Considering where her party stands today, the statement is fair: One Nation is not fit to govern Australia. Picture Pauline Hanson as Australia’s Prime Minister. Can you see her at the United Nations, holding court among world leaders? I can’t. The image flickers in my mind, but I can’t bear to look at it for more than a heartbeat.
Hanson has consistently demonstrated a lack of diplomatic tact, frequently resorting to inflammatory rhetoric and divisive language. Her history of controversial statements about immigrants and minority groups shows a disregard for inclusiveness, something vital for national leadership. She has little experience in complex negotiations or international affairs, and her confrontational style would undermine Australia’s reputation on the world stage. These qualities make her unsuitable for a role that demands vision, empathy and credibility.
When Labor won the last election (in a crushing defeat of the LNP), Albanese announced his cabinet, naming a formidable group of mainly experienced parliamentarians to fill the allotted portfolios:
- Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister
- Richard Marles – deputy prime minister, minister for defence
- Penny Wong – minister for foreign affairs
- Jim Chalmers – treasurer
- Katy Gallagher – minister for finance, minister for the public service, minister for women, minister for government services
- Don Farrell – minister for trade and tourism, special minister of state
- Tony Burke – minister for home affairs, minister for immigration and citizenship, minister for cybersecurity, minister for the arts
- Mark Butler – minister for health and ageing, minister for disability and the national disability insurance scheme
- Chris Bowen – minister for climate change and energy
- Catherine King – Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and Local GovernmentAmanda Rishworth – minister for employment and workplace relations.
- Jason Clare – minister for education
- Michelle Rowland – attorney general
- Tanya Plibersek – minister for social services.
- Julie Collins – minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry
- Clare O’Neil – Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, and Minister for Cities
- Madeleine King – minister for resources, minister for northern Australia
- Murray Watt – minister for the environment and water
- Malarndirri McCarthy – Minister for Indigenous Australians
- Anika Wells – minister for communications, minister for sport
- Pat Conroy – minister for defence industry, minister for Pacific Island affairsAnne Aly – minister for small business, minister for international development, minister for multicultural affairs
- Tim Ayres – minister for industry and innovation, minister for science.
Most observers of Australian politics would agree: Labor’s victory was so sweeping that one would need to look back to the 1940s to find a comparable result. This decisive win not only underscored Labor’s dominance in the current political landscape but also led journalists to predict that the party could govern for another term or possibly longer, reinforcing the argument that the main right-wing alternatives lacked both public support and the capacity to lead Australia.
But then, the things that really mattered started to unravel. The cost of living crept higher. Across the ocean, the so-called leader of the free world gambled on another war to boost his odds in the December midterms. Netanyahu promised it would be a walkover. The people, he claimed, were eager for change. Suddenly, global instability was pressing in from all sides. Conflict in the Middle East sent shockwaves through markets, rattling economies everywhere. Australia was not immune: rising fuel and grocery prices, international uncertainty and a new sense of insecurity at home began to reshape the political conversation. The impact of these international events was felt in the daily lives of Australians and started to influence both public sentiment and party strategies in Canberra.
Suddenly, Labor’s luck soured. Polls began to shift, hinting that One Nation might actually become the next opposition. The Liberals and Nationals scoffed, calling it impossible, but some polls painted One Nation as the nation’s new favourite.
I felt personally affronted at the thought. Labor, in my eyes, was steering the ship bravely through rough seas and showing real courage with the reforms in the 26-27 Budget.
My mind wandered to the wild idea of One Nation actually winning. They would require credible candidates for every seat as well as enough electoral success to form a viable ministry, a challenging prospect given the composition of their current team. Examining One Nation’s front bench reveals significant concerns regarding policy expertise and leadership capability. Malcolm Roberts is known for his persistent rejection of climate science.
Collectively, these figures lack mainstream appeal, with many expressing controversial positions that risk marginalising broad segments of the Australian electorate. This composition raises important questions about the party’s capacity for governance and the broader appeal and recruitment strategies of the political right.
