The Art of Being Nasty, Part 2: Pauline Hanson

Pauline Hanson: Australia’s answer to Trump

Across the Pacific, Pauline Hanson has spent much of her political career working from a remarkably similar script.

Hanson’s political rise began in 1996, when she warned Parliament that Australia was in danger of being “swamped by Asians.”

It was a declaration that helped define her political identity.

Where others saw multiculturalism, Hanson saw a threat. Where others saw migrants building new lives, she saw people supposedly unwilling to assimilate.

Over the following three decades, the targets changed, but the method remained remarkably consistent.

Asian migrants. Muslims. First Nations Australians. Political opponents. Anyone whose identity, beliefs or circumstances could be transformed into a political grievance.

In 2017, Hanson entered the Senate wearing a burqa as part of her campaign to ban the garment.

The stunt attracted enormous publicity.

It also reduced a serious debate about religious freedom, security and personal choice to a theatrical exercise designed to provoke outrage.

For Hanson, outrage has rarely been an unfortunate consequence of political communication.

It has frequently been the point.

Consider her treatment of Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi.

In 2022, after Faruqi criticised the British monarchy following Queen Elizabeth II’s death, Hanson told the Pakistan-born senator to pack her bags and return to Pakistan, using considerably more offensive language.

In November 2024, the Federal Court found that Hanson’s remarks constituted unlawful racial discrimination.

Hanson appealed.

In July 2026, she lost that appeal.

This was not merely an accusation from political opponents that Hanson had crossed a line.

It was a finding by the courts.

And still, the political career continued.

When a person’s suffering becomes the punchline

Perhaps the most revealing recent example of Hanson’s politics of humiliation came in October 2026.

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie had spoken publicly about a deeply personal medical condition involving vaginal and bladder prolapse.

Lambie, an army veteran, had undergone surgery and required an extended absence from Parliament. Her decision to discuss the condition was intended to raise awareness and support other women facing similar medical problems.

It was an act of considerable personal courage.

One Nation’s Please Explain cartoon series turned it into a joke.

The cartoon mocked Lambie’s condition, complete with crude sound effects.

When criticised, Hanson initially told Lambie to “get over it” and lighten up.

Only after widespread condemnation did Hanson apologise and request changes to the video, saying she had not seen the offending content before its release.

There is something especially unpleasant about this episode.

A woman speaks openly about a medical condition that many sufferers find embarrassing or distressing, hoping to encourage others to seek treatment.

And a political organisation turns her suffering into entertainment.

That is not clever satire.

It is cruelty masquerading as humour.

Satire traditionally punches upwards, exposing hypocrisy, arrogance and the abuse of power.

Mocking someone’s medical condition achieves none of those things.

It simply demonstrates how easily another person’s suffering can be exploited for political amusement.

Even the dead are not safe

In September 2026, Hanson attracted further condemnation after comments resurfaced about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his late mother, Maryanne.

Albanese grew up in public housing, raised by a single mother who suffered severe rheumatoid arthritis and relied on a disability pension.

Rather than confining her criticism to Albanese’s political performance, Hanson questioned his mother’s long residence in public housing.

Albanese responded emotionally, defending his mother’s character and the circumstances in which she raised him.

His response included a simple observation:

“Kindness isn’t weakness.”

It was a sentence that exposed something fundamental about the politics of personal cruelty.

Hanson could have attacked Albanese’s housing policies, economic management or political decisions.

There was no shortage of legitimate political subjects.

Instead, the argument reached backwards into the life of a woman who was no longer alive to defend herself.

Hanson subsequently offered a qualified apology while disputing that her remarks had been derogatory.

The episode demonstrated how readily political hostility can spill beyond an elected opponent and into the lives of people who never sought public office.

Australia’s First Peoples: A familiar target

Hanson’s remarks about First Nations Australians are especially revealing.

In comments that resurfaced in September 2026, she described Indigenous Australians as “the most primitive race on Earth”, invoking claims about technological development and supposed historical achievements.

The remarks displayed a profoundly distorted understanding of Aboriginal history.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal peoples developed sophisticated systems of land management, ecological knowledge, navigation, trade, social organisation, law and cultural transmission.

The absence of a particular European technological invention is not evidence of intellectual or cultural inferiority.

It is evidence that different societies developed different technologies in response to different environments and needs.

