Fact-Checking Pauline Hanson’s 2026 National Press Club Address

11 Comments

1. Why is this article so short? I was expecting it to be twenty times as long.

2. Chalmers welcomes drop in migration SMH 180626
   By Nick Newling
   Treasurer Jim Chalmers has welcomed a drop in the rate of net overseas migration, saying it had “moderated substantially” under Labor’s stewardship.

   The latest figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday morning, showed net overseas migration had fallen from 311,000 in the year leading up to September 2025, to 301,000 in the year leading up to December 2025. Annual population growth fell by 0.1 per centage points.

   Related Article
   President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Hugh de Kretser, is a leading human rights advocate.
   Political leadership
   ‘Dystopian’: Hanson’s speech slammed as net migration falls
   “Migration was surging when we came to office and it has now moderated substantially. It was already down 45 per cent since its peak, and is lower again today,” Chalmers said in a statement.

   “Today’s number came in at 301,000 through the year to December, down on the previous quarter. The facts clearly show that net overseas migration is coming down under Labor and Treasury is forecasting it to go even lower in the coming years.”

   The current rate is it’s lowest since 2022, just before it peaked following the reopening of borders after the COVID pandemic. The rate has been a point of contention among political parties as migration is increasingly linked to housing and quality of life in the political debate.

   This means that the immigration surge until 2025 occurred under the Scummo COALition misgovernment, the cause of most of the present economic & financial difficulties being experienced by voters. PHONeys are blaming LABOR for the problems created by the COALition!!

3. Frau Hanson has now been in public life for thirty years, has said little, through near incoherence; has done little, through non-attendance; has thought little about her role and duties, through lack of cerebral quality; has offered nothing of use; has fed low level whingers with aberration and fuelled resentment; has insulted, irritated, confused, abused, cornered, hoarded, maggotted, posed. Poop. And, she always appears to lie because she has no concept of accuracy, checking, research, professionalism.., nought.

4. leefe, that’s what I feel too, but I let the author off because he said these were “key claims”

5. Fair enough. If they’d covered every item, they’d still be writing next week.

   
   
   
   

6. Let me state for various reasons that I could never vote for Hanson and One Nation including that she has difficulty with certain facts. BUT she will win the next election because she comes across as sinceer and caring and basically honest and a faliable person that ordinary people can relate to and not the priviliged, lying, captured idiots of Labor and the LNP. Albasleazy IS a liar and everybody knows it, (but so are the rest of them). Nobody believes anything that comes from Labor and the LNP because their credibility has been permanantly lost. Hanson was an ordinary fish and chips shop owner and not a career politician which is part of her appeal to ordinary people.. People see her rightly or wrongly as ‘one of us’.

   Case in point. Take note of how Hanson started to get upset about all the homeless people. It IS a national disgrace. A country is judged by how it treats those at the bottom and Labor and the LNP clearly dodnt give a damn about the millions in poverty and have no solution. Hanson talks TO people, instead of down to them and thats, why Hanson will win.

7. Thank you for doing this.

   I confess my tolerance for listening to Pauline Hanson is limited. I disagree with much of what she says, there is often a tedious lack of coherence, and the delivery does not improve matters.

   The fact that someone managed to listen carefully enough to extract the claims, check the sources and document the results deserves recognition.

   It turns out Pauline can be fact-checked after all. The challenge was never understanding the words. The challenge was having the patience to sit through them.

