Hanson’s Slick Delivery of Her One Nation Vision for Australia Should Alarm Us All

One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson’s address at the National Press Club on 17 June 2026 should have the nation trembling in its boots, as the highly divisive nature of her dystopian and racist vision for a future Australia under her governance was matched by the slickness in the way in which the politician, who has long been mocked over her public appearances, handled the press with precision.

That One Nation’s meteoric rise to the top of the Australian political heap over the last six months is intimately linked to the MAGA White House is a difficult proposition to deny now, as the address presented a clear local version of that ideology and the manner in which Hanson decisively responded to reporters’ questions, revealed a lot of meticulous planning and financial investment.

Hanson linked the housing crisis to mass migration, rejected multiculturalism in favour of a white Australian monoculture and she determined to combat the “transgender insurgency”. Hanson further called for smaller government, an end to foreign aid, the shutting down of SBS and making the ABC subscription, along with abolishing the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA).

In a similar manner to which Donald Trump once stood before the American public and drove his disaffected white supporter base crazy by making controversial and xenophobic statements that rang true to them, Hanson pressed similar gripes that white nationalists in this country have been harbouring, and as the polls have suggested such beliefs are reaching a majority in the public sphere.

And just as the rapid rise of Trump to the top of American politics, which has seen him take out the US presidency twice on an exceedingly divisive ticket, is understood to be a symptom of an empire in serious decline, so too should Hanson’s swift rise to a position where she’s now offering a new version of the White Australia policy be taken as this nation being in the throes of a serious ailment.

Taking on militant Islam and the transgender insurgency

“Undeniably immigration or immigration policy has our country in the state of crisis,” said Hanson towards the top of her press club address. “At the centre of this crisis is the utterly flawed policy of multiculturalism. We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.”

The One Nation leader blamed migration for the housing crisis. She cited a net overseas migration figure of 1.27 million migrants under the first three years of the Albanese government and went on to imply that having 32 percent of the population having been born abroad being problematic, and the fact that 23 percent of people in this country don’t speak English at home is of grave concern.

“It is clear what we stand for, One Nation under one flag and proudly Australian. We oppose entirely people coming into this country and bringing with them the troubles they have left behind,” Hanson insisted, and went on to disparage migrants “coming to this country and ignoring our values, our language, our traditions, our dress and the fact that we are predominately a Judeo-Christian society”.

In the next breath, she railed against “radical Islam”. She threatened to deport or imprison “Islamist” “hate preachers” and vowed not to abandon countering this “social cancer”. Hanson then insisted that her immigration policy would prohibit immigration from nation’s “immersed in extremism, like radical Islam”. “If we want a secure and peaceful world, radical Islam must be destroyed,” she added.

Hanson ended her speech by insisting that her government would further focus on ending the “transgender insurgency”, as this “ideology”, which permeates government, is seeking to “redefine humanity”, and in turn, “change the nation”. And just like “militant Islam”, “this whole subversive transgender insurgency must be dismantled,” the politician underscored.

“Dig baby dig”

Trump rose to power in the US by making divisive proclamations that garnered the support of a disaffected white working class population, whilst clearly being a member of the billionaire class of industrialists, tech entrepreneurs and financiers and being focused on progressing its interests, and right now, as she tops the polls, Hanson is using the same playbook and getting away with it.

Blaming immigrants for all of the woes of poor white Australians, whilst the disparities of this nation’s capitalist system and its business leaders are clearly on display, is a conjuring trick that Hanson is now employing to effect, as she is garnering a mass of grassroots support, whilst spending much of her time galivanting around with our nation’s wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart.

Hanson lamented over figures relating to “the plight of increasing numbers of low-income Australians” and then she blamed the cost-of-living crisis on “the hoax of global warming which is now climate change”. And the far-right politician insisted that the shifting away from fossil fuels and the move towards renewable energy is “the central source of national poverty”.

One Nation, she further emphasised, would end “the net zero hoax”. It would turn back to fossil fuels and then in “moving forward”, it “will introduce nuclear energy”. And as Hanson outlined that Australia “will never be able to do without coal and gas”, Rinehart and her fossil fuel cronies, who are all backing “the fish and chip shop owner from Ipswich”, must have been smiling in glee.

Hanson had earlier distinguished herself as a former small business owner, as distinct from the professional politicians that she’s seeking to knock out of office, and specifically prime minister Anthony Albanese and treasurer Jim Chalmers. And during questions, she revealed that she continues to share the concerns of those who own businesses.

“Industrial relations, I can assure you, needs a complete overhaul because it is not working,” the senator explained in terms of what workers should expect under a One Nation government.

“Businesses also tell me, you can’t sack people these days,” she added. “They are on their phones. They don’t work. They don’t turn up. They are actually lazy. And businesses are tied to it. They’ve had enough. They want change.”

The Trump playbook

The ABC reported in March that it had identified 20 Facebook accounts, mainly being operated out of Vietnam, which were running social media campaigns promoting Pauline Hanson and One Nation, and featuring fake news stories, spruiking Hanson’s credentials, whilst downplaying those of current PM Albanese and other key political figures.

The national broadcaster tracked 370 such images over a seven day period to 14 February this year, which were doing the rounds of social media in an attempt to garner support for Hanson and One Nation. And researchers told the ABC, most of the posts were designed to enrage Australian viewers in order to engage them, whist presenting Hanson as the answer to all their troubles.

These are the same tactics that were used by British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, as it harvested the raw data from over 87 million Facebook profiles to run campaigns that engaged users on a personal level in respect of Donald Trump when he was running in the 2016 election.

This micro-targeting of US citizens across social media platforms was key for Trump in taking out that US election. And such marketing strategies make Hanson’s sudden rise to the top of the Australian polls much more explainable.

The clear links between One Nation and the MAGA White House are out in the open, as it is. Rinehart was a keen supporter of Trump’s re-election campaign last year, and she was seen at his victory celebration wearing a sign with a quote from the now president’s campaign platform of “drill baby drill”, which said it all about how his administration would be dealing with climate change.

Indeed, the One Nation leader tipped her hat to Donald Trump’s determination to turn back the clock on fossil fuels, when she uttered her own version of the tagline as “dig baby dig” towards the end of her press club address.

Rinehart also flew Hanson over to the US state of Florida last November, so she could address a CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and the One Nation leader spoke on a range of issues that ticked all the MAGA boxes, and mirrored what she said on Ngunnawal land in Canberra this week. Hanson even attended Trump’s Halloween party at the estate.

But Hanson’s early campaign trailing this week didn’t end in the capital, as Rinehart addressed the National Bush Summit on Wulgurukaba and Bindal land in Townsville on Thursday. And the mining magnate called Pauline to the stage to present her with a model of an orange bulldozer, and she likened the moment to when trillionaire Elon Musk was presented with a chainsaw early last year.

“Elon Musk was given a big chainsaw to try and cut government tape and bureaucracies over in America,” Rinehart said as Hanson was making her way to the stage.

“We need more,” the nation’s richest woman continued in respect of her wish to see Hanson cutting Australian “government tape and bureaucracies” in order to make the extraction of fossil fuels and other resources much more accessible on this continent. “We actually need a beautiful, big fat… orange bulldozer.”

Main Image: Protest Against Pauline Hanson in Brisbane poster used with permission of Campaign Against Racism and Fascism Brisbane and photo of Pauline Hanson is licensed under CC0.