SHE was Pauline Hanson’s inspiration and beloved mother, and if you thought the One Nation Senator was outspoken on racism, you ought to hear it from Norah Seccombe.
Hard-boiled and feisty, Pauline Hanson’s mother was caught on video expressing what are described as some “old school†views about a certain type of immigrant.
Gathered with some of her seven children for scones and tea in Queensland some time before her death in the late 1990s, Mrs Seccombe appears in the video dishing out advice or a warning.
“I was always taught,†she says, “the yellow race will rule the world.
“And if we don’t do something now ... I’m afraid, yes, the yellow race will rule the world.â€
Probably recorded around the time Pauline Hanson first won election to the Australian Federal Parliament in 1996 and played on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, the views were not uncommon among older Australians in pockets of rural Queensland.
After being elected as the MP for the Queensland electorate of Oxley in 1996, Hanson delivered her maiden speech to Parliament, shocking many with her frank views about race.
“I do not want Australia to be Asianised,†Hanson said. “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.
They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.â€
Hanson also criticised governments for “encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, money and facilities available only to Aboriginalsâ€.
According to early reports on Pauline Hanson’s political career, her mother Norah displayed “the same angry defiance as her daughter, especially when it comes to ... the virtues of old-fashioned discipline and child-rearingâ€.
Mrs Seccombe, whose maiden name was Hannorah Webster, was of Irish stock and Hanson's father, Jack Seccombe, was the son of English migrants.
They were both hardworking Australians, who Hanson credits with instilling her with the ethic.
The Seccombes ran a milk bar in Brisbane — which produced “the best hamburgers in the world†— in which Pauline and her six siblings were expected to work, peeling onions and potatoes and serving customers.
Norah was the sterner parent who kept on her children’s backs and they loved her for it.
At her mother’s January 1997 funeral, attended by a frail Jack Seccombe in a wheelchair, Hanson described her parents’ 54-year marriage and how they worked more than 100 hour weeks in the cafe.
Breaking down as she spoke of her mother being her inspiration, Hanson said the long hours that her parents worked ensured their seven children never went without.
“Mum would go through the list of our names when I phoned, is that Carolyn, Lorraine, Judy, Pauline ...
“Mum loved [Dad] more than life itself,†Pauline said.
“Her grit, determination, honesty and compassion is in all of us,†Pauline said. “Now she is gone. I will miss her love and advice I sought so often.â€
During the early years of Ms Hanson’s career as a Federal member, she defended her “right to have a say to who can enter my countryâ€.
She also warned against immigration that might lead to “race riots, religious fanaticism and gang and drug warsâ€.
Hanson is about to begin a new six-year term in the Australian Senate.