Then I remembered some words that I had saved from Nick Feik. This is what he wrote that so incredibly matched my own thoughts:
“Wait til Australia’s right-wing finds some real charismatic talent. Then there’ll be no stopping them.
Was it Australia’s fundamental decency that rejected the right? Or was it simply that they didn’t put up a good enough candidate?
Call it what it was: a collapse of the right. Labor may well claim the recent election is an endorsement of its track record and future plans, but the more significant point is arguably that the public comprehensively rejected its incompetent right-wing opponents.
Let this sink in!!
The Liberal Party won its lowest primary vote and its fewest seats in the House of Representatives since its formation in the 1940s.
Federally, the Liberals have been more or less expelled from our major capital cities and out of Tasmania entirely, and the Coalition as a whole is now dominated by the right-wing rural Queensland LNP. Nationwide Nationals MPs representing rural and regional seats and QLD LNP MPs far outnumber inner city Liberals.
Elsewhere on the right, Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots was more like a sad trombone, One Nation failed to win a single lower house seat and remains stuck in mid-single-digits, while Advance Australia’s anti-Greens and anti Teal independents campaign might have had a small impact in the lower house, where it really mattered – in the Senate – its efforts bombed: the Greens will hold the balance of power.
The other right-wingers crashed too: Christian fundamentalist Family First, Gerard Rennick’s People First, the loony Libertarian Party and Shooters,Fishers and Farmers all failed to trouble the scorer. Apart from the Coalition, it appears no right-wing parties have won Senate seats this election (although Pauline Hanson and UAP’s Ralph Babet will remain in the Senate after winning six-year terms in 2022).
George Megalogenis has also convincingly argued that inner-city demographics (for example, growing numbers of socially progressive younger voters and renters) have worked against the Coalition’s efforts to regain city seats.
But there’s another reason why the right has failed again in Australia: it continues to put up candidates that are fundamentally and unequivocally unsuitable to serve in the Parliament. For example, looking at the Coalition’s 2022 frontbench, only seven of 30 shadow ministers were women, and almost all were from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds – a striking lack of diversity in a country where nearly 50 per cent of the population was born overseas or has at least one parent born overseas. A parliamentary study from 2022 found that just 6 per cent of Liberal MPs identified as having non-European heritage.
Qualifications often fare little better: numerous high-profile right-wing MPs have backgrounds limited to party staffer work, legal practice, or business interests, rather than public service, science, education, health, or community activism. Whether it’s a lack of relevant educational qualifications, suitable work experience, life experience(s) or EQ to serve in the House or Senate, Liberal candidates are selected from a very small pool of elite white men that no longer reflects the Australian community or its standards and beliefs.
It should have been obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that Dutton was a very poor candidate for leader. He had no policies and ran a terrible campaign, but just as importantly, he demonstrated absolutely zero effort in attracting women, non-white or younger voters. He dragged a historically economically liberal party further towards the hard right. Even then, Dutton was the best the Liberals thought they could offer Australia. Just shows how out of touch they are.
Clive Palmer failed badly in 2022, and the only lesson he learned for 2025 was how best to blow millions of dollars again. Representing the party with the stupidest name imaginable, his presence was a reminder only that Australian political donations and advertising laws need reforming. No ideas, no coherence, no seriousness at all.”
Continued tomorrow…
Also by John Lord
Avoiding Another Robodebt Scenario
When do unjust laws demand resistance?
For a decade the Liberals have struggled to define Australian values
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Pauline Parrot-Skull is unfit for much, certainly anything requiring thinking. A whingeing primitive sulkerpointerdobber, she can’t cop elementary criticism based on observation of her uselessness and vanity and new found lookatmelookatme glory. This tart is a notsosmart political fart.
