Why the One Nation leader’s political durability is forcing a rethink from major parties
For months, the conventional wisdom was that Pauline Hanson would eventually snap, implode on her own, be spotted by an association, or crack under the weight of constant scrutiny.
The press gallery, the major parties and the broader political class relied, in different ways, on some version of this outcome.
But his performance at the National Press Club in Canberra suggested something more troubling was happening. One Nation’s juggernaut may not have reached its peak yet.
He was not cunning, constantly contradicting himself and confusing his words. But he never lost his cool in the spotlight and on national television.
She was the Pauline Hanson Australians first knew 30 years ago, but with a touch more worldly and in some ways more sophisticated. For three decades it has been a staple of Australian culture in a way no rival can be. Nowadays this is a rare gift for a politician.
So now it’s worth asking whether those he’s trying to unseat, on both sides of politics, need to adjust not just their tactics but also their diagnoses. Because if Hanson isn’t instantly extinguished, the political system that has long attacked him personally and called him “racist” needs to confront what actually drives his support.
At the National Press Club, which has been a stage for prime ministers, ministers, dignitaries and industry leaders for decades, Hanson’s real target was not Labor, the Coalition or even the ABC.
He argues that it was a wider community of institutions such as governments, media organisations, bureaucracies and experts who stopped listening to ordinary Australians years ago. By the end of the speech, he presented himself as the antidote to the crisis of trust he believed these institutions had created.
Hanson was all diagnosed and there were few actual treatments, but policy design was not the goal of the practice. Its basic premise was clear: Australia is in decline because its leaders refuse to face facts.
Migration and housing have merged into a single pressure point; Hanson pointed to official figures to argue that population growth is outstripping housing supply, intensifying rents and homelessness.
From there, it was off to the familiar ledger of cost-of-living policies: energy prices, food costs, household stress. Charity sector data was used as evidence rather than color; People who skip meals, ration medication, rely on emergency aid are told over and over again that Australia remains a rich country.
In his framework, the gap between big-picture prosperity and day-to-day hardship is the defining political failure of the moment.
Hanson’s strategy is actually no longer to persuade the mainstream, but to bypass it. His speech was broadcast live on Facebook. A press club address used to be used for corporate fat cats and gab classes. Not this.
He brought out his greatest hits. Radical Islam, immigration, Welcome to the Country, Flick the UN, bending the genders and ignoring climate change.
He accused journalists and commentators of continuing the same reflexes of dismissal and ridicule for three decades.
“You have to earn the trust of the Australian people,” he said. “I’m sure I can do it. Can the media say the same? Many people see you as part of the problem. In some ways, they’re right.”
The Liberals and Nationals are stuck in a familiar quandary: how to challenge him without legitimizing him, and how to recapture his voters without importing his worldview. Until recently Labor considered him a problem for the opposition. However, his rise in the polls now suggests the opposite.
The media never found a way to consistently respond to him without strengthening his appeal among his base. And now it looks too electorally durable to ignore.
The biggest problem for all of them is that if voters no longer trust the messenger, they will not listen to the message. And Hanson knows this.
For almost three decades, naysayers have been predicting his insignificance. Protesters marched and screamed. Journalists have written his political obituary too many times to count.
Across democracies, this pattern is now familiar: Donald Trump in the US, Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage in Britain, AfD in Germany.
Actions and figures like these are met first with disbelief, then with condemnation, then with uneasy adaptation; but one rarely gets a clear idea of how they should be confronted or controlled.
Australia has long been telling itself that it is different, that these dynamics belong elsewhere. Hanson is now testing this assumption.
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Rob Harris is a national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Canberra. He is a former European correspondent.Connect via email.
