Make no mistake, Hanson is extreme but she can do something rival politicians can’t |
Make no mistake, Hanson is extreme but she can do something rival politicians can’t
June 22, 2026 — 5:00am
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The most important thing to say about Pauline Hanson’s appearance at the National Press Club last week is also – or at least should be – obvious: she confirmed that she is a politician of the extreme far-right.
Hanson’s familiarity is clearly part of her appeal. She’s part of the furniture. The same goes for Barnaby Joyce. These feelings – exemplified by the widespread tendency to speak of “Pauline” and “Barnaby” – can make all the One Nation fuss seem almost humdrum: just another chapter in the dull comedy of Australian politics. But that familiarity should not be allowed to obscure the dangerous and alien nature of the situation: right now, an extreme far-right party is polling higher than any other party in Australia.
This isn’t a mere label. It is the correct description of the positions Hanson put forward last week.
And yet it is not only that Hanson wants a “monoculture”, wants severe cuts to migration, clearly detests Islam, believes global warming is a “hoax”, wants to limit the rights of transgender people and restrict access to abortion. It is that she wants such issues put at the centre of political debate. These are not idly held beliefs; they are crucial to her project.
It is possible that, in the end, these issues rebound on Hanson; that at some point, Australians decide they do not want somebody with those views representing them. But we are not there yet and we should not simply assume that point will........