Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
Apr. 25th, 2025 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
b_auspolPauline Hanson’s One Nation
Website: https://www.onenation.org.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OneNationAus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OneNationParty/
(My review for the 2021 WA Election)
I did seriously consider whether I was going to bother reviewing One Nation this election, but between the Libertarians name change dropping their vote totals, and the UAP-now-TOP vote absolutely cratering, PHON are in the unexpected position of having seemingly less serious competition splintering the far right vote this election than the previous few.
Party Analysis
Tax policies: For some reason, their main policy this year is that One Nation wants to allow couples to income split…but only if they have at least one dependent child. I presume this is a policy to try and increase the birth rate.
One Nation are also big Trump fans. They want their own version of DOGE and to ‘slash government waste’ (which appears to be any departments doing literally anything progressive, the TGA, arts funding, anyone doing anything around multiculturalism or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues). They’re also fans of being isolationists and withdrawing from any and all international agreements and stopping foreign aid spending, because what even is soft power? I particularly find it hypocritical that the party terrified of floods of Asian immigrants entering Australia to steal our way of life are also mad about foreign aid spending to improve conditions in nearby Asian countries so that people don’t have to emigrate or become refugees. You don’t want them here, but you also don’t want to help solve reasons why they might want to come here.
Picking out one policy that I boggled at: One Nation don’t think housing standards should include new dwellings being wheelchair-compliant. Because screw wheelchairs, anyone who has a pram or stroller or stores a bike inside, or just making sure dwellings have enough space? Personally, I think having higher standards on new builds in terms of usability of the property is a good thing. They also thing the increase in housing costs is due primarily to increases in materials costs, and ‘excessive government charges’ (that would be taxes, for building infrastructure and running a society).
One Nation also want a free speech policy, which translates to “the freedom to be discriminatory in my speech and not get called on it or sued about it”.
In terms of environmental policies, One Nation are firmly in the ‘water is for farmers not frogs’ camp. They want more dams (shout out to Hells Gate Dam, which has a strong debate over feasibility as a project), and more ability for farms to ‘collect and store water on their own land’. They hate water buybacks and expanded environmental flows for riverine systems, even as we’ve been dealing with mass fish deaths in recent years. Also climate change doesn’t exist and the media is lying to us about this, so we should withdraw from the Paris Agreement. They think our fishery policies are too restrictive and governments are too conservative over restrictions for ensuring fishery stocks remain viable. They want minimal limits restricting catches and are mad about marine parks being extended. They want more timber forestry and timber plantations, and they support native logging and even extending more of it.
Their family law policy is straight out the men’s rights activist movement. They’re particularly mad that the family law system considers the rights of the child to be the paramount consideration in terms of family law decision, and wanting more rights for the parents. Personally, given children are legal minors who are the innocent bystander parties affected in family law proceedings, centring their protection and rights is absolutely my preferred approach over a parent who is mad at their ex-partner and trying to get one up on them. Also they’re deeply suspicious about how child support is spent in a way that translates as “why does the child support agency keep taking money from my tax return?”
One Nation, in hating foreigners, also hate foreign ownership of land, of housing and of companies, and are deeply suspicious of any foreign investment. Their immigration policy is “cut as much of it as possible”, blaming the effects of inflation and rising prices, something experienced all over the world, on us having too many immigrants.
One Nation ARE supportive of medicinal cannabis and want greater, cheaper access.
They also want more gun ownership and are opposed to any increased licencing laws.
In terms of health policies: they’re still mad about COVID and fostering the whole range of cooker attitudes and suspicions. Also they’re anti-abortion and mad at a lot of things that don’t actually happen in practice.
Is this party trying to kill me?
One Nation are racists who don’t believe in climate change, are anti-abortion, and want more gun ownership. They’re pretty much the perfect storm for fomenting white nationalist attacks.
Is this party trying to harm me?
Absolutely. One Nation don’t like anyone who isn’t exactly like them, and they’re suspicious of anything that seems like change or progress.
Conclusion:
One Nation as a party have not changed in any appreciable way in terms of their policies in the last few decades, since Pauline Hanson was first elected. They’re still small minded scared working class folk suspicious of things they deem foreign. However, given the polling going around this year, they have a solid chance of retaining their QLD Senate seat and to be the most likely candidate party to pick up a seat from the Liberals in several other states if the Liberal vote share falls low enough that they’re well below a third quota, and so it’s worth looking at what they might advocate for in the Senate. (Well, until the new party members inevitably fall out with Hanson and leave the party, as the vast majority have over the years)
Website: https://www.onenation.org.au/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OneNationAus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OneNationParty/
(My review for the 2021 WA Election)
I did seriously consider whether I was going to bother reviewing One Nation this election, but between the Libertarians name change dropping their vote totals, and the UAP-now-TOP vote absolutely cratering, PHON are in the unexpected position of having seemingly less serious competition splintering the far right vote this election than the previous few.
