Updated ,first published
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has declared “I’m back … you can’t stop me” as she returned to the Senate for the first time since she was suspended two months ago for wearing a burqa into the chamber and as the increasingly popular party’s MPs rake in hundreds of thousands of social media followers.
Hanson’s return came as she offered conflicting statements about her desire to team up with the Liberal and National parties in a future coalition to bring down the Albanese government after Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said she wanted to work with “the non-Labor side of politics” to hold the government to account.
“Well, I’m back. You can kick me out, you can dismiss me or try to silence me, but you can’t stop me because Australians know I have their back. Growing numbers of Australians now have mine,” Hanson told the Senate chamber on Thursday afternoon.
“When [Labor] try to silence me, you try to silence millions of Australians who are tired of your cosy two-party system because it doesn’t deliver. You put yourselves and vested interests before the Australians you are supposed to serve. You are not part of the Australia we know and love, the same Australia you are trying to destroy with net zero and mass migration.”
One Nation’s primary vote has soared in recent polling, with this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor showing the party holding a record high of 18 per cent. The Australian’s Newspoll and the Australian Financial Review’s Redbridge/Accent poll have pegged the party above the Coalition, at 22 per cent and 26 per cent of the vote respectively.
The party has risen in the polls just as the Coalition’s popularity plummeted following a record election loss and protracted infighting.
The recent schism of the Liberals and Nationals over frontbench solidarity and disagreements over hate crime legislation has further split the conservative vote.
Hanson was suspended for seven sitting days on November 24 for wearing a burqa into the Senate during the year’s final sitting week after she failed in an attempt to have the garment and full-face coverings banned.
The stunt was condemned by senators across party lines, including Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the Greens’ Mehreen Faruqi and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan, who said it was “disrespectful to Muslim Australians”.
The suspension covered the January snap recall of parliament to debate the government’s Bondi shooting response legislation.
Hanson unsuccessfully appealed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to have the suspension lifted.
“It’s an injustice I wasn’t able to debate legislation last month, but I am proud of my colleagues following my lead. They stood tall against Labor’s attempt to scapegoat lawful gun owners for Anthony Albanese’s failure to check antisemitism and radical Islam,” Hanson said on Thursday.
“More Australians are supporting me because they know [Labor] aren’t putting their interests first. Unlike you, I don’t take this support for granted,” she said.
Hanson’s social media accounts across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X have gained an additional 600,000 followers – an increase of about 60 per cent – over the past six months. The party leader has grown her total followership from 918,400 across the platforms to almost 1.5 million. Her YouTube channel, which features the political satire cartoon Please Explain, has an additional 144,000 followers.
While she remains the second most followed federal politician, she is catching up with Albanese, who garnered an additional 300,000 followers in the same period – an increase of about 16 per cent. Albanese’s total followership is around 2.3 million.
The biggest growth in Hanson’s followership, by percentage, has come from Instagram, where her follower count has grown more than 250 per cent from 73,000 followers to 260,000. She gained 321,000 followers on Facebook, an increase of 56 per cent. Her X followership has grown by 23 per cent to 201,700, and TikTok by 14 per cent to 128,600.
Over the course of former Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s defection to One Nation, his total followership has grown by around 50 per cent to a total of 291,000 followers. The former deputy prime minister has almost tripled his Instagram followership from 10,800 to 31,400 and almost doubled his Facebook following from 86,000 to 163,000.
Senator Malcolm Roberts has picked up more than 100,000 followers, going from a total followership of 578,000 to 693,600, while new senator Tyron Whitten has grown his following from 5000 followers to just shy of 30,000.
Comparative data was not measured for the party’s fourth senator Sean Bell, as he entered parliament last year after this masthead began collecting politician’s social media followings. Accounts could only be verified for the senator on Facebook and Instagram, with a total followership of 9400.
In separate media appearances on Wednesday evening, Hanson offered differing stances on whether she was willing to partner with the Liberal and National parties in a future coalition arrangement. Speaking to Sky News, Hanson said she would “of course” be interested in joining with the parties to form government.
“That’s the only way to move forward because I’m not going to be government, and either is, by the looks of it, the Coalition or the National Party,” Hanson said. “The fact is, that I am a conservative at heart, and I work with them to give them supply. Would I join up to the rabble that they are at the moment? No way in the wide world, but I have my strong policies that we need because they’re doing nothing to address the important issues that the Australian people want.”
However, hours earlier, Hanson unequivocally ruled out working with the Liberal Party.
Speaking to the Senate on Thursday, Hanson said: “One Nation stands alone … We can’t afford another term under Labor. I’ll work with anyone who shares this goal, but I’ll never join them.”
Nationals leader David Littleproud on Thursday did not rule out working with One Nation in the future, but described the party as a “threat”.
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Nick Newling is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
