By Peter Brown
Australia is once again flirting with political complacency.
Recent polling shows Pauline Hanson’s One Nation climbing to levels not seen in decades. The Guardian Essential poll has recorded support as high as 17 per cent, with Newspoll and Resolve confirming strong momentum. National backing now appears to sit between 10 and 17 per cent, strongest among older Australians, Queenslanders, and voters without university degrees.
The comfortable explanation is that this is simply a revival of old prejudices. That racism, long associated with One Nation, is once again driving support. It is an explanation that allows the major parties to shake their heads, condemn the voters, and change nothing.
It is also incomplete.
This surge is less about what Pauline Hanson believes than about what Australia’s political system has failed to deliver.
Labor’s decisive re-election in 2025 has coincided with a deeper collapse of confidence in the Coalition. For many conservative-leaning voters, the Liberals and Nationals no longer look like a serious opposition – or even a coherent one. Years of internal conflict, policy timidity, and strategic silence have left a vacuum on the right.
One Nation has filled that vacuum not with sophistication, but with certainty. In an era where major parties hedge, triangulate, and manage language, Hanson speaks plainly – sometimes recklessly – and that alone has political value. Voters who feel ignored are often drawn to anyone who appears willing to say what others will not.
Immigration sits at the centre of One Nation’s message, but it is rarely the whole story. For many supporters, migration has become shorthand for a collection of unresolved pressures: housing shortages, clogged infrastructure, hospital waiting lists, and stagnant wages. Whether or not immigration is the primary cause matters less than the fact that voters believe it is an issue the major parties refuse to discuss honestly.
That belief has consequences. In some surveys, Hanson now outperforms the Prime Minister on trust measures – a startling indictment of mainstream politics rather than an endorsement of her policy depth.
If there is a single force powering One Nation’s rise, it is economic stress. Cost-of-living pressures, energy bills, rents, and housing insecurity have eroded confidence that the system is working for ordinary Australians. Regional communities and lower-income households feel this most acutely, and many believe government attention has drifted toward corporate interests and inner-city priorities.
One Nation’s promise to put “Australians first” may lack detail, but it resonates emotionally. Support for local businesses, farmers, and Australian-owned industries speaks to voters who feel economically invisible. Populism thrives not on precision, but on recognition.
Climate and cultural debates have added further fuel. Net-zero targets, environmental regulation, and what is broadly labelled “woke” politics are seen by some voters as elite concerns imposed without regard for cost or practicality. Rising power prices and regulatory complexity make climate policy feel punitive rather than desirable purposeful, particularly outside the cities.
None of this erases One Nation’s history. Hanson’s past comments about Indigenous Australians, Asians, and Muslims are real and well documented. The party’s rhetoric continues to flirt with division. But focusing exclusively on that history risks missing the present danger.
This polling surge is not merely the return of an old fringe. It is a warning signal. A sign that large numbers of Australians feel disconnected from decision-making, unheard by institutions, and unconvinced that either major party understands their lives.
Australia has been here before. One Nation surged in the late 1990s and again in the 2010s before plateauing as political conditions shifted. Whether it fades again depends less on Pauline Hanson than on how others respond.
Dismiss these voters as ignorant or bigoted, and the numbers will harden. Ignore their economic anxiety, and resentment will deepen. Pretend the problem is Hanson herself, and the vacuum remains.
Populism does not thrive because it is right. It thrives because something else has gone wrong.
One Nation’s rise is not an anomaly. It is a symptom – and Australia ignores symptoms at its peril.
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P Hanson is unfit, incapable, unqualified, ignorant, unaware, simple. How can such a flawed no-one be considered a leader, a speaker, a thinker, a solver? B Joyce remains a drunken fornicating farce. Other inferior treacherous defectives have come and gone having betrayed us all. This indicates a great inferiority and defectiveness in whining, silly us. Donald Horne had been too kind.
Horrific. Australia’s going down the same path as the US.