Party Analysis
Tax policies: For some reason, their main policy this year is that One Nation wants to allow couples to income split…but only if they have at least one dependent child. I presume this is a policy to try and increase the birth rate.
One Nation are also big Trump fans. They want their own version of DOGE and to ‘slash government waste’ (which appears to be any departments doing literally anything progressive, the TGA, arts funding, anyone doing anything around multiculturalism or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues). They’re also fans of being isolationists and withdrawing from any and all international agreements and stopping foreign aid spending, because what even is soft power? I particularly find it hypocritical that the party terrified of floods of Asian immigrants entering Australia to steal our way of life are also mad about foreign aid spending to improve conditions in nearby Asian countries so that people don’t have to emigrate or become refugees. You don’t want them here, but you also don’t want to help solve reasons why they might want to come here.
Picking out one policy that I boggled at: One Nation don’t think housing standards should include new dwellings being wheelchair-compliant. Because screw wheelchairs, anyone who has a pram or stroller or stores a bike inside, or just making sure dwellings have enough space? Personally, I think having higher standards on new builds in terms of usability of the property is a good thing. They also thing the increase in housing costs is due primarily to increases in materials costs, and ‘excessive government charges’ (that would be taxes, for building infrastructure and running a society).
One Nation also want a free speech policy, which translates to “the freedom to be discriminatory in my speech and not get called on it or sued about it”.
In terms of environmental policies, One Nation are firmly in the ‘water is for farmers not frogs’ camp. They want more dams (shout out to Hells Gate Dam, which has a strong debate over feasibility as a project), and more ability for farms to ‘collect and store water on their own land’. They hate water buybacks and expanded environmental flows for riverine systems, even as we’ve been dealing with mass fish deaths in recent years. Also climate change doesn’t exist and the media is lying to us about this, so we should withdraw from the Paris Agreement. They think our fishery policies are too restrictive and governments are too conservative over restrictions for ensuring fishery stocks remain viable. They want minimal limits restricting catches and are mad about marine parks being extended. They want more timber forestry and timber plantations, and they support native logging and even extending more of it.
Their family law policy is straight out the men’s rights activist movement. They’re particularly mad that the family law system considers the rights of the child to be the paramount consideration in terms of family law decision, and wanting more rights for the parents. Personally, given children are legal minors who are the innocent bystander parties affected in family law proceedings, centring their protection and rights is absolutely my preferred approach over a parent who is mad at their ex-partner and trying to get one up on them. Also they’re deeply suspicious about how child support is spent in a way that translates as “why does the child support agency keep taking money from my tax return?”
One Nation, in hating foreigners, also hate foreign ownership of land, of housing and of companies, and are deeply suspicious of any foreign investment. Their immigration policy is “cut as much of it as possible”, blaming the effects of inflation and rising prices, something experienced all over the world, on us having too many immigrants.
One Nation ARE supportive of medicinal cannabis and want greater, cheaper access.
They also want more gun ownership and are opposed to any increased licencing laws.
In terms of health policies: they’re still mad about COVID and fostering the whole range of cooker attitudes and suspicions. Also they’re anti-abortion and mad at a lot of things that don’t actually happen in practice.
Is this party trying to kill me?
One Nation are racists who don’t believe in climate change, are anti-abortion, and want more gun ownership. They’re pretty much the perfect storm for fomenting white nationalist attacks.
Is this party trying to harm me?
Absolutely. One Nation don’t like anyone who isn’t exactly like them, and they’re suspicious of anything that seems like change or progress.
Conclusion:
One Nation as a party have not changed in any appreciable way in terms of their policies in the last few decades, since Pauline Hanson was first elected. They’re still small minded scared working class folk suspicious of things they deem foreign. However, given the polling going around this year, they have a solid chance of retaining their QLD Senate seat and to be the most likely candidate party to pick up a seat from the Liberals in several other states if the Liberal vote share falls low enough that they’re well below a third quota, and so it’s worth looking at what they might advocate for in the Senate. (Well, until the new party members inevitably fall out with Hanson and leave the party, as the vast majority have over the years)