8. Comments on Hanson’s National Press Club Address
   She started by deliberately not acknowledging ‘Welcome to Country’. :
   “Don’t expect a divisive ‘Welcome to Country’ from me”. That is a divisive statement in itself.
   After that she praised all the immigrants who have made Australia the beautiful country it is.
   That’s right, before European immigrants there were no mountains, trees, pristine rivers, etc.
   She says we are a multi-racial country, but must reject multi-culturalism. Everyone must be the same flavour of bland, fish and chip eaters.
   She quotes a whole lot of immigration figures. I’ll let the regular press take those apart.
   She says Australia is in danger of losing its identity. She says we have a growing language problem. We don’t speak English well. She should listen to herself!
   “There is no room for hate preachers in this country”
   She had better leave then.
   She says removing negative gearing will make investment move away from housing. That is exactly the point, stop investors buying up properties and starving out genuine home buyers. Housing is about people who want a home, not for those who want investment properties.
   She keeps on about ‘Radical Islam’. No one disagrees with the radical part, but her followers just think of Islam.
   Cost of living.
   She quotes a Salvation Army report. Note that Salvation Army are a humanitarian organisation, One Nation is not. The Salvation Army helps people. Politicians like Hanson don’t help people by spreading their message of hate. Hanson’s policies would see aid to needy people cut.
   She brings up examples like 35% of people say they survive on one meal a day (maybe that is a dietary choice) and 35% send their children to school hungry. But why is that? Maybe they just did not bother to give them breakfast, or less than 3 Weetbix is counted as hungry. She cherry picks examples.
   During this part an electronic banner was unfurled. It was claimed by ‘Get Up’ who said they had sneaked in the previous day and installed it. It was triggered remotely. A very clever and silent protest. The banner read “I opposed a part rise for workers, while I took a $100,000 pay rise for myself.” This was not clear in the Press Club broadcast. It seemed an appropriate and clever time to lower the banner.
   At least Hanson smiled, she could have been humorous about it. However, seconds later some tattooed thugs moved in and furiously ripped the banner down. I don’t know whether they were Hanson’s mob of from the Press Club.
   She actually called Chris Bowen ‘Peanut Bowen’, “where is he with his reliable energy?”.
   “51% say they go to a shopping centre to keep warm or cool”.
   Well, yes a lot of people do that. It is just natural “A hot day, let’s go to the shops or cinema for air conditioning”. It used to be the beach. So what?
   “46% can’t afford prescription medicine”
   They should go and live in the USA, we have very cheap medicines here. For pensioners, it is $7.70 for a script.
   She promises that One Nation will dismantle the governments energy policy. Well we tried that for 9 years under LNP. We are only just starting to recover and get renewables where they should be.
   She cites Oz Harvest. They report 350,000 seek food help each month. But Oz Harvest and other organisations are people who do something, not people who pontificate about how bad things are and try to whip up anger and hate in others.
   I agree with her that Australia is a rich country. But she will make it even worse in terms of rich getting richer and poor… etc.
   She wants to scrap taxes that enable government to run the very programs she says are needed.
   “The hoax of global warming, which is now climate change”
   She claims the government has taken Australia into “energy poverty”. What nonsense.
   She goes on with “Fire the liar”.
   She quotes things that oil must be used for. So why are we just burning it? If we burn the oil there won’t be any to make the things she claims oil is essential for. Jet fuel will be more expensive because the demand for burning it in terrestrial transport will push up the prices. She says helium used in medicine comes from natural gas. There is no helium in natural gas. What did she mean?
   Hanson just does not know what she is talking about.
   She calls subsidies for renewables a rort. Well it is a matter of funding national infrastructure.
   She claims the Clean Energy Council has been funded $200 billion of tax payer money. I’d have to fact check if the figure is correct and what it has been spent on.
   “Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not opposed to renewable energy”
   Um, wait, yes she is.
   She says “The hydrogen revolution is blowing up in Australia’s face – or should I say Andrew Forrest’s face”.
   Well, there is a lot of doubt from people about the effectiveness of hydrogen (John Dee included). And Anerew Forrest is a competitor to Hanson’s biggest sponsor, Gina Reinhardt.
   She decries that taxpayers money should be spent (in these very legitimate ways). Well that is what taxes are for, to get spent back into the community to provide us services and benefits.
   Government has no money of their own other than what they take from taxpayers. Well for a start that is not true, government has other forms of revenue. They do need to ensure that all parties in Australia pay their taxes — not just individuals. She again makes simplistic points, ignoring other factors.
   “One Nation will introduce nuclear energy”
   Let that be a warning. The most expensive and toxic option that we don’t need because we are “blessed with natural resources”, being solar and wind, not just those we need to dig up and destroy the land.
   She says she has always opposed the current energy policy. But that is what has come after nine years of neglect under LNP.
   Ford and Holden closed their manufacturing plants here, but that was under LNP.
   “The source of much of our wealth is under our feet”.
   Unfortunately, that is true of Australia. But Australia has always taken the lazy option. But Australia gives it away, just to make contracts with multi-nationals. John Howard did that with our gas.
   But if we don’t need expensive and dirty mining operations because we have clean and cheap renewables, leave it in the ground. Does she want to dig up Kakadu to get all that uranium (the sleeping dragon)?
   No, she is pushing the coal and gas options. We can’t afford that, either in money or environmental damage.
   “Stop blaming the Middle East”.
   Well, she did not explain or expound on that. But many of the problems the oil shock, etc of the last three months is due to that. OK stop blaming the middle east, blame Trump and Netanyahu. It is their mess.
   She says the government wants to take $77 billion from taxpayer pockets. Let’s get rid of this notion that the money we have is ours. It is the nation’s. It just flows through our pockets, like standing in a river, the water flows past us. We can enjoy its cooling effect, but we don’t own it. We are all part of this economy. The metaphor of pockets is fundamentally wrong. But we will only get simplistic words from Hanson, appealing to simplistic thinking.
   Like all conservatives, she loves to quote big numbers that most people have little conception about. Simplistic scare tactics. Life goes on.
