Is One Nation fit to govern Australia? What would their team look like?

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, while Mark Latham’s political career has been overshadowed by numerous scandals and divisive rhetoric. Steve Mav and Greg Dowling, alongside other party members, have contributed little in the way of substantive policy or evidence of effective leadership.

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 Somebody.

I cannot remember his name, so my apologies. 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…