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As One Nation continues its meteoric surge in opinion polling, it seems everything is coming up Pauline. Is the next turn in Pauline Hanson’s astonishing political career measuring the drapes for the Lodge?
Over the past 30 years, of course, Hanson has proven herself to be nothing if not a fighter. She has endured vitriol unmatched in modern politics: non-stop attacks and lawfare, which culminated in an ultimately-quashed conviction that put her behind bars. Hanson has not just survived, but thrived. Along the way, she has earned the grudging respect of Australians who traditionally admire a battler.
It goes beyond admiring Hanson’s tenacity, though. Despite her early – and in left-wing quarters, enduring – reputation as an angry ‘racist’, Hanson has come to be seen as a rare voice of sincere compassion in Australian politics.
When a delegation of Aboriginal women from remote communities travelled to Canberra to make a plea on domestic violence, the one pollie they specifically asked to see was Hanson. “Because she listens,” they said. Indeed, Hanson and her fellow One Nation senators were among the few politicians to bother even showing up.
When Hanson laid a wreath at the Bondi Pavilion following the terror massacre of Jewish Australians, she received a warm welcome, which was a marked contrast to the stony, even hostile reception meted out to other politicians, including the prime minister. Where the PM was heckled and abused, Hanson was greeted with calls of “Onya, Pauline!” which is fast becoming One Nation’s unofficial rallying cry.
While One Nation has been enjoying unprecedented poll success in recent months, the latest Newspoll is a game-changer. For the first time, One Nation has surpassed the coalition to become the leading conservative party in Australia.
This is prompting a dramatic and confident change in Hanson’s political rhetoric. For the past six months of One Nation’s political resurgence, Hanson has downplayed the notion of ever taking government. Instead, the pledge has been a ‘keeping the bastards honest’ vow to influence policy.
Not any more. Suddenly, One Nation are openly talking about her becoming prime minister.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has warned that she should not be underestimated, saying she has the political experience to lead her party to government.
“I’ve had an uphill career to remain in this place, to be a representative. I’ve had everything, bar the kitchen sink, thrown at me, and I’ve learned over the years I’m not just this little woman that came out of my fish and chip shop,” she told journalists at Parliament House.
“I’ve got 30 years of experience under my belt. So if you want to take me on, if you want to underestimate me, then you do it.”
If – and it’s a big if – One Nation achieves the apparently unthinkable, it will the first time a party other than Labor or the coalition has formed government since 1939. Hanson is nothing if not ebullient.
“I want to thank the Australian people for their support and confidence they are now advocating for One Nation. This is the first poll in Australia’s history that another party is polling higher than one of the major parties. I am proud to acknowledge One Nation is polling higher than the Liberals,” Hanson told journalists at Parliament House in Canberra.
“I’m not just here to prop up the coalition or the Labor Party or anyone else. I put out clear policies now for three decades,” she said. “I’ve really got a job ahead of me now, I really have, by putting us at 22 per cent of the national poll at the moment. That said I’ve got a hell of a job ahead of me with my other colleagues, and we’ve got to maintain that support and confidence from the Australian people that we can hopefully form government,” she said.
What does she attribute to the sudden seismic change in her party’s fortunes?
Hanson said the support comes after she stood her ground on issues like net zero, the Covid-19 vaccine and migration.
“It is not racism to call out or criticise policy, which the [sic] both major political parties have tried to advocate,” she said.
Another possible catalyst is the shockwaves rippling through mainstream, blue-collar conservative Australia in the wake of two recent enormities: the Bondi terror massacre and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Australians held vigils across the country for the murdered US conservative Christian, which clearly shocked them to the core.
Firebrand senator Pauline Hanson has attributed One Nation’s surge in the most recent Newspoll to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the issue of mass migration and a lack of housing, jobs and security […]
“I think what Australia is lacking now with both the major political parties is leadership, and people have got to a stage where they’re fed up. They’ve had enough. They’re struggling with the cost of living. But I think that’s also seen what happened at Bondi, and I think prior to that, with Charlie Kirk: his assassination has been a big wake up call for a lot of Australians.”
Australians, like many people across the West, have slowly come to realise that the left today are a new and vicious beast. Kirk’s murder and the Bondi horror shattered any assumptions that these were forces who could be dealt with within the post-war rubric of the two-party system.
Like voters around the world, Australians are fed up with business-as-usual. Whether Hanson and One Nation are about to break the mould, as Donald Trump did in the US, remains to be seen.
One thing is certain: expect the two-party establishment and its media camp followers, to ramp up the attacks.