   She then speaks to her base saying people feel afraid to speak out “the risk of speaking out is too great. They feel demonised and condescended. They feel ‘mad as hell’ about it”. Again she is whipping up fear and hate.
   “That was the best outcome of the Voice to Parliament referendum – it shows that Australians were not prepared to let their country be taken away from them”
   What absolute gall. We took this country from its inhabitants and now we don’t even give them a say in their own outcomes. She completely mischaracterised the Voice, as is what happened in 2023.
   “Thankfully, Australians have woken up”
   What they are now woke?
   She attacks the “transgender insurgency”.
   More hate speech coming. A more complex issue that Hanson will gloss over to feed ignorance.
   “The transgender movement is a militant force right throughout society.”
   Well what does she think this One Nation movement is, or MAGA in USA, or Farage’s Reform in UK? They are militant forces we should be worried about.
   She then posits “militant transgenderism” with “militant Islam”.
   “This whole subversive transgender insurgency must be dismantled.”
   Just setting up a straw man here.
   Hanson is then interrupted by the moderator to give a summary so that questions can be taken. She responds “I only have a few pages left”
   As I suspected she is deliberately filling the time so she limits questions. So much for free press under people like Hanson and Trump.
   She turns to AI. I agree with the first part, but as for characterising the Albanese government as leaving it up to large corporations to regulate, that is wrong. Australia is leading legislation in this area.
   “If II is to be…” Ah, Australia’s great contribution to the language, let’s just get rid of ‘A’ altogether, is just sounds like ‘I’! ‘IEIOU’.
   Now she turns on the media (remember this is at the National Press Club).
   “It does not give you the licence to say ‘We are a racist party’ because that is untrue”.
   Racists always say they are not racist. When she decries multiculturalism, she IS being racist.
   “Rest assured there will be big changes if One Nation is given the chance.
   “The SBS will be gone. … The Internet has overtaken the need for it.”
   She obviously has not watched SBS in a while. There is not so much foreign language content now. But there are wonderful documentaries and news analysis programs. It is a wonderful service.
   “The ABC will still exist, but in a very different form.”
   She will make the ABC a subscription service only in the cities.
   “Their arrogance is stunning in its scope”.
   She refuses ABC interviews. “Their bias towards One Nation is obvious. I don’t answer to the media”.
   That means, like Trump, she does not answer to the people.
   “I answer to the Australian people”.
   But without the media, we won’t know what she is saying. She probably can’t answer their questions. She is now going well over time so she does not have to answer questions.
   “I love this country. I am a patriot and an unashamed nationalist.”
   She, like many of her followers are flag shaggers.
   Questions
   She has banned the ABC and she has banned The Guardian.
   “I want truthful and honest reporting from the media”
   But on what she has just spent over 50 minutes espousing, that is exactly what she is getting. Note this is being broadcast on the ABC. If the ABC were just a propaganda arm of the government this would never have been allowed.
   She will obviously stick to propaganda arms like Sky News.
   Hanson is just spreading her own version of Trump’s ‘fake news’.
   She talks about “Australian’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars”. Well that is exactly the point to reducing CGT concessions, so those who are just living off investments are also paying fair tax like those who earn their income the hard way by going out to work. But she is against that. Her words are hypocritical.
   Asked if she would pressure the RBA to reduce interest rates, she correctly says government cannot do that. But the she says that the government must spend less so she’d abolish the climate change department, the Aboriginal department, and “those stupid health and education” (mumbles) with the states. She would cut the NDIS, going after the scammers and rorters. Well what does she think the government is doing?
   She now shows simplistic and incorrect understanding of economics saying to cut government spending to bring down debt.
   Hanson thinks she is speaking for the average Australian. Of course everyone probably thinks they are the ‘average Australian’. Don’t be fooled, she is not speaking for us.
   A question from Sarah Martin from the Guardian about Hanson’s daughter being tax-payer funded for $150,000 to campaign in Tasmania. Did Hanson have any role in appointing to that position.
   The reaction is telling, she calls Sarah Martin “a trashy journalist, constantly trying to pull down, myself, my party, and Mrs Reinhart. What ever you do, you will be banned from my answering. I’ll answer you this question today, but I’m telling you now, don’t come near me for an interview in the future.”
   It is Hanson who is the trashy politician. Some fact checking would be needed on the claims of Martin and the rebuttal by Hanson.
   John Paul (JP) Janke then asked a question on behalf of NITV. He asks what will happen to all the programs for Aboriginals if the Department for Aboriginals (set up by LNP) is abolished.
   Hanson responds that “we are all Australians, all treated equally”. But there is not equality in society.
   Michael De Percy asks a pointed question about the public service.
   Hanson has a spray at the public service and ministers who consult the public service for advice. “They are incompetent and they are useless”. She says that One Nation will tell the public service what to do. This is setting up the public service as a straw man target of people’s hate. One Nation will tell what public service “This is it”. But they won’t be getting the advice of experts. This is a general problem in society where people make up their own uninformed minds about things.
   Anna Henderson from SBS asks a question about abortion and gestational period.
   Hanson immediately cherry picks the fictional example of one day before birth. That would almost happen in 0% of cases.
   Anna Henderson then asks about abolishing SBS and Australian news being made in 60 languages.
   Hanson responds with “Your going to be without a job”. Hanson has a go at people who speak little English. What a hypocrite — listen to the way she speaks “Austraya”, etc. Hanson has very poor English herself. It is time she was assimilated, but I don’t know what to.
   “Sky is great to go and look for news”. Oh, yes, the propaganda source that supports people like Hanson. Again like Trump, keep those news outlets that support you while trying to destroy those who ask deeper questions that people like Hanson really can’t answer.
   Chloe Bouras from Network 10 asks about the government’s pay rise for child care workers.
   Hanson: “Child care is completely out of control”. Well you can see where she is on that one, bringing down hard working lowly paid workers.
   Bouras asks her what she thinks child care should look like?
   “I’m not going to announce policy on the run”
   That is Hanson is happy to bully and denounce but has no ideas what she will do.
   She says “dig baby dig”. Ugh.
   https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2611C021S00

