Pauline Hanson, A Politician, Says She Doesn’t Trust The Government Or The COVIDSafe App, Oh My

Pauline Hanson made an appearance on Today this morning and once again has said something quite stupid. She really is making the media’s job incredibly easy.

And just to think, right after I swore I wouldn’t write any more about her or of the obvious publicity stunts that are her breakfast television appearances, she goes and does this. You’re making me a dishonest woman without a shred of credibility, Pauline. Honey, pls, spare me my self-respect.

Senator Hanson said she refuses to download the government’s new, voluntary COVIDSafe app because she doesn’t want to be tracked.

“I don’t want the government tracking me,” Senator Hanson told Today host Karl Stefanovic. “I don’t trust the government.”

It seems that the One Nation leader has forgotten that she is a politician, a conservative politician who has voted in favour of Coalition policies many times before (and, likely, many to come). She’s probably already being tailed far more closely than the app could allow.

And when Stefanovic suggested that Hanson would want to download the app out of a sense of duty to the community and country, she buckled down.

“I have a responsibility to myself, first and foremost,” she said. Never mind the fact that as a politician, it’s her duty to put the needs and wants of her electorate before her own.

Check out the Senator’s full rant in action in the clip below:

The app is designed to keep the numbers on a downward trend, and to prevent a second wave hitting.

Health authorities have said at least 10 million Australians will need to use the app for it to do its job. And although privacy advocates and digital rights groups’ concerns about privacy beaches are legitimate, COVIDSafe has a number of barriers in place to prevent overreach.

The Government has said that COVIDSafe doesn’t actually track users’ locations, and that what data and personal information is collected, is encrypted. According to their advice, law enforcement agencies won’t have access to the data, they have changed regulations to ensure that and prevent further secondary access. Plus, what data that is collected has a 21-day expiration date; after that, it vanishes.

And let’s not forget one key feature of an app: no one (especially not the Government) can access the data without a user’s permission.

But Senator Hanson isn’t having a bar of it, even as over one million Australians download the app within four hours of its launch.

Now, please, Pauline, let this be the last time I write about you.