Hanson is about as fit to run this country as a fish is to play a violin! She is unable to handle media that ask her tough questions, and she has this idiotic notion that Australia should leave the UN. That would mean goodbye disabled rights, goodbye equality and more! Her rant on Wednesday should have been labeled “51 Minutes of Shit.”
I have to disagree John. Referring to Anthony Albanese and ‘..a role that demands vision, empathy and credibility” in anywhere near the same vicinity is a contradiction in terms.
Albanese’s cabinet the formidable bunch? ……..Nah, aint buying that unless it comes in a Clark and Dawes format.
I mean, Richard Marles, we’re starting off with Richard Marles – deputy prime minister, minister for defence – how is it possible to take anyone who gives Pete Hegseth lovestruck teenager looks seriously? Come on, this is a guy who says bluntly there were no Australian sailors on that sub, and then, in a matter of mere hours later and with a straight face, contradicts that (was he the one who parroted the US line that they were all sent to bed?) Wise move to include ‘deputy Prime minister’, saves getting a blunt reminder from Richard.
Penny Wong – minister for foreign affairs – until the day that gaslighting becomes a national sport, she will be regarded as the worst foreign minister in living history; Paul Keating had her pegged right from the very beginning.
Jim Chalmers – treasurer – apparently, couldn’t even sell his own budget on ‘insiders’
Katy Gallagher – minister for finance, minister for the public service, minister for women, minister for government services – have you watched her in Senate estimates? much to my chagrin, the Coalition supporters on MSN had her pegged correctly even before the ’22 election, she did use Britney Higgins in a blatent political attack on Linda Reynolds.
Don Farrell – minister for trade and tourism, special minister of state – this is the guy who was trying to sell rigging the elections to the public when Zali Steggall dropped the bucket on him by saying ‘tell ’em about nominated entities’ or the like.
Tony Burke – minister for home affairs, minister for immigration and citizenship, minister for cybersecurity, minister for the arts – oh, yeah, he had nothing to do with the pro-Palestinian artist getting cancelled; this is the guy that owns loads of investment houses and sat on Q&A spinning a tear-jerking story of renters queued for blocks with no hope, after he’d been a part of the governments responsible for that predicament.
Mark Butler – minister for health and ageing, minister for disability and the national disability insurance scheme – the Butcher of NDIS
Chris Bowen – minister for climate change and energy – the guy who got caught out on a gas reserve being possible when Peter Dutton campaigned on having one.
Catherine King – Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and Local Government – how many Labor supporters could honestly put a face to that name without mixing her up with Madeleine King? What has she done other than pour cold water on the fast train project?
Amanda Rishworth – minister for employment and workplace relations – introduced some small changes early on, and hasn’t been seen since.
Jason Clare – minister for education – has cemented inequitable funding of schools for a decade, goodonya Jason Don’t Mention Universities Clare
Michelle Rowland – attorney general – Sportsbet, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.
Tanya Plibersek – minister for social services – now wants to make certain laws retrospective so that she can chase the unemployed for money; had a deal for an EPA, until she didn’t – great work.
Julie Collins – minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry – how many people would actually know she is a minister? just what of note has she done?
Clare O’Neil – Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, and Minister for Cities – who gets caught telling a massive porky on national tv during a debate with Michael Sukkar of all people?
Madeleine King – minister for resources, minister for northern Australia – two guesses where she will end up working after he sideline as a minister winds up
Murray Watt – minister for the environment and water – caved in completely to Woodside, wait for the national standards to come out.
Malarndirri McCarthy – Minister for Indigenous Australians – where was she when Watt approved the Woodside North West project extension?
Anika Wells – minister for communications, minister for sport – only good for waving a Matildas scarf around.
Pat Conroy – minister for defence industry, minister for Pacific Island affairs – if you’re trying to sell AUKUS to Australians, you have no credibility.
Anne Aly – minister for small business, minister for international development, minister for multicultural affairs – Anne Alley, the place where ministries go to die; was Anne ending up hidden in with Pat Conroy a typo??
