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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has not created a wave of public resentment so much as ridden one to record highs in the polls.
The go-to right-wing party of the Australian parliament is capitalising on global discontent about cost-of-living issues and anti-immigration sentiment. Hanson is also benefiting from hemorrhaging support for the flailing Liberal and National parties after two disastrous elections. Month after month, the Queensland senator is pulling votes from the Coalition, while doing remarkably little.
So there wasn’t much need for Hanson to stride into the Senate wearing a burqa on Thursday, recycling a stunt that drew wide condemnation the last time she performed it in 2017.
Now it’s been done – and met with fury by Muslim members of parliament – the next rounds of public polling will tell us about Australia’s appetite for Hanson’s brand of race-baiting politics at a time there are signs of fraying social support for migration and multiculturalism.
Before that, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will be required to respond. Ley has been grappling with how to counter Hanson’s rising influence. As this masthead reported last week, she’s been spooked enough to seek former prime minister John Howard’s counsel on the issue.
Thursday’s stunt opens a window. The federal opposition has an opportunity to mark its territory and draw a clear line as to its limits when it comes to political debate about immigration and what Australia looks like in 2025.
Pauline Hanson sits with her One Nation colleagues during a vote in the Senate.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
One Nation is setting up new branches across the country. It’s polling a record high 12 per cent primary vote according to this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor, 15 per cent in Newspoll, and 18 per cent according to Redbridge. These results aren’t gospel – One Nation’s polling numbers earlier this year weren’t reflected in the election result – but the trend, so far, is only going one way.
As a leader who wants to appeal to the centre, but needs to retain the support of the party’s right, Ley’s imperative is to differentiate the Liberals from Hanson despite following One Nation’s lead in getting rid of net zero and cracking down on immigration.
Until now, the opposition has been flirting with Hanson.
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The Coalition preferenced One Nation in 57 seats at the May election and did not reject the minor party’s decision to direct preference flows back its way. While the opposition denied the existence of any deals, its strategy departed from previous attempts to lock out the minor party, such as when Howard refused Hanson’s preferences in 1998 over her infamous statement that Australia risked being “swamped by Asians”.
There’s been the will-he-won’t-he saga surrounding Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, who continues to tease a move to the minor party but remains with the junior Coalition partner.
And a handful of Coalition senators have been willing to side with One Nation on controversies. Hanson’s attempt to launch a parliamentary inquiry into medical treatments for transgender children earlier this year was one example. This month’s attempt to rule late-term abortions out of guaranteed paid parental leave provisions was another.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – who voted with One Nation on both issues – has gone as far as to passionately defend Hanson against allegations of racism in parliament. “You vilify her,” Price roared, decrying the government’s treatment of Hanson in September. “You’ve made her out to be a racist in this country.”
Will that suggestion remain so outrageous after Thursday?
Last time Hanson wore the burqa into the Senate, the strongest rebuke came from former Liberal senator George Brandis. The attorney-general at the time received a rare standing ovation from political opponents for his impassioned response. “To ridicule [the Muslim] community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments, is an appalling thing to do,” he said.
Labor senator Penny Wong, who applauded Brandis that day in August 2017, quoted him on Thursday, when it became her turn to respond from the government benches. Liberal senator Anne Ruston joined in the condemnation.
The strongest opposition rebuke on Thursday came from Matt Canavan – the Nationals senator who has led the charge to abandon net zero. He was the first to speak on the saga outside the Senate.
“While this might attract the interest of a small fringe in our society, I just don’t think middle Australia like the parliament being debased like this,” he said on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing. “Doing this kind of stunt, it weakens her case and cheapens our parliament, and most Australians, I think, will look away in disgust.”
Ley will hope that’s the case. It should give Coalition MPs keenest on Hanson, such as Price and Joyce, pause to consider where they want to be. If Canavan’s closest allies follow his lead, they could give the opposition leader the chance she needs to draw stronger lines between her party and Hanson’s.
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