Pauline Hanson said if One Nation forms government, she would abolish the SBS, build at least one nuclear power station, and restrict transgender rights. Photo: David Farley/Facebook.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has used her inaugural address to the National Press Club in Canberra today to pitch her party to the broader Australian electorate, outlining a platform heavily focused on immigration cuts, energy policy, and media reform.
And with a small group of protesters positioned outside the club’s National Circuit main entrance, Senator Hanson was welcomed by club CEO Maurice Reilly at the rear members’ entrance.
As expected, Senator Hanson refused to do a “divisive welcome to country”, or acknowledgement of country at the start of her speech, instead acknowledging service personnel who had fought for Australia and migrants who had helped build the country.
She said, with the rise in popularity of her party, she realises now more than ever she has a responsibility to the wider Australian electorate, not just the Senate seats she has previously courted. She attributed much of her popularity to the fact that “politicians are good at talking but not listening”, and that “the public is sick and tired of being ignored”.
She focused on immigration, housing, cost of living, the media, transgender identity, the recent federal budget and Labor’s broken promises to change capital gains tax and negative gearing.
“Albanese lied to get elected,” she said, adding that “the public is sick to the back teeth with these lies”, and “if you lie once, why won’t you lie again and again and again?”
Senator Hanson attributed Australia’s housing crisis almost solely to “unsustainable immigration”, noting that in 2000, the Australian Bureau of Statistics forecast Australia’s population would grow from 19 million to between 24 and 28 million by 2050, but that we are already at 28 million now.
She claimed migration is in a “state of crisis”, saying the policy of multiculturalism is “flawed”, and that Australia can’t be multicultural, “only multiracial or monocultural”.
“Is this supported by the electorate? Is that what Australia wants? Are we losing our identity?”
She said Australia is predominantly a Judeo-Christian society, and that our Western values are under siege, adding that One Nation stands for one nation under one flag, and that migrants should “leave your troubles behind”.
“If you hate this country, you should leave,” she said, before saying Islam is not a religion, but a “political movement”.
“There is no room for hate preachers in this country.”
Protestors greeted Senator Hanson at the National Press Club main entrance, forcing her to use the rear members’ entrance. Photo: Region.
About 15 minutes into her speech, the room’s video screen started lowering, with a banner attached claiming Senator Hanson had opposed a pay rise for workers while accepting a $100,000 pay rise for herself.
While a quick-footed Mr Reilly and two Press Club staff quickly tore the banner down, Senator Hanson appeared to briefly lose her composure and get flustered, before catching her breath and resuming her speech.
Get Up has claimed responsibility for the banner stunt, with CEO Paul Ferris releasing a brief statement in which he said, “We thought the occasion deserved some honesty. So we provided it.”
She went on to attack Labor’s renewable energy policies, saying a One Nation government would build at least one nuclear reactor on Australia’s east coast. She said she would “put everything into the energy mix” and “get ideology out of the way” by retaining at least one coal-fired power station in each state, and forbidding the construction of solar panels on agricultural land and any new wind turbines.
She described the government’s Clean Energy Corporation as a “rort” and asked why renewables receive government subsidies when corner store owners and farmers don’t.
“Why does the government prop it up?” she asked.
She also took not-so-subtle digs at Andrew Forrest and his unrealised green hydrogen ambitions, as well as Malcolm Turnbull and the Snowy 2.0 project, which she said she would “cancel and cut our losses”.
But perhaps it was her attacks on the media – in true Trumpian style – that caught most by surprise.
Senator Hanson said if One Nation came to government, she would immediately abolish the SBS and would severely wind back the ABC by continuing to fund regional services but make city services subscription-only.
She also doubled down on restricting access to the ABC and The Guardian at One Nation events.
During the Q&A section, she described Guardian journalist Sarah Martin as a “trashy journalist” when asked about her daughter Lee Hanson, who currently works for a NSW Senator and One Nation’s Tasmanian Senate campaign.
“Australians aren’t buying this crap from the political establishment and the media anymore,” she offered.
Senator Hanson also targeted Australia’s transgender population, claiming there was a “transgender insurgency” and that “transgender ideology has penetrated every regulatory authority”.
“There is a transgender campaign where a man can become woman because he feels that way,” she said, comparing the “transgender movement” to “radical Islam”, before saying she’s not opposed to transgender, “just not in sport or changerooms”.
When given the windup by the moderator, Senator Hanson said, “I only have a few pages to go”, leaving some to wonder if she had made her speech longer in an attempt to avoid the scrutiny of a Q&A. But the event ran 30 minutes over its usual one-hour allotment to cater for the curious media.
She wrapped up her speech by saying that she is an “unashamed patriot and nationalist”, and that “under one flag, One Nation will put Australia back on a path to prosperity and freedom”.
Original Article published by Andrew McLaughlin on PS News.