Tim Ayres – minister for industry and innovation, minister for science – minister for overseeing the axing of research in Australia
Thommo, Mark Butler makes Greg Hunt look credible. He’s Australia’s answer to RFK Jnr.
I’m embarrassed to admit we barrack for the same AFL team (as does Amanda Vanstone).
Be careful Michael ….by your friends you are known ….. although in Victoria AFL is the religion of choice. But really, Greg Hunt (who??) looking credible ….. gimme a break!!
NEC, it was a bit of sarcasm. My dislike of Greg Hunt was almost an obsession. They’re gone now, but the old site contained a number of articles I wrote of his incompetence.
@ Thommo: Geez Thommo, did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning??
I agree that Retched Mediocrity is the weakest, least suited, untalented Minister in the Albanese LABOR government, but you appear to consider the genii of the COALition a major improvement??
Don’t worry, the Suppository of All Political Wisdom is planning to make a Lazarus comeback to lead Australia down the tubes into the 19th century where 80 hour/eight day working weeks are the norm for a mere $2 per hour and no benefits.
I will not honour your diatribe with a detailed analysis demonstrating your one-eyed opinions, suffice to say that the 2026-2027 feral Budget did more for Australians dreaming of owning their own home than nine (9) too many years of COALition rorting the Parliamentary Allowances System.
Anybody for an $80 MILLION EMPTY GLASS of MDB WATER compliments of the Anus Faylure Irrigation Plan?? How about an evening out with your favourite planter box, snuggling up on the streets of Canberra?? Or a lunch time opportunity to denigrate a revered past regional political leader because your ego was hurt about 30 years ago by his accurate evaluation of your political presence??
The underlying problem is that voters in regional electorates have had a gutful of being taken for granted by the NOtional$ and their lazy self-serving MPs who now represent the vested interests of their new ”political donors” the foreign owned multinational mining corporations.
Hence there are 4/8 regional electorates west of the Range represented by hard working INDEPENDENT MPs showing how to get things done for their communities. The voters are watching, seeing the difference and voting with their feet.
I look forward to the NOtional$ following the Australian Democrats into the great political Canberra WPB.
Days after declaring she could run the country, Pauline Hanson could be found personally liable for One Nation’s three-year failure to meet a basic Queensland legal obligation.
That obligation is to submit audited financial statements annually something that One Nation has not done since 2022. The financial returns lodged by One Nation with the Office of Fair Trading in Queensland covering 2016 to 2022 have been criticised by a leading expert in financial accounting as “sloppy and unprofessional”.
One Nation has failed to hold annual general meetings on time, repeatedly filed annual and financial reports late, or not filed them at all, and used an account manager to sign a director’s declaration form.
It would be the most monumental shift in voting trends EVER if PHONE managed to win 76 seats in the Reps Unless they team up with the Libs and Nats for a mega right wing coalition it’s just dreamin’
I am confused by the criticism of Labor – how long did anyone have to wait for fuel during this crisis? A week? I know it was trickier out in the bush, but seriously, the PM got straight on to friends in the Asia Pacific and kept our storage up, dropped the excise so we weren’t bleeding The budget changes to CGT shold have gone further imo, but it’s a start – something that the Coalition would never do The list of achievements over the past year is long, mlook it up and see what a responsible government does
The criticism of the Labor cabinet rather misses my point. You are critiquing individual Labor Ministers where as I am drawing a comparison with a whatever One Nation. If you consider One Nation you;d do better then please put up the names of those One Nation who would do better.who would do better
My apologies, John. I confess my guilt.
I admit that nothing can be more frustrating for an author than see his or her topic derailed because a commenter wants to take the talking points elsewhere.
Conversely, we encourage debate. It can be a fine line.
John, no you miss my point.
Labor has not only been a shit government, it has rigged the elections to disadvantage opponents, and is trying to push through legislation allowing ASIO to literally disappear people off the streets, it is embedding our defence in a genocidal rogue military, it is training secret police units to suppress dissent, and under Labor political opponents peacefully protesting were physically assaulted – Labor is a threat to Australians.
