriages as "mongrels"). Other League supporters are understood to have given various other sums.

Furthermore, as an investigation by The Review revealed in 1997, many of the key organisers for Australia First around the country were long-time League activists, including the party’s "national councillors" for the states of Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.

In fact, it was his tight connections with the League which wrecked Campbell’s attempts to form a coalition between Australia First and the Australian Reform Party of gun advocate Ted Drane. According to Drane, Campbell’s merger bid was "a clear attempt by the League to take us over." Drane said he checked into the Australia First people who Campbell wanted to bring to a merger meeting. They included Chas Pinwill, the League’s Queensland Director, Jim Cronin, founder of the League Front, Bankwatch, and Dennis McCormack, perhaps the most vocal public activist of the extremist group Australians Against Further Immigration. Drane also said Campbell had wanted Kim Eason, son of long-time League stalwart Brigadier Dick Eason, to be secretary of the combined party. Drane reported that Campbell talked to League founder Butler on a daily basis, and one of his offsiders asked Drane to also attend meetings with Butler.

Drane also told an interviewer that when he challenged Campbell about the League connections of most of his collaborators, he did not deny it, merely saying these "were people with good contacts who would help us."

Moreover, League bookshops sell and actively promote both Australia Betrayed and videos and tapes of Campbell’s speeches, and the League journals regularly publish his writings, which would require his permission.

Moreover, in his less guarded moments Campbell acknowledges his admiration for the League. This goes from minimising the racist nature of the body, ("I know some people in the League of Rights and I know some people in the Catholic Church, so what"; the League is "as dangerous as the Country Women’s Association") to more open boosterism, ("I think they are a group that is expressing ideas that you will find expressed right across rural Australia and a group you will find expressing ideas a lot of which would have had much in common with the traditional Labor Party"; the League are the "reasonable voice" of rural Australia.)

In fact, despite Campbell’s coy denials, it is widely recognised among politics professionals that the wide and hardly covert links between Australia First and the League is one of the reasons the party was unable to gain wider support or money, a mistake Hanson’s One Nation generally avoided.

But Campbell, despite his extremism and his ugly links does have something Hanson lacks. In addition to his greater political skill, he also has the intellectual ability to set up a reasonably coherent ideological basis for the anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalist views he shares with Hanson based on an ugly and narrow vision of Australian nationalism. This was what he attempted in Australia Betrayed. The Hanson camp, meanwhile, continues to rely mostly on what are essentially emotive slogans.

However, the most frightening thing about Campbell’s entry into the One Nation fold is less Campbell himself than some of the various savvy figures who are backing him. With the One Nation party having moved its national headquarters to West Australia in early May, primarily to take advantage of the staff and administrative resources of three new MLCs there, several heavyweights in WA politics, from both sides, have now moved to back the party and especially Campbell.

On the Labor side, Campbell is being assisted by Peter Walsh, a former Finance Minister in the Hawke Government, and a long-time personal friend. (Walsh launched Australia Betrayed for Campbell in 1995.) According to One Nation National Director, WA MLC Frank Hough, "Peter speaks to me quite regularly and gives me guidance." Walsh has admitted to The Australian that he talks to One Nation regularly, while denying he is a formal adviser. He has also publicly attacked Labor for "demonising" One Nation and for denying that they won the WA state election on One Nation preferences.

In some of his recent writings, he has been, if not directly supportive of One Nation, strongly critical of those who oppose or criticise the party, at one stage suggesting it is they who are the true "brownshirts". He has defended Hanson’s claims about Aboriginal sovereignty, attacked multiculturalism as a process by which "cynical politicians" were "persuaded that ethnic votes could be purchased en bloc by bribes in cash and kind"; the "sanctimonious stormtroopers" of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; as well as "professional ethnics" and the "high-immigration lobby". In other words, his views are clearly closer to those of One Nation than the Labor leadership on most of One Nation’s key agenda.

While Walsh is no longer tremendously influential in WA Labor, he is an experienced and knowledgable political operator, with a lot of experience at organising, campaigning and the ins and outs of wielding power in Canberra.

The other key figure helping One Nation is former Liberal Senator Noel Crichton-Browne, once the undisputed king-pin and powerbroker of the WA Liberal party. One Nation officials say they have had several lunches with Crichton-Browne to discuss party strategy and the building of a political campaign. Party National Director Hough says of Crichton-Browne, renowned as an expert backroom number cruncher, "The advice he is giving us is concreting our thinking."

Crichton-Browne, who was expelled from the Liberal Party after allegedly making sexual comments to a female journalist and also being implicated in abuse of parliamentary expense accounts, was reported to have offered advice and assistance to Hanson back in 1996 when she first entered Parliament. Despite his expulsion, Crichton-Browne, now a private political consultant, is still generally believed to wield considerable power within the WA Liberal party through his intense contacts with key players.

