Who is Pauline Hanson? Immigrant first husband offers glimpse into her early life

He was once married to the woman who would become one of Queensland’s most divisive and powerful political figures. Today, Walter Zagorski lives alone on a quiet suburban street lined with small boats and weatherboard homes draped in Maroons flags.

At his house in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum, Zagorski – a postwar Polish immigrant who has rarely spoken to the media – opens up about the pair’s fractious marriage and the influences he believes shaped her.

As she soars in the polls, Hanson has travelled the country telling the story of her life and the circumstances that have shaped her views. Zagorski, watching from afar the woman he married when she was 16, has stayed silent until now.

Earlier this month, Hanson gave an intimate speech in Perth that referenced alleged domestic violence during her second marriage to Mark Hanson, a plumber who has since died. She also talked about her first marriage, before telling her audience “I’ve never married again. So it’s not something for me”.

Zagorski is initially reluctant to discuss his past. Wearing a flannel shirt and a cautious look as he stands on his concrete driveway, he says while Hanson was once part of his life, “she’s not any more”.

“I don’t trust any [politicians]. They’re not there to look after you. They’re out there to look after themselves … and Pauline, she’s definitely in it for herself,” he says.

“I wouldn’t vote for her. I haven’t voted for her … look at the stupidity that’s going on in the [United] States with [President Donald] Trump.

“The problem is there’s so much dishonesty in the system. Most people don’t know the difference between honesty and dishonesty.”

Hanson first rose to prominence when elected to federal parliament in 1996 for the working-class seat of Oxley in western Brisbane. Originally a Liberal, she was disendorsed over comments she had made calling for an end to welfare for Indigenous Australians.

Her rallying cries against immigration and multiculturalism struck a chord in 1990s Queensland. While she lost her federal seat after a redistribution in 1998, her new party, One Nation, won 11 seats at the state poll that year.

In 2026, Hanson has again rocketed to the forefront of national politics. One Nation recently polled above both major parties and this month for the first time, Hanson led as preferred prime minister over Labor leader and current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Oppposition Leader Angus Taylor.

Zagorski met Hanson in 1970 while they both had jobs with pharmaceutical company Drug Houses of Australia in Brisbane.

Then in his mid-20s, he lived near the teenager in East Brisbane and would drive her to and from work.

“She was working there. I’d drive her home and that’s it. It just sort of went on from there … It was just one of those things,” he says.

Her parents ran a cafe in the nearby suburb of Woolloongabba at the time.

In her Perth speech on June 11, Hanson talked about sneaking away from her family home as a teenager to see Zagorski when he was working in the oilfields, and ending up stranded in the outback town of Charleville by floodwaters before the police dispatched her back to her parents.

“[We were] young and stupid in love. So, I get it. I understand,” she told the room in Perth.

“But anyway, we ended up getting married. I had my first child at 17 and I had two children by the time I was 21. We started up a business with my parents, when I was 18 with the young baby.”

Hanson married Zagorski in the regional town of Blackall.

“She had a white blouse sort of thing, everything was good,” he says.

“My best mate didn’t turn up, and it was a bit of a shambles after it got started. Most of the people there were all bloody riggers. The only person [from our families] who showed up was my mum.”

Her office chose not to comment for this story.

In her 2012 autobiography, Untamed & Unashamed, Hanson recalls several of the same events, though details often differ. She wrote her family had come to Blackall for the occasion, and that Zagorski’s mother did not.

“Pauline got into politics because she figured it’d be easy and she’d make more money, that’s all.”

In the book, Zagorski is described as “a good-looking guy with a vibrant personality, very young at heart and a loveable character”.

“I came to trust and love Walter … we spent most of our time together going to movies, for a drive, or just being together, even when he worked on his car,” she wrote.

The couple lived in Blackall before moving to Adelaide and then back to south-east Queensland as Zagorski chased work. Their son Tony was born in June 1971.

Decades later, Zagorski remembers a deeply unhappy relationship, and he claims she was unfaithful – disputing he was the father of her second child, Steven. Hanson recounted his claims in her book and strongly rejected this.

Hanson wrote: “Our second son, Steven, was at the heart of one of these issues because Walter believed Steven was not his son. It was important to me that he accepted Steven as his son because he was.”

Zagorski is still resentful years after the acrimonious split, and says his former partner was motivated only by money.

“In my honest opinion, she was not a nice person,” he says.

“Her parents were the two people that were the guiding force for Pauline. Pauline’s father worked his arse off 20 hours a day every day in the shop.

“Pauline got all her ideas on being dishonest and sneaky and greedy and making more money from her dad.”

Hanson – about eight years younger than Zagorski – has previously said he abandoned her and her children for long periods without support.

His status as an immigrant was never relevant to their relationship, he says.

In his telling, his mother Lydia was pregnant with him at Auschwitz. He says he came to Australia as a refugee at about five before being taken to an orphanage near Toowoomba.

“I remember my feet dangled over the edge of the boat on the deck, and I was going through the Suez Canal,” he says.

“At that time, one ship went to America, one ship went to Australia … that’s how I got to come to Australia. It wasn’t a choice.”

He says he doesn’t know his exact birthday, but believes it was in 1946. If correct, it’s unlikely he was conceived before the liberation of the concentration camp, though he’s certain that’s the story his mother told.

Hanson, in her book, remembers Lydia as “a strong and independent lady whom I admired and loved very much”.

Zagorski says he doesn’t know where Pauline’s political views came from, and they were of no interest to him when they married.

“I’m not a political man. I’ve got no interest in politics whatsoever.”

The couple split after several years, and briefly rekindled the relationship before it fell apart again. Both claim credit for ending it.

Zagorski says she did have an ambitious streak: “I’ve thought about it many times … I think she was looking for something … Pauline got into politics because she figured it’d be easy and she’d make more money, that’s all.”

He later says: “I think that in a way she did care about me.”

Zagorski says Hanson visited his Wynnum home years later to see his mother but she hasn’t contacted him in a long time.

When discussing Australia’s institutions, Zagorski’s language at times echoes that used by his ex-wife and her supporters.

“They’re all in it for themselves. They’re not there to do good for anybody,” he says.

“[Anthony] Albanese, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him … [Angus Taylor] is an idiot. Pauline, she’s about the most dishonest person I know.”

Could he see her winning the next election? “Possibly,” he says, though he says he won’t be voting for her party.

“The only reason she would win would be because people don’t like the other guy. What choices have you got?

“She might have changed in the last 20 years, I don’t know, but I’ve never known Pauline Hanson to be an honest person.”

Zagorski hasn’t kept photos from his time with his first wife and he never remarried.

He says he no longer speaks to any of his friends or family members, including son Tony, who he believes now lives in Las Vegas.

The saga demonstrates just how little is known about the background of a woman that polling suggests could become Australia’s next prime minister.

Though Zagorski says he rarely thinks about her these days, a neighbour mentions he’s dropped Hanson’s name into more than one conversation.

At the event with Perth’s business elite, Hanson was asked what advice she’d give her 10-year-old self.

“Don’t get married at 16,” she said.

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