I disagree with you, I believe Labor is taking Australia to a very dark place.
You are right to call for names to be put up.
I’d put up:
Helen Haines;
Andrew Wilkie;
David Pocock;
David Shoebridge;
Barbara Pocock;
Steph Hodgins-May;
Larissa Waters;
Penny Allman-Payne;
Monique Ryan (in health);
Elizabeth Watson-Browne;
Mehreen Faruqi;
Nick Mckim;
Jordan Steele-John;
Nicolette Boelle;
Sarah Hanson-Young;
Zali Steggall;
Dai Le;
Sophie Scamp;
Kate Chaney;
Allegra Spender.
Labor ran a small target campaign in ’22 and it could be argued won by not being Morrison, in ’25 its supporters ran with if you don’t vote Labor you’ll get Dutton, in ’28 it is looking like it will be a whitewashing of Labor’s performance in government and a ‘if you don’t vote Labor you’ll get Hanson’.
Is that any basis to keep electing a bad government? Labor should be held accountable on its performance, not on some fear campaign.
Michael,
yep, I couldn’t stand Greg Hunt either – took to dropping my h’s and picking up c’s.
NEC,
really? you feel the need to try and minimize someone’s opinion as coming from someone who got out of the wrong side of the bed; goodonya.
That you say:”I will not honour your diatribe with a detailed analysis demonstrating your one-eyed opinions” comes as no surprise; you wouldn’t even ‘honour’ your own one-eyed diatribe by putting up any kind of justification/rationale when I asked you for evidence in support of your false and malicious denigration of the Greens; just gave a bullshit non-answer and then disappeared into the ether like some cow’s fart in the breeze.
You say: “…you appear to consider the genii of the COALition a major improvement??”
Oh, we’re back into McCarthyism, are we?
What does it say when someone has to resort to setting up a strawman argument through false association?
So, it would appear to you that anyone criticizing Labor is a Coalition supporter? you claim to be a former teacher, is that the level of logic that you used in your classes? Geez, heaven help us.
@ Thommo: Yep!! The wrong side of the bed this morning …..
Is there any COALition to support?? Why even Beetrooter has abandoned that sinking ship, well, he jumped before he was finally pushed.
I have no trouble with the Greens, just with their refusal to negotiate to a meaningful conclusion for the benefit of Australian voters.
MacCarthyism, isn’t that the usual strategy of all Australian FRWNJ political groups??
My career was a lot more than teaching kids how to think ….
Just in passing, and I may have this all wrong, but driving home just now, I think I heard on the ABC news that Gina Rinehart is starting to take greater interest in national affairs than just digging up the iron-ore tenements in the Pilbara that her Dad, with great foresight, took out mining leases on.
If I heard right, Gina wants to give her buddy, Elon Musk several Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland coast so that he can pursue his entrpreneurial aspirations in a more congenial atmosphere than that of Silicon Valley.
Gina, and this could be my failing hearing, doesn’t want to sell the islands to her BFF Elon because she doesn’t actually own the islands, she wants to give them to Elon presumably because he is a bit short at the moment.
I probably have it arse about, but does anybody know what precisely is going on ?
Thomson. The names you submitted are not all One Nation. This makes your comment invalid. I’m surprised the editor hasn’t called you out.
NEC,
back to spreading baseless falsehoods about the Greens that you’re not prepared to support with evidence again. Goodonya.
On the thread “Your children can’t afford a house? Who is to blame?” you made that false statement of the Greens refusing to negotiate. When I provided you with a rebuttal, including links to articles utterly refuting your statement, all you said was thanks for the informative post, then refused to engage any further.
That sly little addition of ‘to a meaningful conclusion for the benefit of Australian voters’ doesn’t change the underlying falsehood that you peddled last time, because you still insist on reversing reality by using ‘refusal’. The Greens did not refuse anything of the sort.
