Australia’s anti-immigration populist Pauline Hanson eyes political resurgence

SYDNEY – Australia’s flame-haired populist Senator Pauline Hanson and her anti-immigration party have rocketed up opinion polls, nearing a peak seen three decades ago when she first entered politics and pushed conservative parties to harden border policies.

The resurgence of her One Nation coincides with

President Donald Trump’s tougher message on migration

, which has included the US embassy in Australia being instructed to collect migrant-linked crime data as Washington urged US diplomats to lobby against mass migration. 

Ms Hanson’s revival as a political force is likely more driven by local factors including cost-of-living pressures, housing shortages and historically high migration which have driven voter dissatisfaction, analysts and party officials say.

Hanson was ‘the original Trump’

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party won national elections decisively in May, and remains ahead in polling.

The conservative opposition Liberal Party, which lost its leader and a spread of seats at the May election, is at an historic low – another factor encouraging right-wing voters to look to One Nation, several analysts said.

“One would argue that Pauline was the original Trump,” Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby told Reuters in an interview. “Other politicians and the public have caught up with where her mindset was at. We are being swamped by mass migration in this country.”

Ms Hanson, 71, made global headlines

striding through the Australian parliament in a burqa

in November, and was barred from the chamber for seven days. 

One Nation holds just four seats in the parliament’s 76-seat upper house, but recent polls indicate it could win more at the next election due by 2028.

A Roy Morgan survey of 5,248 people in November showed support for One Nation at 14 per cent nationally, the highest since 1998. 

Three analysts, including a Liberal Party official, told Reuters One Nation’s polling is putting pressure on the opposition Liberal-National coalition.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce quit the rural-focused National Party last week, and is considering joining One Nation at the next election, his office confirmed.

The Liberals will announce a revised policy to “slow” migration before Christmas, party officials said. 

One Nation influence set to grow, pollster says

One Nation could gain an influential position in the next parliament’s upper house, benefiting from Australia’s preferential voting system, said pollster Gary Morgan, executive chairman of Roy Morgan.

“Her vote will be up, no question it will be up, unless a strong leader comes into the Liberal Party,” he told Reuters. 

Unlike Mr Nigel Farage’s Reform in Britain, One Nation will not become a contender for government because it is unlikely to win lower house seats, he added.

Minor parties and independents took a third of the vote at the 2025 election, continuing a trend which has seen Australia’s traditional two-party system eroding.

But this was mostly independent moderates who champion action on climate change winning formerly Liberal-held city seats, and such voters are not swayed by Ms Hanson, said Mr Morgan.

One Nation’s goal at the next election is to win lower house seats, Mr Ashby said. He devised the party’s strategy to bypass traditional media, directly appealing to voters on social media with a satirical animation series that lampoons myriad “woke” issues.

“We need to reach voters of all ages, not just with policy, but we also need to reach them with the general understanding of the pain and the hurt they are going through,” he said.

The party spent around A$300,000 (S$255,000) for 100 episodes of the satire featuring Ms Hanson, which he noted has drawn 50 million views.

It plans to stream an animated movie to draw voters to town-hall meetings with Ms Hanson and raise funds. 

Immigration concerns grow in Australia

A study released last week showed concern over immigration at the 2025 election doubled to 6 per cent, the highest on record, attributed to “the post-pandemic influx of immigrants and the resulting pressure on housing and infrastructure”.

“Immigration is clearly getting more political oxygen in the last few months than in the campaign,” said co-author of the long-running Australian Election Study Simon Jackman.

Mr Arthur Sinodinos was chief of staff to Liberal prime minister John Howard when One Nation first burst into politics in 1997. He said a revised Liberal immigration policy could neutralise Ms Hanson’s resurgence, as it did previously.

At the 2001 election, Mr Howard won a come-from-behind victory by adopting a tough border policy after polls highlighted voter concerns over asylum seekers arriving by boat.

“The response was offshore processing to deter boat arrivals and that reinforced the Coalition’s electoral position at the expense of fringe groups like One Nation,” he added.

However, Mr Sinodinos said immigration levels need to be set with an eye on the economy, and not as a “silver bullet for housing” and cautioned migrant voters would “react negatively if they perceive scapegoating of immigrants for society’s ills”.

In recent television interviews, Liberal leader Sussan Ley has emphasised infrastructure problems were not caused by migrants.

A Liberal Party official said while One Nation has eaten into the party’s base, immigration policy was not about chasing One Nation, but holding the centre.

Australia, with a population of 27 million, saw a net migration gain of 739,000 in 2023 and almost 600,000 in 2024, mostly due to a backlog of students and workers on temporary visas entering the country after borders were closed during Covid-19, Home Affairs Department data shows.

Labor’s immigration minister Tony Burke told the ABC in November immigration was “too high, it needed to come down”, and would continue to fall. 

Australia is a multicultural nation and its citizens feel it deeply when the topic is debated, he added. REUTERS