9. Ian Joyner,

   I don’t know about you but I have a feeling of deja vu.

   Anyway, this post is better placed on a factcheck thread this time around.

   You say: “She brings up examples like 35% of people say they survive on one meal a day (maybe that is a dietary choice) and 35% send their children to school hungry. But why is that? Maybe they just did not bother to give them breakfast, or less than 3 Weetbix is counted as hungry. She cherry picks examples.

   Still channeling some inner Tony Abbott, are we?

   Since when is it ok to describe poverty as some kind of life choice?

   There are nearly 4 million Australians living in poverty. Poverty for many Australians has been life under Labor; you might not like to acknowledge that fact, but it is reality for many Australians.

   Oh, they might just be dietary choices, right? just hoarding the Weetbix, right?

   One in three Australian households faced food insecurity; households, not individuals, households (Foodbank Hunger Report 2025). That might be an inconvenient reality to face for those living in some Labor ivory tower, still looking for some light shining on a hill from Labor, but that is the reality for many Australians.

   To dismiss that as some kind of life choice, raises the question of just how much difference is there now between Labor and their duopoly mate the Coalition?

   While we’re on it, you say: “But Australia gives it away, just to make contracts with multi-nationals. John Howard did that with our gas.”

   Nothing to do with Labor, right?

   As much as I believe John Howard becoming PM was the worst thing to happen to Australia, let’s sheet responsibility for giving our gas away for free where it belongs.

   According to Hartpartners:

   “Here’s the kicker: companies like Chevron have exported billions of dollars’ worth of gas from mega-projects like Gorgon and Wheatstone — and those projects haven’t paid a cent in royalties. Why? Because they’re located in offshore Commonwealth waters, where no royalties apply. Instead, they fall under a separate system called the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — a profits-based tax that only kicks in after a project has recovered all its costs (plus generous uplift rates).The result? No PRRT payments have been made yet, despite exports beginning back in 2016. Chevron says PRRT payments may finally begin in 2025.

   Yes, the company does pay some royalties — but only on legacy assets like Barrow Island oil and its 1/6 interest in the North West Shelf venture. Not on the multibillion-dollar LNG exports that dominate the gas economy.

   Meanwhile, Australians:

   Pay high income taxes.
   Face rising cost-of-living pressures.
   Get no dividend, no public wealth fund, no meaningful return on our natural resources
   And what’s worse — this system was put in place back in 1988, and no government — Labor or Liberal — has had the courage to fix it.” (my emphasis)

   https://hartpartners.com.au/australias-gas-giveaway-how-did-we-let-this-happen/

   If Hart are right, that would be Bob Hawke who put this system in place, not little Johnny. Furthermore, John Howard’s contract for Australian gas with China was for an expected $20-23 billion （not a great contract, but in the order of $20 billion better than Labor have done.)