As for FRWNJ’s using McCarthyism, that’s just a distraction from your attitude of anyone criticizing Labor is to be branded as Coalition supporters.
Let’s see:
* needy minimization of other’s opinions;
* consistent failing to address issues with analysis;
* one-eyed beligerence;
* reliance on a strawman argument;
* use of false association to demean another’s point of view;
* filling space with shit;
* doubling down on demeaning other people;
* spreading falsehoods;
* reversing reality;
* employing sly little qualification to dress up a falsehood as fact;
* failing to support assertions with evidence/rationale;
* substituting bluster for reasoning;
* employing distractions
Someone is hardly doing himself proud, certainly not if any of his students were to see this; or is this what you meant by “doing a lot more than teaching my kids how to think ..”
Are you going to produce any evidence to back up those slurs or are you just going to continue peddling falsehoods?
“ I’m surprised the editor hasn’t called you out.”
John, how much time do you think we have on our hands?
re “Then I remembered some words that I had saved from Nick Somebody”…
The piece quoted was written by Australian political commentator and journalist Nick Feik, Crikey, May 2025.
I expect one of the big reasons Beetroot Bananbaby jumped ship is because the big green is always better on the Gina side of the fence.
Aside from those that delight us with obvious wit and sarcasm, it would appear that those who avoid the complexities by attacking with lists and hostile diatribes without coming to specifics, and alternatives, are adopting similar hostile shouty grievance blah blah of Hanson & the PHONeys.
A pity really. Hopefully its not what the Oz mindset is being drawn to.
This article contains many factual errors that I’m amazed were passed by a competent editor. There are no One Nation MPs by the names of Steve Mav or Greg Dowling. Both are failed candidates from a few years ago, and besides which, Greg Dowling was a Clive Palmer candidate, he was never One Nation. Given the landscape of failed political candidates in Australia, I’m not sure how the writer believes this qualifies them for imaginary inclusion in a sitting political party. There is no federal One Nation MP by the name of Mark Latham either, he left the party 3 years ago and in any event, is a NSW MP, not federal.
The quoted article John Lord has padded his piece out with is from Nick Feik back in 2025 and any competent person could enter a sentence from it in google and find the correct author to attribute in under 20 seconds.
This is a sub-standard, poorly researched piece of writing that reminded me why I don’t subscribe to this site, although I would dearly like to if the standards were raised. While I despise One Nation and all that it stands for, this article is amateurish and you do nobody any favours, including yourselves, by publishing it.
Clakka,
the irony in using hostile diatribe that avoids any complexities, without coming to specifics, and alternatives to attack someone else for supposedly avoiding complexities and using hostile diatribe, without coming to specifics, and alternatives, is staggering.
Was that irony lost on you, or did you know you were being hypocritical?
My apologies for my thoughts Rosewall You are correct. I don’t have any idea of your involvement .
John Rosewall, I am the culprit.
I don’t normally do the editing of articles so I’ve learnt a valuable lesson here. I will make the corrections.
As for “any competent person could enter a sentence from it in Google” … I must have been entering the wrong sentence.
John Rosewall, while we always appreciate feedback and take suggestions on board we scratch our collective heads at insults such as this:
“I don’t subscribe to this site, although I would dearly like to if the standards were raised.”
That is an insult to everyone who contributes to this site: the writers, the readers, the commenters and our admin team. I’m sorry we’re not up to your standards. For a team of unpaid volunteers everybody puts in 100%, and our growing readership suggests we’re doing something right.
Your comment suggests we’ve been sub-standard for some time. Care to elaborate?
Like I said, we welcome and appreciate feedback. Just be constructive about it, please.
Clakka,
your post attacks someone in the third person, well after anyone using lists had left this thread and moved on.
That’s backstabbing.
Were you oblivious to using a snide, hypocritical piece of backstabbing or were you aware of doing so?