from Reuters
Australia's most famous anti-immigration politician, Pauline Hanson, plans a comeback in provincial elections next month, local media said on Wednesday, timing her run against a backdrop of rising unemployment.
The former fish-and-chip shop owner, who turned her nationalist One Nation party into a major political force a decade ago, plans to stand as a candidate in elections in her home state of Queensland on March 21, state broadcaster ABC said.
Hanson won fame in 1996, entering national parliament as an independent calling for cuts to Aboriginal welfare and immigration. She turned One Nation into a force that drew a million votes at its 1998 peak, but she lost her seat and was later convicted of electoral fraud and briefly went to jail.
Released in 2003 after her conviction was overturned, the red-headed mother of four left politics and became a minor celebrity, at one time entering a TV dancing competition.
"She deserves a place in parliament and hopefully this (election) is the one," ABC quoted a Hanson friend, Bronwyn Boag, as saying. A statement would be issued shortly, Boag added.
Hanson could not be immediately reached for comment.
Australia faces its sharpest economic slowdown since a deep recession in the early 1990s. Unemployment is creeping higher, investment has slumped and the national government said this week it would cut the annual immigration intake for the first time in eight years due to the weakening demand for labour. (Reporting by Mark Bendeich; editing by Jonathan Standing)
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