Opinion: Why Pauline Hanson remains a force in Qld politics

One’s a veteran politician, the other a world-famous entertainer, both recognisable by just one name and good at generating headlines. But will that pay off for Pauline Hanson at the next state election, asks Paul Williams.

• High steaks: Pauline presses on

It’s hard to believe Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is 27 years old.

It seems only yesterday the fiery populist Pauline stumbled – almost accidentally – into the House of Representatives to make race an issue after decades of bipartisan multiculturalism support. PHON was born in 1997 and, in 1998, the little party with no experience captured almost one in four votes, and 11 seats, at the Queensland state election.

Within three years, all those MPs had defected and the party’s vote had collapsed.

Today, PHON holds just seven parliamentary seats across Australia: Hanson and Malcolm Roberts in the Senate, and five MPs across the state parliaments, including just one, Stephen Andrew in Mirani, in Queensland.

Hanson was a neophyte 30 years ago. Unschooled in the ways of politics and the news media, Hanson too often became her own worst enemy.

Senator Pauline Hanson. Picture: Steve Vit.

But her years in the political wilderness – Hanson contested and lost nine state and federal elections between 1998 and 2015 – taught Pauline a few things about survival. Like pop icon Madonna, Hanson learned to reinvent herself.

Beginning political life as an economic protectionist just as much as a mono-culturalist, Hanson soon learned there are few votes in defending tariffs. PHON then made publicly its sole focus the alleged “entitlement” of First Nations peoples’, and an Australia Hanson told parliament was being “swamped by Asians”.

But when the national mood softened on these issues, the party looked for relevance in Islamophobia. When that, too, subsided, PHON turned to the culture wars – attacks on so-called “identity politics” – before donning the tinfoil hat of no mandates for vaccinations.

But Pauline also learned that lobbing the occasional rhetorical hand grenade into public debate keeps her party relevant. In early August 2017, for example, PHON enjoyed just seven per cent support. Days later, after Hanson – knowing the rancour it would cause – entered the Senate wearing a burqa, YouGov pegged PHON support at 13 per cent. Within weeks, it was 15 per cent.

That’s why I feel PHON’s latest furore – using without permission the animated image of wildlife warrior Robert Irwin in an amateurish video to ridicule the Miles Government – is just another stunt designed to keep PHON on voters’ radar in the run-up to the October state election.

If so, will it work? In short, no. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see big spikes in PHON support. At the 2020 election, PHON scored seven per cent of the vote, half of its 2017 total despite fielding many more candidates. The reason? Voters were less interested in minor parties during the pandemic, and Hanson foolishly adopted a low profile. She won’t repeat that mistake.

Screenshots from Pauline Hanson's Please Explain series featuring Robert Irwin and popular animated character Bluey.

Today, PHON is polling 10 per cent across Queensland, and much higher in the regions. The party’s greatest hope lies in James Ashby – Hanson’s trusted political adviser – who’s standing in Keppel, near Rockhampton, now held by Labor’s Brittany Lauga by a 5.6 per cent margin.

PHON polled just 16 per cent in Keppel in 2020 but, with no pandemic and Ashby’s high profile, the party can expect to double that this year. But Lauga and Ashby’s main threat is the LNP’s Nigel Hutton, the former deputy Mayor of Livingstone Shire Council. In short, Ashby won’t win Keppel.

So, is PHON on the way out? Far from it, despite Hanson almost losing her Senate seat in 2022 to the Legalise Cannabis party. Ironically, and despite PHON likely preferencing the LNP above Labor in every seat, the PHON-LNP relationship is tense, and will continue to be while David Crisafulli leads the LNP.

Conservative LNP voters outside Brisbane are particularly peeved at Crisafulli’s decision in April to support Labor’s plan to cut carbon emissions to 75 per cent of 2005 levels by 2035. They were also worried by the opposition leader’s embrace of Labor’s budget even before seeing it, and are now annoyed at Crisafulli’s reluctance to board Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy bus.

Each of these issues will push LNP votes toward PHON. But, again, it will all be for naught. Katter’s Australian Party will hold its three seats, but win no more, while the Greens will probably pinch two seats from Labor in Brisbane. All other changes will be Labor seats lost to the LNP.

For all its bluff and bluster, PHON after the October election will still boast just one Queensland MP.

Is a vote for a minor party – strong on pointing out what’s wrong in Queensland but weak on realistic solutions – a wasted vote? Of course not. But LNP voters thinking of moving to PHON should be careful of what they wish for.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University