"If you want to know what God thinks of money just look at the sorts of people He gives it to."

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- Dorothy Parker, helping us make up our minds about our world's filthy-rich Gina Rineharts, Clive Palmers and Donald Trumps.

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As lavishly reported in recent days, Australia's richest person Gina Rinehart has just given One Nation's Pauline Hanson a brand-new $1.3 million aeroplane.

Meanwhile billionaire Clive Palmer's extravagant advertisements (emblazoned with his beaming face) for his United Australia Party festoon this newspaper while in the United States, Donald Trump's monetising of his depraved second presidency for himself and his appalling family is now estimated to be more than a filthy US $4 billion.

In a social media post that included a swish video showing the unveiling of the gifted plane, Senator Hanson describes the aircraft as "fast", "amazing" and "sexy". She rejoices that the gift of the aeroplane will enable her to take One Nation's gospel to far-flung folk.

Perhaps I am going soft in the head but I must admit that, watching that video, I found Pauline Hanson's sincere-seeming delight in her fast, amazing and sexy Gina-wrapped gift really rather disarming. Hanson's delight had something about it of an infant child's delight at Christmas over what Santa has brought her.

Yes, I know left-liberal columnists like me are supposed to despise everything about Hanson but I can't quite manage that. She often gives us glimpses of a genuine, spontaneous, unrehearsed personality (yes it is an awful personality, but it is still a genuine one) and too many people in Australian public life take enormous pains to never show us who and what they really are. If indeed they actually are anything, or anyone.

ABC Radio National's admirable, journalistically agile Nick Bryant spent 30........

© Canberra Times