It is possible that Crichton-Browne’s influence had some connection with the withdrawal of Ron Birmingham, QC, the former frontrunner to be WA Liberal Party President from the race on July 23. Birmingham had strongly opposed any Liberal preference deals with One Nation. It is understood that Crichton-Browne had fought Birmingham’s candidacy and had offered advice and support to the other candidates. The other leading candidates for the party presidency, Julie Reay, Will Scott, and Kim Keough have all suggested that the party should consider preference deals with One Nation. Now, so too has party leader Colin Barnett, who had previously stated his opposition to giving One Nation preferences, but said on July 23 that he was open to a "seat-by-seat" allocation. Political analysts say Barnett had been under strong pressure from party members to change his stance.

The State Liberal Party conference in the final days of July hosted Prime Minister John Howard, who is opposed to preference deals with One Nation. But it remains to be seen if he can control his WA party colleagues.

Moreover, in addition to Walsh and Crichton-Brown providing One Nation assistance from without, One Nation in WA has a number of experienced local political operators within the party. One is former Liberal Party State Council President John McKinley. McKinley is the most important One Nation non-parliamentary official in the state, sitting on both the 23-member state party executive and the 11-member national executive. Also an active party member is former Federal Liberal MP Paul Filing, a former opponent of Crichton-Browne who ran against Campbell for the top Senate spot.

When Australia goes to the polls late this year, there is a strong possibility One Nation will pick up at least two additional Senate seats. With sitting One Nation Senator Len Harris giving the party three Senators, One Nation could potentially grab the national balance of power in the Senate.

One seat One Nation is likely to pick up is in Queensland, where Pauline Hanson will be the candidate unless her legal problems prevent her. In 1998, the party gained a Senate seat there easily, though a court later found that the One Nation candidate, Heather Hill, was ineligible because she was still a British citizen. She was replaced by Senator Len Harris, a well-nigh invisible figure whose major role in Canberra seems to be to give his party boss, Pauline Hanson, a job as a staffer. Even without preferences, One Nation by itself was able to capture a quota for a Queensland Senate seat, requiring 14.25% of the vote.

The results of the Queensland election in February of this year indicate that, if the election were held today, they would probably reach that figure again or come close. One Nation captured 8.69% of the total vote while running candidates in only 39 of the 89 seats. While a comparison over the same seats indicates a definite decline in support since the 1998 Queensland election, when One Nation took a whopping 23% of the vote, the numbers do indicate that the party should get close to the vote needed for a quota, especially if the high-profile Hanson remains the candidate. Even if the party were to fall just short on primary votes, any preference flows at all, even undirected leakage, would probably put them over the line. The most likely victim of another One Nation Senate win in Queensland would be Senator Ron Boswell, the veteran National who has long been a strong anti-racist voice, though the Democrats’ Andrew Bartlett could also be vulnerable.

The other likely source of a Senate seat is Western Australia, where the seat would go to Campbell. Last election One Nation narrowly missed out on a Senate seat there, with over 10.37% of the vote. At the February State Election, One Nation held close to that, polling 9.88% of the upper house vote. The Roy Morgan Poll taken at the end of June showed support now up around 11%. With Campbell and his WA profile now ensconced in the One Nation Senate ticket, along with his good political contacts in that state, and the advice and support of Walsh and Crichton-Browne, there is every reason to expect this number to go higher. Any actual allocation of preferences, such as that being discussed by the state Liberal party would virtually guarantee Campbell’s election. The most likely victim of a Campbell victory would be serving Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot, who is number three on the liberal Senate ticket, though again, the Democrats could also be vulnerable.

Nor can Senate seats for One Nation be ruled out in other states, principally New South Wales and South Australia, though gaining these will be more of an uphill battle for the party.

If Campbell and Hanson win, the worst case scenario is a united One Nation becoming indispensable to the passage of Senate legislation and using that leverage to guarantee a flow of pork and other legislative concessions to rural constituents. This would virtually guarantee an indefinite loyal following to One Nation among those already vulnerable to One Nation’s simplistic and xenophobic messages — it would have been shown the party can "deliver" for rural voters injured by change. One Nation could take the place of the Nationals as the dominant party of rural Australia for the foreseeable future.

More likely is that Hanson and Campbell will be unable to work together closely over any length of time. After all, Hanson has been unable to share the spotlight with, or even accept advice from, any other strong figure over the past five year, (the innocuous Senator Harris being the exception which proves the rule) and there are already clear signs Campbell is no exception.

But even in that case, having the two of them in the Senate for the next six years, possibly competing for the vote of the disaffected voter looking for simplistic feel-good solutions with a conspiratorial bent is no picnic. The damage to Australia’s reputation, social coherence and social tolerance could be incalculable.