One Nation leader returns to Senate after burqa stunt ban
Updated ,first published
“I’m back… you can’t stop me,” One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said as she returned to the Senate for the first time since entering parliament two months ago for wearing a burqa and MPs from the increasingly popular party amassed hundreds of thousands of social media followers.
Hanson’s return comes as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley made conflicting statements about her desire to join with the Liberal and National parties in a future coalition to bring down the Albanian government, after saying she wanted to work with “the non-Labour side of politics” to hold the government to account.
“Well, I’m back. You can fire me, sack me or try to silence me, but you can’t stop me because Australians know I’ve got their back. A growing number of Australians now have mine,” Hanson told the Senate chamber on Thursday afternoon.
“When [Labor] Try to silence me, you are trying to silence millions of Australians who are fed up with your comfortable two party system because it doesn’t work. You are putting yourself and your interests before the Australians you are supposed to serve. “You are not part of the Australia we know and love, you are not part of the Australia you are trying to destroy with zero zero cost and mass immigration.”
One Nation’s primary vote rises with this tag in recent polls Unfreeze Political Monitor It shows that the party has a record vote rate of 18 percent. Australian‘s Newspaper survey and Australian Financial Review The Redbridge/Accent poll showed the party ahead of the Coalition with 22 per cent and 26 per cent of the vote respectively.
While the coalition’s popularity has plummeted following a record election loss and protracted infighting, the party has surged in the polls.
Recent splits between the Liberals and the Nationals over frontline solidarity and disagreements over hate crime legislation have further divided the Conservative vote.
Hanson was suspended for seven session days after failing to attempt to ban clothing and face coverings for wearing a burqa in the Senate during the last session week of the year on November 24.
The demonstration was condemned by several party senators, including Foreign Secretary Penny Wong, the Greens’ Mehreen Faruqi and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan, who said it was “disrespectful to Muslim Australians”.
The suspension involved the immediate recall of parliament in January to debate the government’s Bill to respond to the Bondi attacks.
Hanson unsuccessfully appealed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to have his suspension lifted.
“It’s an injustice that I couldn’t debate the legislation last month, but I’m proud that my colleagues followed me. They stood tall against Labor’s attempt to scapegoat legal gun owners for Anthony Albanese’s failure to control antisemitism and radical Islam,” Hanson said on Thursday.
“More Australians support me because they know [Labor] They do not put their interests first. “Unlike you, I do not take this support lightly,” he said.
Hanson’s social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X gained another 600,000 followers, an increase of nearly 60 percent in the past six months. The party leader increased his total number of followers on the platforms from 918,400 to almost 1.5 million. YouTube channel featuring political satire cartoon Please explainHe has another 144,000 followers.
He remains the second most followed federal politician, catching Albanese, who has amassed a further 300,000 followers over the same period, an increase of nearly 16 per cent. Albanese’s total number of followers is around 2.3 million.
The biggest percentage increase in Hanson’s follower count came from Instagram, where her follower count increased by more than 250 percent, from 73,000 followers to 260,000. He gained 321,000 followers on Facebook, a 56 percent increase. X’s number of followers increased by 23 percent to 201,700, and TikTok increased by 14 percent to 128,600.
During former Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s departure to One Nation, his total number of followers increased by nearly 50 per cent to a total of 291,000 followers. The former deputy prime minister almost tripled his Instagram follower count from 10,800 to 31,400 and nearly doubled his Facebook follower count from 86,000 to 163,000.
Senator Malcolm Roberts has amassed more than 100,000 followers, increasing his total follower count from 578,000 to 693,600; new senator Tyron Whitten increased his follower count from 5,000 to 30,000.
Comparative data was not measured because the party’s fourth senator, Sean Bell, entered parliament last year after the imprint began collecting politicians’ social media followings. The senator’s accounts could only be verified on Facebook and Instagram, and his total number of followers was 9,400.
In separate media appearances on Wednesday evening, Hanson took differing stances on whether he was willing to partner with the Liberal and National parties in a future coalition arrangement. Speaking to Sky News, Hanson said he would “of course” be interested in joining parties to form a government.
“That’s the only way forward because I won’t be the government and it looks like it will be either the Coalition or the National Party,” Hanson said. “The truth is, I’m a conservative at heart and I’m working with them to provide them with resources. Would I join the rabble they’re in now? Wherever in the world it is, but I have strong policies that we need because they’re doing nothing to solve the important problems that the Australian people want.”
But hours earlier, Hanson flatly refused to work with the Liberal Party.
Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Hanson said: “One Nation stands alone… We cannot afford another term under Labor. I will work with anyone who shares that goal, but I will never join them.”
On Thursday, National Party leader David Littleproud did not rule out working with One Nation in the future but described the party as a “threat”.
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Nick Newling is the federal politics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
