Leaning into One Nation’s MAGA links could force Coalition to make Trump call: Expert

A strategy to highlight Pauline Hanson’s ties to the divisive “Make America Great Again” brand could backfire if adopted more widely by the Coalition, an expert has warned, after high-profile Liberal Andrew Hastie condemned the One Nation leader for his unwavering support for Donald Trump.

One Nation’s recent success in South Australia, where it received more than 20 per cent of the primary vote, has shown that the party has managed to move from the extreme fringes of Australian politics into the mainstream.

Steady federal polls, running between 26 and 29 per cent, have reinforced the party as a credible threat to the Coalition in the fight against conservative voters increasingly disillusioned with the major parties.

Despite the overlap in their voter bases, the Coalition has generally sought to draw a clear line between itself and the populist rhetoric of One Nation.

The divide emerged last week when Mr Hastie criticized Senator Hanson, a long-time supporter of Mr Trump, for supporting the US leader’s actions in Iran and called on Australia to join the war effort.

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 in an operation deemed illegal under international law by many critics, including legal experts.

Mr Hastie, a former soldier and Mr Trump’s most vocal critic in the Liberal Party, branded his rhetoric sounding “all MAGA, rather than Australia first”, before doubling down on an unexpected attack on the One Nation leader a few days later.

“On the one hand, Pauline Hanson is supporting Donald Trump for the war in Iran,” he told ABC Insiders.

“I have a brother in the Navy; the question is, can I, as an MP, put my hand on my heart and send him and his shipmates to the Strait of Hormuz?

“I can’t because I know we have no ability to defend against Iran’s drones and missiles.

“Now, the government should have fixed this… but like Pauline Hanson, we should not be too quick to drag Australians into a war that I think will be much more complicated than is otherwise suggested.”

But Associate Professor Jill Sheppard of the ANU School of Politics and International Relations told NewsWire that Mr Hastie’s ability to criticize Mr Trump and thereby bind Senator Hanson to those criticisms stemmed from “the luxury of not having to maintain the support of his parliamentary colleagues”.

Dr Sheppard said any strategy to link the pair to Mr Trump’s popularity with Australians would seek to “pull down” Senator Hanson’s popularity at home, but the Coalition adopting this as a formal campaign approach would be fraught with problems, particularly for Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.

This was despite the One Nation leader’s public support for the US leader and his support of the MAGA movement, including lavish praise for his aggressive economic, immigration and climate policies at the conservative conference at Mar-a-Lago in November last year.

“If they’re going the MAGA route to crush One Nation, then Angus Taylor will inevitably be asked: ‘Don’t you like Donald Trump?’ “And that’s going to be a harder question for him to answer.”

“Former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton struggled with this too. Even Anthony Albanese is struggling with the question of how we feel as a country about Trump, because we still have very good relations with the United States.”

However, Dr. Ultimately, One Nation’s biggest threat to the Coalition is exposure to a major fault line between the two sides, Sheppard said.

“The party isn’t quite sure how much it wants to be pro-business, pro-immigration in 2026, or how much it wants to lean towards a slightly more populist view on the direction of the country,” he added.

Dr Sheppard said this had been an issue that had been brewing in the Coalition for many years, but one that One Nation had easily capitalized on following the economic downturn, underpinned by its more “disciplined” approach to politics in recent years.

“Most parties like One Nation have faded at this point. One Nation, especially Pauline Hanson, is particularly stubborn,” he said.

“They are much more committed to being a party in Australian politics than other similar parties in the past, even if they are at the very fringes of Australian politics. They also appear to be much more professional these days.”

“I think both major parties have had a really hard time dealing with the surge in One Nation votes because they’re not used to such a constant struggle, whether left or right.

“They see themselves as the established parties of government and anyone who tries to challenge them is by default a collaborator from the fringes or ideologically extreme.

“But frankly, it’s not just extremists who have 21 per cent of the vote in South Australia. It’s mainstream voters too.”