Despite my differences with senator Hanson (and boy howdy, there are many), I will respect that what you see is what you get with her. She has one trick, and she does it openly and honestly. She hasn't tried hiding expenses, she stomps on people in her own party when they are caught out and doesn't try to defend them. I even think she was treated a bit harshly in 2003 when she was imprisoned for electoral fraud. I have never begrudged her existence, nor the rights of the whackos who have repeatedly voted for her. I see value in her as a litmus test of that end of the scale in the electorate. Yes she is racist. She, she is frankly awful. But on the other hand, those things are not against the law.
These two have been associated with one another in the public mind for about 18 months now. There has been intense scrutiny on them since they went to the US President's Halloween party last year. They've both spoken publicly about their friendship when asked about it. As to keeping it low-key, how much do we know about the friends of any politician? They didn't raise it, but didn't shy away from it either.
I actually worked with the Minister of Veteran Affairs 25 years ago when he was a uni student. While we not exactly close, I'd have called him a mate at that time (I haven't heard from him since I left there in 2004). So there's a little low-key disclosure for you. 🙂
I must get around to watching this video. I will say that I take exception to the thumbnail though: The Perth Metronet project finished up earlier this year, it costing $12.4 billion to roll out 72km of track.
On the surface, that comes out at about $172 million per kilometre. But, that is only part of the story. That money also paid for the construction/renovation of 18-23 stations, 8km of tunnels under the river for the new airport line, elevation of 5.5 km of track, removal of several level crossings, and a whole program to locally manufacture trains.
Just reducing the project to 'dollars per kilometre' would be super inaccurate for the overall result. But even then, that would be less than a quarter the implied cost of building a rail line in Australia from that thumbnail.