Angry Australasians protest

About 1,000 protesters including white Australians and ethnic Asians lined both sides of a streets as Hanson drove up for a fund-raising breakfast with about 300 supporters who paid Australian 30 each.

Two protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct as scuffles broke out between police and sections of the crowd. They threw placards, sticks, tomatoes and eggs at Hanson and her supporters as they arrived and left the building.

Others blew whistles and chanted slogans: 8220;No racists here, and keep the racist out.8221; Nothing thrown appeared to hit Hanson.

Police said the protest was the most emotional since the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the early 70s. Although branded as racist by Australian media and most politicians, opinion polls last week showed Hanson gaining rapid support among those who voted Prime Minister John Howard8217;s coalition to power last year.

Hanson and her supporters blame Asian immigrants and Australia8217;s indigenous people, the Aborigines, for unemployment, crime and social division in the country.

She also wants welfare programmes for Aborigines to be withdrawn, saying the government is wasting millions of dollars. She supports the highly discredited theory that Aborigines were cannibals.

After the breakfast, Hanson said she was undaunted by the protest. 8220;I8217;m not afraid because I stand up for what I believe in and they are not going to change my mind or the minds of the majority of Australians who believe that this country is going down the drain,8221; she told reporters.

8220;If anything it makes me more determined,8221; Hanson told reporters after the breakfast, at which reporters were barred. They were also prohibited from a Saturday night speech, which encountered a similar protest.

Her views have been blamed for a rising number of racial attacks on Asian immigrants here, and revived fears in Asia that Australia remains a racist country despite promoting multi-culturalism.