Excellent and objective article.
Could Pauline Hanson run a Fish-n-Chip shop? Unless you were in the Silkstone locale of Ipswich when she had it, there’s no way of yer taste buds finding out.
Now she’s blathering about the country for the sake only for money in her own pocket. She’s discovered (again) there’s money to be had by being a wretched dickhead (with occasional full head and body covering, but without a greasy vat), so there’ll be no stopping her.
Pauline Hanson is an arsehole and Labor MUST NOT decide to emulate her policies, but it needs to tackle the larger issues. Namely, it needs to crack down on negative gearing and Air B’n’Bs. It needs to show that it understands the deeper issues, not the simplistic crap of cutting immigration.
I find this report disrespectful, judgemental of ON supporters and oblivious to the facts.
LNP ALP GREENS TEALS all support the implementation of UN AGENDA 2030, an existential threat to Australia’s national sovereignty. The Agenda is the blueprint for the building of the necessary infrastructure for one world government. Its goals (17 SDGs) are disingenuous. Really the Agenda is about the control and oppression of many by elites. Believers cannot com ply with government legislation that defies God’s commandments. Many cannot trust WHO to administer the Pandemic Treaty after the horrible health outcomes in Covid 19. Many do not want to have Digital ID and facial recognition and Ai surveillance. Many object to public education teaching Agenda ideology. Many are struggling to pay high energy prices because of NET Zero and the race to transition to renewables. Many refuse the use of climate change to justify the shift to food technology and the control of the agricultural sector similar to what is observed by EU food producers. I have researched and daily monitor the Agenda implementation around the world. I am amazed that ALP LNP GREENS TEALS and the media fail to inform Australians about the Agenda. One Nation provides us with up-to-date information on government attempts to implement the Agenda and how they seek amendments to limit unintended consequences. One Nation is the only party who has committed to removing Australia from the Agenda, thereby allowing citizens to have a voice in the kind of nation they want to live in. As someone who knows alot about the Agenda I have determined it is not in the best interests of most Australians.
Yes it is true Pauline has made mistakes and lacks gracious speech. Having said this – it would be impossible to pick any political party that has not dirtied its nest. I rebuke those who denigrate others for making their decision on who they vote for. You think more highly of yourself than you ought.
It is very interesting that a poll or two putting a party at around 17% is taken as a prediction of coming electoral success. At the moment there is no One Nation member in the House of Representatives, and on those figures, it is unlikely to win a HoR seat any time soon. One Nation boasts a tiny group of Senators only.
No one can seriously suggest that there will be a One Nation Government, led by Pauline Hansen as Prime Minister.
Well, it is government idiocy over Gaza that has opened the door for Hanson to attack. I don’t blame Hanson, she is only exploiting a door left open like a dog peeing on a lampost, or even the blobs who think to change their votes, when the absence of information from the government itself causes the mess.
Another brief time of promise killed off by the likes of Minns, Albo and Marles, Collins in Victoria, crawling after the Zionist Lobby.
I agree with Bev… as in I think more highly about myself than I ought…and where I place my vote too. Pauline is in the business of being an provocative politician…mm.
Pauline only gives a fuck about Pauline.😤…(as in why the party ‘was’ called PHON) and her first preference payments,the pay and the grift.
As an Australian.. she is such an embarrassment… she is an unAustralian leach on the Australian politic…she epitomises “Fake News”…mm. Though having said that one must feel sorry for Pauline. As a human being we only “go around” once…look at the type of human she’s decided to be…pfft
Decades have past and Pauline is still there, in the same period our political duopoly has had many leaders, all have promise much and delivered little.
I’d vote for any one who’d put the likes of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in the corner for ever.
The bogan’s of political miasma are quick to find another home it seems – Non-pejorative usage here.
Here in Australia that seems to be Hanson.
http://www.unemployednegativity.com/2025/06/the-miasma-of-science-and-ideology.html