Pauline Hanson (Pauline Lee Seccombe)

Far-rightAnti MuslimAnti-immigrantNationalismRight Wing

Feb 23

**DOB:** 27 May 1954

**Nationality:** Australian

**Location:** Queensland, Australia
**Ideology/Affiliation:** Right-wing extremism/Populism/White-Supremacism/Anti-Muslim/
Anti-Immigrants

**Type of Leader:** Political leader and founder of One Nation - a right-wing populist political party

Current Status: Queensland’s Senator and founder and leader of One Nation

Biography

Pauline Hanson was born in Brisbane in 1954. She initially joined politics in 1994, when she was elected to the Ipswich City Council where she served until 1995. She joined the Liberal Party in August 1995 and was nominated for the Federal seat of Oxley in November. With her being elected to Parliament, Hanson became the first Independent woman to serve in the House of Representatives. From 1996 until October 1998, Pauline was a member of the Federal Parliament. In February 1997, Hanson co-founded the One Nation political party alongside two former Australian politicians - David Oldfield and David Ettridge - and managed to secure 11 seats in the Queensland state elections in 1998. Before Ms Hanson was dismissed as the leader of One Nation in 2002, the party grew in popularity with a blend of right-wing populist and anti-immigration views, particularly rhetoric focused on Asian immigrants at the time. Today, Hanson takes aim at Muslim migrants and Islam in Australia — maintaining a strongly anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant stance, including other contemporary single-issue ideologies that have dominated far-right circles such as anti-COVID vaccinations.

In May 2007, Hanson founded Pauline’s United Australia Party, and in the federal election later that year, Hanson ran for one of Queensland’s Senate seats again under that banner, receiving more than 4 percent of the vote. The name of the party is a nod to the old United Australia Party. “I’ve had all the main political parties attack me, been expelled out of my own party, and ended up in prison, but I don't give up,” commenting on her comeback to politics.

Hanson said in 2010 that she would deregister Pauline’s United Australia Party, sell her Queensland home, and relocate to the United Kingdom after a failed campaign in the 2009 Queensland state election. Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, praised the move. She stated that she would not sell her home to Muslims if she were to relocate. Following a long vacation in Europe, Hanson announced in November 2010 that she would not be relocating to the United Kingdom because it was “overrun with immigrants and refugees.”

She returned to One Nation in 2013 and became the party’s leader the following year. Although she lost in Queensland state elections in 2015, she was elected to the Senate alongside three other members of the party in the 2016 federal election.

Hanson used to be a regular guest on Australia’s prominent Channel Nine’s “Today Show”, but had her regular appearances subsequently discontinued following comments she made in 2020 referring to persons living in Melbourne public housing as “drug addicts who couldn’t speak English.”

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Banned

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Senator Hanson

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Evidence of Hate Speech/Incitement:

December 2021: Pauline Hanson has criticised the Covid-19 vaccination, clearly stating that she would not be ‘putting that s***’ into her body, before taking aim at the World Health Organisation. She even accused the UN and WHO of pushing a certain agenda - ‘I haven’t had the jab, I don’t intend to have the jab, I’m not putting that s*** into my body’ and ‘I don’t intend to listen to bureaucrats or politicians, or UN or WHO pushing their own agenda and take away my freedoms, my rights, my choices when that’s why I’m fighting this issue and so should you [the crowd], she added.

September 2018: Hanson wore a burqa to parliament as part of her campaign to outlaw the all-encompassing garment worn by certain Muslim women, prompting a swift backlash from both the government and Muslims. Adel Salman, vice president of the Islamic Council of Victoria state, issued a statement saying that Hanson’s action was “a mockery of her position” and that “it is very disappointing but not surprising as she has sought to mock the Islamic faith time and again,” he added.

March 2017: In the wake of the London attack, Hanson incited hatred against Muslims by describing Islam as a disease. She even claimed that banning Muslim immigrants is how the problem should be solved - “Islam is a disease; we need to vaccinate ourselves against that.”

December 2006: Hanson raised her voice against the easy process of gaining Australian citizenship by Africans and Muslims - "we’re bringing in people from Africa at the moment. There’s a huge amount coming into Australia, who have diseases; they’ve got AIDS”. She further claimed that “they are of no benefit to this country whatsoever; they’ll never be able to work and what my main concern is, is the diseases that they’re bringing in and yet no one is saying or doing anything about it.”

Extremist Individuals - Right Wing