It’s time to strap pots and pans to our donkeys and make for the badlands, folks. As we stare down the barrel of a hung parliament, we’re still processing the news that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson very likely has secured two Senate seats.
The news has led many to call for the return of Pauline Pantsdown, the immortal satirical caricature of Hanson created by Simon Hunt, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales and LGBTI activist, who sent the parody into the pop charts with the single ‘I Don’t Like It’.
But Hunt recently told ABC News that he’s unsure of whether Pauline Pantsdown is really the hero we need right now. “I always have to go with that idea of whether I am raising her stakes… am I helping her cause by satirising her?” he said.
The renewed interest in Hunt’s parody had thrust Pantsdown and ‘I Don’t Like It’ back into the forefront of pop culture, but as the folks at SameSame recently noted, ‘I Don’t Like It’ wasn’t even close to Hunt’s magnum opus.
No, that came when Hunt performed as Pantsdown at the 1998 Sleaze Ball, which took place on the night of the 1998 Federal Election. After miming ‘I Don’t Like It’ alongside a band of Pantsdown lookalikes, Hunt made a special announcement.
“It was a packed RHI for the closing show of Sleaze Ball,” Hunt recounted to SameSame. “It was at the end of the night, so they’d already closed the Dome and the Hordern Pavilion – everyone was there.”
“Pauline Hanson lost her seat by about 10pm, so most Sleaze Ball people didn’t know about it – thus the 45 second cheering when I announce it at the end of the show.” Behind Hunt, was a giant Pauline Hanson puppet head that had been used in earlier Mardi Gras parades.
That night would be its final appearance.
“When they explode the Pauline Hanson head at the end, one of the eyes blew out over the crowd, and people passed it along back to us from hand to hand,” Hunt recalled. Luckily, footage of the incident has found its way to YouTube and it is glorious.