   Now, I could be wrong and maybe this all belongs in John Howard’s corner, I’d be only too happy to be proven wrong; citations provided please.

10. My take on PHONey’s Pawlein’s NPC diatribe.

    The 51% ”Migrant” Comparison.
    Currently in Armidale NSW we have over 50 nationalities in our community because we also have the University of New England supporting the town economy.

    Historically, the Americans decided in discussions about 1943 to re-build Europe post-WWII without the ”surplus” European population that should be exported to anywhere, including Australia, then having a national population of about 6 million.

    The immigrants came from war-torn Europe, thankful for safe & secure location to raise families, work & prosper. Australia changed from the weekly leg of lamb + three veg diets to multicultural culinary delights available nearly everywhere. No problem!!

    Late Term Abortion Claims.
    A spurious throw-away allegation unsupported by any facts.

    A woman has the sole & exclusive right to control her own reproductive health because it is simply NOT MEN’S BUSINESS!!

    Indigenous Affairs Expenditure.
    Obviously not enough government expenditure on Aboriginal health and housing services is occurring because the problems remain unchanged between feral Budgets, especially in the NT.

    Doubtless there are better alternatives to the present system, but lack of imagination and an unwillingness to act in the best interests of First Nations people remains a racist stain on Canberra and state government politics.

    Language Barriers & Social Cohesion.
    One of my teenage Australian-born mates had immigrant European parents. His father spoke seven European languages, his mother spoke six. He was a budding genius and spoke all of them. Funny, he was dux across his school career on scholarship then attend Law School to finally become a NSW Supreme Court judge.

    Education research shows that bi-lingual and multi-lingual kids are a little slow in picking up new ideas in primary school English language, but come senior high school and they thrive academically, achieving excellent HSC results and university matriculation.

    Public Broadcaster Axing & Policy Realities
    Pawlein is squawking the mantra of the late Sir Keith Murdoch, sire to Rupert et al, who was a staunch objector to the foundation of the ABC in 1932 because it competed with public funding against his newspaper, The Adelaide Advertiser, that required advertising & readership sales to operate. Young Rupert, always desperate for his late father’s encouragement, has continued this policy into the future.

    Successive governments, for fear of poor & too often misleading editorials from the Murdochcracy Media Manipulation Monopoly, have allowed ”OUR ABC” and now also the SBS to be downgraded by deliberate financial under-funding and more recently by infiltration of all levels of the staff ranks, senior administrators and mediocre scribblers loyal to the Murdochracy.

    Now what is the present status of the non-refundable application fee for aspiring PHONey pre-selection candidates?? Is there a $20,000 fee as reported elsewhere??

11. Hanson’s One Notion:

    A financial rort on taxpayers since her earliest days when she was advised by the violent divisive FRWNJ John Pasquarelli an Oz booted from PNG. Later she formed the party with political opportunists Oldfield & Ettridge, who Hanson (amongst electoral fraud affairs) soon stitched up & booted from the party. Since then the rorts have been devised principally by James Ashby and now also Sean Bell. Opportunist Mark Latham saw a slot, but couldn’t manage himself, and now the beleaguered Beetrooter has smelled a chance at financial revitalization.

    She has a stranglehold on One Notion (for the time being with the vultures circling). That stranglehold being achieved by her control of the party ‘commercially’ by means of various contractual instruments obliging member/candidates to party funding & her edicts.

    It is notable that throughout Hanson’s political history, and of One Notion, there has been embroilment with shady outliers and suspect commercial, political & electoral practices. Not least with the right-wing and far-right-wing elements of the Liberal & National parties who have variously worked in two-way leverages.

    Of course, all this is irresistable to Hanson’s latest puppet-master benefactor, avowed FRWNJ bigoted, white supremacist Trumpist oligarch, WaGina. As sure as night follows day, the ‘Advance’ guard will follow on with their attendant ‘think tanks’. Their objectives of course, to bolster themselves and the already wealthy & harvest the prols into under-serviced and lowest paid servitude.

    It may be too late to take rearguard action correcting the complacency & taking for granted, by other parties, Labor and The Greens in particular, and also the generic ‘Teals’ who have neglected the Murdochracy, transparency, bureaucratic skullduggery, opaque lobbying & donations and political immunity. They could well be in for a big surprise. The self-inflicted nose-dive crash of the LNP ought have been a salutary lesson.

    Who would know,though. In these reactive, labile times, the fickle wheels of politics and rebellion can make a u-turn in an instant. And the Oz voter animal just loves to scurrilously mislead the sticky-beak pollsters.