Hanson’s argument effectively treated European industrial development as the universal measure of human achievement.

That is not serious historical analysis.

It is an old colonial prejudice dressed up as common sense.

Hanson later expressed regret over her use of the word “primitive”, while defending the broader concerns she said she was trying to raise.

But replacing one word does not necessarily remove the assumptions underlying an argument.

Her claims about alleged cannibalism among Aboriginal communities deserve similar scrutiny. Historical allegations of that kind cannot responsibly be generalised to entire peoples without rigorous evidence and context.

Yet such claims are politically useful because they encourage audiences to see a community through its most degrading possible portrayal.

Once again, the common thread is contempt.

The cartoon, the traitor and the consequences of political hostility

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie also found himself targeted by One Nation’s cartoon series, which repeatedly described him as a “traitor”.

Hastie condemned the portrayal and demanded its removal.

Political satire is entitled to criticise parliamentarians, including harshly. But describing political opponents as traitors carries a particularly ugly implication: that disagreement is not merely mistaken, but a betrayal of the nation itself.

And that brings us to the attack on independent MP Helen Haines.

In October 2026, Haines was critically injured in a deliberate vehicle attack in Wangaratta, suffering catastrophic injuries, including the loss of both legs.

The attack shocked Australians across the political spectrum.

It also raised urgent questions about the increasingly hostile environment in which public representatives are expected to work.

There is no basis for attributing the attack to Hanson, One Nation or their political rhetoric without evidence.

But there is every reason to question a political culture in which dehumanisation, ridicule and the language of betrayal are increasingly normalised.

Politicians cannot be held responsible for every action of every person who hears their words.

They can, however, be held responsible for the standards of public conduct they choose to promote.

Two countries, one political method

Trump and Hanson have different histories, different constituencies and different degrees of power.

But their political methods have striking similarities.

Both portray themselves as victims of hostile establishments while wielding considerable influence of their own.

Both present offensiveness as proof of authenticity.

Both frequently respond to criticism by accusing others of excessive sensitivity.

Both have targeted minorities and migrants in ways that encourage resentment rather than understanding.

And both understand that outrage generates attention.

Their supporters may see these performances as evidence of courage: finally, politicians willing to say what others supposedly dare not say.

But courage and cruelty are not interchangeable.

There is nothing especially brave about mocking a disabled journalist.

Nothing heroic about belittling a prisoner of war.

Nothing admirable about ridiculing a woman’s medical condition.

Nothing courageous about attacking a deceased mother or describing an entire people as primitive.

These are not examples of political fearlessness.

They are examples of people with public platforms choosing humiliation over decency.

And perhaps the most troubling aspect is that such behaviour can become politically profitable.

The insult attracts attention. The outrage produces headlines. The headlines generate publicity. The publicity reinforces the politician’s image as someone willing to confront the establishment.

The cycle repeats.

What would once have been considered disqualifying behaviour becomes part of the political brand.

The real danger isn’t simply nastiness

It would be easy to conclude that Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson are simply two unusually unpleasant personalities who have somehow found their way into politics.

But that explanation is insufficient.

Their success tells us something about the societies that reward them.

Democracy requires disagreement. It requires robust debate, scrutiny of power and the freedom to challenge accepted ideas.

It does not require the public humiliation of people because of their disabilities, ethnicity, religion, medical conditions or family circumstances.

Nor does it require political leaders to demonstrate their toughness by making other people feel small.

The question is not whether Trump and Hanson have a right to express controversial opinions.

They do, subject to the laws of their respective countries.

The question is why so many people have come to regard deliberate offensiveness as an admirable political quality.

Why is compassion so readily dismissed as weakness?

Why is basic decency treated as political correctness?

And why do some voters applaud conduct they would never tolerate from a teacher, doctor, employer or neighbour?

There is a difference between telling uncomfortable truths and making people uncomfortable for the pleasure of doing so.

Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson have repeatedly demonstrated how politically rewarding that distinction can become when it is deliberately blurred.

Perhaps they are the nastiest politicians in their respective countries. That is ultimately a matter of opinion.

But their records provide ample grounds for making the case.

And if we continue rewarding politicians for their capacity to humiliate others, we should not be surprised when humiliation becomes an increasingly familiar feature of public life.

A society does not become stronger by making cruelty respectable.

It simply becomes crueller.