For Australians who lived through decades of relatively civil politics, many of us watch with dismay as respectful debate gives way to personal attacks and tribal shouting matches. Pauline Hanson and her One Nation supporters have played a significant role in this shift, particularly on social media. This article examines how her style empowers the nastier side of our politics.
Pauline Hanson, leader of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, has been a prominent and polarising figure in Australian public life since her 1996 maiden speech, which warned against Asian immigration and multiculturalism. Nearly three decades later, she continues to position herself as the plain-speaking champion of “ordinary Australians” against political elites, “woke” culture, and rapid social change. While her direct approach clearly resonates with many disillusioned voters – especially amid cost-of-living pressures and high migration – I feel it has contributed to a coarsening of our national conversation.
Hanson’s political appeal rests on framing complex issues as battles between everyday citizens and out-of-touch elites. She speaks in blunt, unfiltered terms that bypass traditional parliamentary decorum. From her infamous 2017 Senate burqa stunt to repeated inflammatory remarks about Muslims, immigration, and Indigenous affairs, her interventions often prioritise spectacle and provocation over detailed policy discussion. Supporters admire this as authenticity; others – myself included – see it as normalising division and resentment.
This approach has found a powerful home on social media. Hanson and One Nation have mastered platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to reach followers directly, bypassing what they call “biased” mainstream media. The result is a highly engaged base – but one frequently observed engaging in attack rather than debate. Online discussions involving Hanson or One Nation often descend into personal accusations of treason, elitism, or betrayal. Critics are dismissed as “traitors” or “globalists,” while nuance is sidelined in favour of tribal loyalty.
Such behaviour is not unique to Hanson’s supporters – left-leaning spaces have their own examples of intolerance and pile-ons – yet the intensity and persistence of this pattern around One Nation stands out in many analyses of Australian online discourse. It reflects a broader shift: politics as cultural warfare rather than the mature, evidence-based deliberation many of us remember from earlier eras of Australian governance.
When elected representatives model combative styles, it can spill beyond parliament. Reports and commentary frequently link populist rhetoric to heightened tensions, including threats against minority communities and a general erosion of social trust. For those who value Australia’s multicultural success story – built painstakingly since the post-war years – this feels like a step backwards. Senate censure motions against Hanson have highlighted concerns about the potential harm to targeted groups and the dignity of public office.
Social media algorithms, which reward outrage and emotional content, amplify these dynamics. What begins as a policy disagreement quickly becomes a moral crusade, with supporters piling on rather than engaging ideas. The outcome is less light, more heat – and a democracy where genuine debate struggles to survive.
A Call to Reflect
As we navigate ongoing challenges around migration, housing, and economic security, it is understandable that frustration builds. However, channelling that frustration into sustained personal attacks and grievance narratives risks undermining the very institutions and social cohesion that have served Australia well. Mature democracies thrive on respectful disagreement, compromise, and shared respect for democratic norms – qualities that many of us remember fondly from earlier decades.
Pauline Hanson’s enduring presence shows that these frustrations are real and cannot be wished away. The question for all of us is whether we respond by deepening division or by insisting on higher standards of public discourse.
Also by Michael Taylor
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I was born in 1946, at the end of WW2. The world realised that money and greed had caused that war and all the deaths, injuries and violence. We had Curtin, Forde & Chifley leading the governments that got us through that incredible mess and the period immediately after. People were more important than money and greed to those governments. Although the countries most affected in Europe have stayed in a “look after the people” mode, the ones not taken over by the Axis powers have allowed greed and money to bring back the inhumanity that was the cause. Now we have neo-nazi style people standing for our parliaments and history is repeating itself. Abbott now wants the LNP to join with PHON. Australia’s democracy will be destroyed when these people get into power (not if but when) as will the UK when Farage’s group gets in. They already have power in the USA. Trump does not run the USA, the billionaires do. Their method is simple, set one group against another, create division and disharmony; then offer the solution to the mess they created. It is what the Nazi’s did and it has worked for centuries. I am happy that I turn 80 this year because I probably will not be around to see it happen again.
