Hanson struck down with irony after senator secretly catches measles
Pauline Hanson has caught a nasty case of irony after her new senator from WA was hospitalised with measles in the same week the One Nation leader was skewered for her ill-informed views on childhood vaccinations.
Senator Hanson and the rest of her team kept the news of their new senate colleague Peter Georgiou's illness quarantined until after Saturday's WA election.
But following the Saturday's poor showing for One Nation, the cat was let out of the bag on Facebook.
"Isn't it ironic," the post on Ms Hanson's page began.
"Our new Western Australian Senator has caught measles in Bali after I caught foot in mouth earlier this week.
"Senator (Brian) Burston and I went and visited him in hospital before the election."
Senators Hanson and Burston donned facemasks while senator Georgiou smiled in the photo posted to Facebook.
Doctors were said to be unsure of what had caused Mr Georgiou's illness for several days, Perth Now reports, adding it is understood he had been vaccinated as a child.
The post came one week after Ms Hanson came under fire for saying parents should be able to make up their own minds about vaccinations, calling the federal government's "no jab, no pay" policy something akin to "a dictatorship".
Many of the top comments on the post were not concerned with irony of the situation but levelled criticism instead at the One Nation preference deal with unpopular Liberal government in WA.
"We warned you over and over that you should not pursue a deal with the Libs… then when you lost almost all chance in WA you blame voters for not understanding the system," one commenter wrote.
"Congratulations to the people of WA for rejecting the self proclaimed messiah of Australian politics," wrote another. "Let the self destruction continue."
The page's administrator responded to many top comments with a mea culpa and an insistence that party would bounce back from the dismal result, saying "we won't self destruct".
"We'll have 3 strong representatives, but point taken on the preference deal," the page replied.
The West Australian One Nation Party received less than 5 per cent of the vote in the election despite polling as higher than 15 per cent.
The ABC predicts One Nation will land two seats in the upper house.
