Hanson is close to peak One Nation. The opposition must not follow her
Pauline Hanson has set a trap and the Coalition is falling into it.
He enjoys more support than ever during his decades in public life. But this past week has been an example of why he remains a sideline player and why a Coalition seeking to form a government should be wary of following his lead.
Last week Hanson said this quiet part out loud, and from all indications it was quite intentional: “I’m sorry, how can you tell me there are good Muslims?” he asked during an appearance on Sky News After Dark.
In response came a barrage of criticism from all sides. It was accurate, completely predictable, and arguably gave Hanson exactly what he wanted: more attention in an age where anger and algorithms dominate politics.
For 30 years, Hanson has done his best to divide Australians broadly into two groups: “real” Australians (those who generally agree with him) and people who disagree with him and somehow fail his arbitrary test.
Their goals have changed. When he started politics there were Asian-Australians and Indigenous Australians. More recently, and especially since returning to the Senate in 2016, Hanson has sided with Australian Muslims. He acted against the law because of some of his words.
Hanson lost a defamation case against Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi over her racist tweets in 2022. Federal police said they wanted to see if Hanson broke any laws with his comments last week.
But Hanson’s party is voting like never before. The latest Resolve Political Monitor showed One Nation’s primary vote equaled that of the Coalition by 23 percentage points. In other polls, he was ahead of the opposition.
What isn’t clear is when or whether One Nation reached its peak, or why Hanson chose to go lower than he probably ever has before with his “good Muslims” comment.
Has the One Nation leader decided that politics is now too fractious for the likes of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Giorgia Meloni and their related movements, and that it is time for a real reshaping of the conservative political landscape in Australia? And do you think the more extreme his comments are, the more new supporters he’ll gain?
Is he afraid because in Angus Taylor the Coalition now has a more conservative leader who can appeal to and even win back former Liberals who have defected to One Nation?
Or did the 73-year-old commentator decide to put his foot down instead of exaggerating his comments and stepping back?
In a perceptual article, Liberal Foundationsby former MP Keith WolahanThe former member for the Melbourne seat of Menzies examines in detail the demographic and educational changes reshaping Australian politics and society.
Wolahan points out that in 1996, 23 per cent of Australians were born overseas, compared to 32 per cent today. For Australians with at least one parent born overseas, this number rises to more than 50 per cent.
“From the top 50 seats by immigration background [Liberal] the party currently has only two hands,” Wolahan writes, noting that One Nation’s primary vote in Australia’s major cities is not as strong as it is in the regions, and that no matter how well One Nation polls, Labor will struggle to win any seat where it is competitive, meaning almost all metropolitan voters.
“We must clearly distinguish ourselves both in policy and tone on immigration from One Nation,” Wolahan writes.
He’s right. For Taylor and his team, the path back to government is not through the regions and outer suburbs (Peter Dutton tried that in 2025 and it was a resounding failure) but through Australia’s major cities.
Hanson was right when he recently said that no party could be tougher than One Nation when it comes to immigration. He, unlike the leader-in-waiting Barnaby Joyce, doesn’t care which communities he offends or how insulting and inaccurate his rhetoric might be in his unseemly race to win as many votes as possible.
But in a country populated mostly by new immigrants, there is a hard ceiling that will limit Hanson’s rise in the polls, especially in cities. Preferential voting in the lower house also means the party is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats (it’s no surprise that he’s also spoken out against this). One Nation’s presence in the Senate as a protest party, like the Greens, looks much more assured.
For Taylor and his team, the path back to political relevance is much more complicated. Yes, they need to win back voters on the right who have shifted to One Nation. But this will only last so long.
For the coalition to have a chance of forming government again, it also needs to speak convincingly to the millions of people living in Australia’s cities who are worried about their ability to buy a home or pay their rent, sign their children up for weekend sports or whether a Friday night takeaway is too expensive for their tight family budgets.
Treating a government with 94 seats as somehow illegitimate, pitting it against One Nation for its dwindling share of the conservative vote and offering Central Australia little in the way of credible alternative policies is a recipe for disaster, as Dutton has found to its cost.
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James Massola is the chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and Southeast Asia correspondent. He won the Quill and Kennedy awards and was a Walkley finalist. Connect securely to Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect with: X or email.
