One Nation leader Pauline Hanson's brush with far-right targets Muslims, vaccines
While speaking with a notorious far-right podcaster, Pauline Hanson made a string of racially charged remarks and revealed who could one day lead One Nation.
One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson has railed against Muslims, migrants and COVID-19 vaccines in a controversial podcast with a British far-right activist.
In the nearly hour-long conversation with convicted criminal Tommy Robinson, published by him on Friday (AEST), Senator Hanson accused people from “Muslim areas” of ripping off the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
She also reflected on her time in prison, her two stunts wearing a burqa in parliament, and her hardline immigration policy.
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The senator said her daughter Lee could eventually lead One Nation but had to prove herself to party members and the public.
“She’s got potential, but I don’t believe in nepotism,” Senator Hanson said.
The firebrand politician said her daughter, who unsuccessfully ran for One Nation in the 2025 election, had a “softer approach”.
Senator Hanson has previously expressed her opposition to pandemic-era vaccine mandates and told Robinson the government should “get out of telling people how to run their lives”.
“They did that exactly with COVID, telling everyone to have the bloody shot,” she said.
“I didn’t get it. I told everyone, don’t put that sh*t in your body.”
Rapidly developed vaccines are widely credited by public health experts with saving millions of lives during the pandemic, while about a dozen deaths in Australia have been linked to the immunisation.
Senator Hanson said a vaccine should be tested for “at least 10, maybe 18 years” before being rolled out.
“What they told me, it terrified me and that’s why I said don’t do it,” she said.
Asked how Australia had ended up with “Pakistanis, Somalis, all of these African problems with violent Africans,” Senator Hanson said it started with the end of the White Australia Policy.
The postwar flood of migrants was different to today’s situation because the new arrivals “learned to speak English”, she said.
She also claimed without evidence that “a lot” of the nearly 800,000 people on the National Disability Insurance Scheme were from “Muslim areas” but added there were many other Australians on the program too.
“A lot of them are ripping the system off ... a lot from the Muslim areas and they’re getting on the scheme, but there’s a lot of Aussies too,” she said.
Health and NDIS minister Mark Butler said he was loath to respond to the podcast because Robinson was a convicted criminal who’d been disowned by leading figures on the right, but added he’d never seen a breakdown in nationality or religious background of NDIS participants.
“I’m not sure where Ms Hanson is getting her figures from, but they’ve never been provided to me ... I suspect they don’t exist,” he told ABC Radio National on Friday.
Mr Butler said Senator Hanson needed to explain why she travelled to Europe at a time when Australians were struggling with the cost of living.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the comments and the decision to meet Robinson were appalling.
“Pauline Hanson is the most un-Australian politician in parliament, and she should come home, face the music, and apologise,” she said.