Baby Boomers lived during the development of Australia into a community centred economy where kids left school after lunch and had a local factory job next morning. The government focused on ”national development” of major infrastructure projects, like the Snowy Scheme, Warragamba Dam, industrial output. The unions looked after workers and the bosses grudgingly paid the wage rises. There was a stable COALition government still riding on the sheep’s back to the delight and decadence of the graziers. Then it all changed!!
The Australian COALition misgovernment invited us to the US v Vietnam imperialist war, and divided the nation into thinking Aussies and wannabe imperialist war-mongers tethered to the American war machine of imperialist dominance and capitalist destruction.
The democratically elected Whitlam LABOR government was dismissed by a drunk assisted by two High Court judges a CIA Special Operative plus Buck Palace staff and unofficial royal assent, the Murdochracy Media Manipulation Monopoly quietly grew with the assistance of US banking for political favours done, and international investment accompanied by political interference separated Australian voters from their natural resources.
Roll on history and the workers got stripped of union protections, neo-liberals got control of government and the ever rapacious bosses got even greedier, then political incompetence was installed for nine (9) wasted years.
Overall, since 1945 we have seen Australia become a third world export economy thanks to the unwillingness of politicians to grasp the nettle and develop our own natural resources, especially minerals. Australia is a rich country that sees the profits made overseas from jobs processing and manufacturing OUR NATURAL RESOURCES into products we purchase back at enormous expense.
The cause is squarely placed at the feet of the bosses, too unimaginative to dream, too lazy to try, to distracted to care beyond tomorrow ….. just follow the cultural cringe and forget about future possibilities. When have Australians ever done anything significant??? (Don’t get me started!!)
Today Pauline Hanon will address the National Press Club and present us with her vision for Australia and her policies and those of Gina Rinehart to achieve this vision.
Whilst it will be a challenge for Pauline to cobble together words into sentences it will be an even greater challenge for the assembled journalists to formulate probing questions to test the authenticity of One Nation and the grifters who support this ideology of ‘show me the money’.
I can’t wait!
@ Terry Mills: You are very wicked!! I have fond memories of the former Senator Bronwyn Bishop (yes!! another earlier ”bishop” to keep the COALition honest!!) who was promoted as the Australian Maggie Thatcher until ….. the Australian Press Club lunch when she was to give her speech to inspire Australia to stride into the future by enslaving anybody who was not a paid up member of the LIARBRAL$.
She flopped!! Like a ham sandwich at a Jewish picnic!!
Her other ”great achievement” was flying in helicopters to LIARBRAL$ party meetings ….. at Parliamentary expense.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/bronwyn-bishop-spends-5000-dollars-80km-charter-flight/6622134
This afternoon is a ”must not miss moment”!!
Much of this NPC “address” will revolve around what the MSM hacks and propagandists have been instructed to ask.One thing is certain…it will be a farce.Not hard to imagine she’ll storm off in a huff,throwing her prepared notes in the air.
There are some waiting keenly for P Hanson to emerge at the National Press Club, rather like awaiting the end of mischievous constipation.., and she should show up, unlike senate sittings. What can she say? Not a worker, thinker, lifter, barely functional vocally or with appended thought, Hanson is a political disease, not any cure. But when constipated, vote for shit. Australia is sub-D Horne now, disappointing.
Yet to be given the final mark but based on what the papers are saying, a fail; the long-standing prejudices and denials and ignorances and hostilities all trotted out for consideration. A bit like MAGA, the happy-with-little-or-nothing crowd will support her for no other reason than she’s not mainstream, whilst the rest will avoid her like the rabid broom-jockey that she is beneath the fire branded coiffure and querulous way of engagement.
PP, a mate of mine did her PhD at the UNSW under the guidance & mentorship of Donald Horne; she said it was the privilege of a lifetime to have known and learned from him.
A LESSON IN BALD-FACED DUPLICITY AND SELF-DECEPTION FROM POURLEAN HANDJOB
One Nation won’t be dragged down by bad candidates: Hanson
By Michelle Griffin SMH 170626
Hanson says she is determined to screen out troublemakers from One Nation branches this time around, after flagging to this masthead two weeks ago on a podcast that she was shutting down branches because she was worried about extremists.
