‘Carry on my legacy’: Pauline Hanson recruits daughter Lee for One Nation

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Pauline Hanson has enlisted her daughter, Lee Hanson, to try and carry on One Nation’s influence in parliament while defending her decision against claims of nepotism by saying her three sons aren’t up to the job.

“I wouldn’t have one of my sons in parliament, so it’s about qualifications and ability,” Hanson said.

Pauline Hanson (right) said she hoped her daughter Lee would extend One Nation’s legacy.

Lee, a newly announced Senate candidate for Tasmania, was happy to interject.

“She means that, don’t worry,” Lee joked about her three brothers’ political capabilities.

Hanson said she doesn’t believe in “female quotas” or nepotism, which she said is clear because “I wouldn’t have any of my sons near me”.

She recruited her only daughter to carry on her political legacy as she nears retirement at age 70, and the populist right-wing party competes for relevance in the Senate against Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots.

“My time in politics is coming to an end, and I’m not gonna say when that’s gonna happen, but I want the people coming through that are going to carry on my legacy,” said Hanson.

Hanson initially asked her daughter to become a candidate for the party several years ago, but Lee declined because she was busy raising her young children.

If the 41-year-old won a Senate position in Tasmania, the pair would become the first mother and daughter to be elected to parliament.

Now Lee, who has lived in Tasmania for more than a decade, said she feels compelled to compete for a Senate seat to secure her children’s future, which includes fighting against “wokeness”.

“The way of life’s changed and everything’s so woke,” said Lee, who wants to see Tasmania’s health and education system reformed.

Hanson said the education system is pushing extreme ideologies onto children in schools and claimed that some classrooms are providing kitty litter for students who identify as cats.

“People are sick and tired of the woke,” Hanson said. “We’re heading down this pathway.”

Hanson repeated an unfounded claim that some classrooms are providing kitty litter for students who identify as cats.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Fighting woke causes is core business for One Nation, which has a hardline stance on immigration and wants to repeal pro-choice abortion laws. The party has been widely criticised as being xenophobic and denying climate science.

But Lee said the policies of One Nation were based on “family values” and core to the Australian identity.

“We want to be proud to be Australian,” Lee said.

Lee said she was inspired by her mother and that she was proud of how outspoken Hanson had been during her career.

Hanson won Liberal Party preselection for the Queensland seat of Oxley ahead of the 1996 federal election, only to be disendorsed for her comments about Aboriginal Australians. The decision to disendorse her came so late in the campaign that she still appeared as a Liberal on the ballot paper and won the seat.

In her first speech to parliament, Hanson said she feared Australia was in danger of “being swamped by Asians”. She lost her seat at the 1998 election.

In 2003, Hanson spent 11 weeks in jail on charges of electoral fraud before the conviction was overturned in the Queensland Court of Appeal.

She was elected as a senator for Queensland in 2016 and 2022.

Last year Hanson was found by the Federal Court to have racially vilified Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi in a 2022 tweet telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.

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