As I often remind Good Oil readers: Always assume that a ‘fact checker’ is trying to bullshit you. That’s because so-called ‘fact checkers’ are almost always really narrative-reinforcement machines. Their sole purpose is, not to explain, but to explain away.
Even the taxpayer-funded left-wing propaganda machine ‘state broadcaster’, the ABC, has cottoned on that the ‘fact checker’ scam is busted. It dumped its so-called ‘fact-checker unit’ in 2024. Now, the ABC is resorting to the even more obviously biased gambit of pretending to levy a nebulous ‘pub test’.
But go into just about any pub in Australia and you’re guaranteed to find One Nation voters. Even in Canberra.
After decades of Labor government in the ACT and no local representation by the coalition in federal parliament since 2022, the conventional wisdom is that Canberra is a largely left-leaning city […]
In her address to the National Press Club earlier this month, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said she tried to keep out of Canberra “as much as possible”.
But she said the party had rising support locally – including at the Kingston Hotel in the city’s leafy inner south.
“It’s going extremely well here,” Senator Hanson said of Canberra.
Enter the ABC, to try and left-splain away Hanson’s claim. Embarrassingly, though (for the ABC), two of the three Kingston Hotel patrons they asked were enthusiastic One Nation supporters.
Donna, who lives nearby, said Senator Hanson had her backing.
“I think that she actually does support the Australian people and would love to keep the Australian culture alive and for me, that’s really important,” she said […]
“She’s actually speaking her mind and saying the things that we would love to say but haven’t been able to say in the past.”
Jake, a tradie from Queanbeyan and a former Liberal voter, said he was also a big fan of Pauline Hanson […]
“Look at the country now. It’s gone to shit. You can’t say it hasn’t.
“Australia needs to change, mate. Badly.”
Oh dear, oh dear, what’s an ABC ‘journalist’ to do? Why, seek out the most biased people against Hanson they could find – ‘political scientists’ from the virulently leftist Australian National University: Chinese and a Muslim immigrants from the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum, whose jobs are directly threatened by One Nation’s pledge to repudiate the failed doctrine of Multiculturalism.
The ABC would have had to poll the Labor and Liberal party rooms to find anyone with less skin in the game of kicking One Nation.
But there’s one thing the ABC conspicuously failed to do. The only thing close to an objective test of whether or not there really is growing support for One Nation in the ACT: ask the opinion polls. Three guesses why they didn’t.
Even in the ACT, one of the most barren grounds in Australia for One Nation, the party’s support has nearly doubled in just the last six months and come from practically nothing at the 2025 election. One Nation didn’t run a candidate in 2025. In 2024, it recorded just 2.4 per cent of the ACT primary vote.
By the end of last year, One Nation was polling a still-miserly six per cent. Within months, that had risen to 11 per cent – in a period where both Labor and the Liberals went dramatically backward and even the Greens only managed a measly two per cent increase.
So, Hanson is completely correct that One Nation’s support is rising locally in the ACT. Maybe nowhere near as much as the rest of Australia – which isn’t so entirely populated by public servants – but still rising significantly.
Naturally, then, the ABC has to resort to all manner of circumlocutions and misdirections to avoid just telling the plain truth.