“We’ve had a lot of enthusiastic people that have come on board to join One Nation; we’ve restricted these people until we know who they are.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson addresses the National Press Club in Canberra.AAP
“Are they the right people in these positions? Because I know the majority of you are going to go out there and try and hound me or criticise me for anyone who’s associated with this party or is a member.
“You’ve already done it. I know what you’re up to, and that’s why I have to be in total control of it, and I’m not going to allow you to drag me down through some member of a branch.”
Uhm …..as a too long suffering voter in New England where Beetrooter Joyce represented himself before the NOtionals then decamped to the PHONeys, this Hansen statement is deliberate deception and shows the depths that Hansen will go to deceiving the Australian electorate.
It is a matter of public knowledge that:
1) Beetrooter committed adultery with a staff member who became pregnant to him despite his denials, resulting in this marriage dissolving and him marrying his ”bit of fluff” to sire two sons.
2)Beetrooter was investigated by the NOtional$ party for allegations of sexual harassment from a credible party lady official, the results conveniently claiming that there was no case to answer.
3) Beetrooter is a practicing alcoholic whoSE most famous escapade while drunk was sleeping with a planter box on a Canberra suburban street.
4) Beetrooter wrongly and allegedly knowingly claimed the return air fare from the Asani (?) wedding in India as a Parliamentary expense after he travelled to that wedding in Auntie Gina’s jet.
5) Pourlean was so enthusiastic about attracting Beetrooter as a PHONey member that she entertained him to lunch cooked on a sandwich press.
A sceptical political observer could reasonably conclude that the PHONey vetting process for candidates has as many holes as a Swiss cheese. By any measure the last 13 years during which Beetrooter represented the NOtional$ in New England have been truly wasted by his lack of any efforts on behalf of the voters.
well, we know what Pauline doesn’t like and it starts with migrants particularly of a Muslim background and she doesn’t like people who don’t speak ‘strine at home and she’s a bit suspicious of people who formulate coherent sentences and use words of more than one syllable.
She doesn’t like the ABC (it goes subscription under her except in country areas) and SBS is gone altogether and she hates The Guardian and she certainly doesn’t like trans-women [blokes in frocks] and she won’t have a bar of climate change.
As Cocky noted, she has no problem with nepotism as One Nation has employed her Tasmanian-based daughter as a senior adviser to a New South Wales senator, in a taxpayer-funded role worth as much as $180,000 a year.
Ms Hanson’s daughter, Lee is busily providing ‘advice’ to One Nation NSW Senator Sean Bell from her home in Hobart whilst she also hustles for a seat in either the Tasmanian or national parliament on behalf of One Nation – that sounds like a rort to me.
The one thing that came through loud and clear from Pauline was that One Nation is a money machine interested in making a few insiders wealthy and whilst she talks a lot about the battlers (everybody is on the battler’s side aren’t they?) she has no solutions for putting more money in their pockets, indeed she votes against increases in minimum pay and tax cuts.
Pauline, after thirty years on the gravy train you are just another politician who only turns up for 12% of Senate Estimates hearings which are fundamental to effective work of the senate.
She didn’t spend time on what she likes but we can depend on that including her good mate Gina and Newscorp and SKY.
The trouble with PHON politicians is that they read what they want to read, say what they want to say and see what they want to see rather than listening and rationally interpreting what they hear and see in their electorates. That is what an ethical politician should do. They are there to represent the will of their electorate including those who didn’t vote for them rather than going to Canberra solely to spout their personal opinions. Well I guess that is why Beetrooter fits the PHON eligibility requirements…..and as for the return of Tony Rabbott, ’nuff said!!
@ Harry Lime: Post the NPC performance, it has been revealed that any journalist thought likely to ask ”difficult” questions were ”uninvited” to protect the ego of the biggest PHONey of them all …..
Cocky, worked a treat, didn’t it?The more people see of this ugly thing, the more they will be turned off.Excepting, of course, those who have permanently lost the ability to think.She is no more than the current useful tool of Fugly Rinehart.