Product Code Database
Pauline Lee Hanson (née Seccombe, formerly Zagorski; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician who is the founder and leader of One Nation. She has been a senator for Queensland since 2016, and was the member of parliament (MP) for the division of Oxley from 1996 to 1998.
Born in Brisbane, Hanson worked in small businesses and as a councillor of Ipswich City Council, joining the Liberal Party in 1995. She was Preselection as the Liberal candidate for the division of Oxley at the 1996 federal election, but was disendorsed shortly before the election for her controversial comments about Aboriginal Australians. Hanson remained on the ballot paper as the Liberal candidate, winning the election to sit as an independent, before co-founding One Nation in 1997. She was unsuccessful in her re-election attempt at the 1998 election.
Hanson unsuccessfully contested the 2001 election as the leader of One Nation, but was expelled from the party in 2002. A District Court jury found Hanson guilty of electoral fraud in 2003, but her convictions were later overturned by the Queensland Court of Appeal. She spent 11 weeks in jail prior to the appeal being heard. Following her release, Hanson ran in several state and federal elections, as the leader of her United Australia Party and as an independent before rejoining One Nation in 2013 and becoming leader again the following year. She was narrowly defeated at the 2015 Queensland state election, but was elected to the Senate at the 2016 election, along with three other members of the party. She was re-elected at the 2022 election.
In 2017 and 2025, Hanson gained media attention for wearing a burqa into the Australian Senate. She was suspended from the Senate for seven days for this act.
Jack and Norah Seccombe owned a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Queensland, in which Hanson and her siblings worked from a young age, preparing meals and taking orders. At an older age, she assisted her parents with more administrative work in bookkeeping and .
Hanson worked at Woolworths before working in the office administration of Taylors Elliotts Ltd, a subsidiary of Drug Houses of Australia (now Bickford's Australia), where she handled clerk bookkeeping and secretarial work. She left Taylors Elliotts during her first pregnancy.
In 1978, Hanson (then Pauline Zagorski) met Mark Hanson, a tradesman on Queensland's Gold Coast. They married in 1980 and established a construction business specialising in Roofer plumbing. Hanson handled the administrative components of the company, similar to her work with Taylors Elliotts, while her husband dealt with practical labour. In 1987, the couple divorced and the company was liquidated. She moved back to Ipswich and worked as a barmaid at what was then Booval Bowls Club. Hanson then bought a fish and chip shop with a new business partner Morrie Marsden. They established Marsden Hanson Pty Ltd and began operations from their recently opened fish and chip shop in Silkstone, a suburb of Ipswich. Hanson and Marsden both shared the administrative responsibilities of the company, but Hanson took on additional practical responsibilities, including buying supplies and produce for the shop and preparing the food, which was among many things that contributed to her notoriety during her first political campaign. Over time, Hanson acquired full control of the company, which was sold upon her election to Parliament in 1996.
Hanson is an atheist, but has appealed to Christian right in her speeches and political rhetoric. She has also drawn criticism from more moderate Christians such as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Kanishka Raffel over her rhetoric on Muslims.
In August 1995, she joined the Liberal Party of Australia and in 1996 was endorsed as the Liberal candidate for the House of Representatives seat of Oxley, based on Ipswich, for the March 1996 federal election. At the time, the seat was thought of as a Labor stronghold. The Labor incumbent, Les Scott, held it with an almost 15% two-party majority, making it the safest Labor seat in Queensland. Because of this, Hanson was initially dismissed and ignored by the media, believing that she had no chance of winning the seat. However, Hanson received widespread media attention when, leading up to the election, she advocated the abolition of special government assistance for Aboriginal Australians, and she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party. Ballot papers had already been printed listing Hanson as the Liberal candidate, and the Australian Electoral Commission had closed nominations for the seat. As a result, Hanson was still listed as the Liberal candidate when votes were cast, even though Liberal leader John Howard had declared she would not be allowed to sit with the Liberals if elected. Liberal candidate Kevin Baker quits race for Charlton over lewd website . ABC News, 20 August 2013. On election night, Hanson took a large lead on the first count and picked up enough preferences from Democrat voters to defeat Scott on the sixth count. Her victory came amid Labor's near-collapse in Queensland, which saw it reduced to only two seats in the state. Hanson won 54% of the two-candidate-preferred vote. Had she still been running as a Liberal, the 19.3-point swing would have been the largest two-party swing of the election. Since Hanson had been disendorsed, she entered parliament as an independent.
Among a series of criticisms of Aboriginal land rights, access to welfare and reconciliation, Hanson criticised the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), saying: "Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC". There then followed a short series of statements on family breakdown, youth unemployment, international debt, the Family Law Act, child support, and the privatisation of Qantas and other national enterprises. The speech also included an attack on immigration and multiculturalism, a call for the return of high-tariff protectionism, and criticism of economic rationalism. Her speech was delivered uninterrupted by her fellow parliamentarians as it was the courtesy given to MPs delivering their maiden speeches.
Hanson's presence in the suburb of Dandenong, Victoria, to launch her party, was met with demonstrations on 7 July 1997, with 3,000–5,000 people rallying outside. A silent vigil and multicultural concert were organised by the Greater Dandenong City Council in response to Hanson's presence, while a demonstration was organised by an anti-racism body. The majority of attendees were of Asian origin, where an open platform attracted leaders of the Vietnamese, Chinese, East Timorese and Sri Lankan communities. Representatives from churches, local community groups, lesbian and gay and socialist organisations also attended and addressed the crowd.
In its late 1990s incarnation, One Nation called for zero net immigration, an end to multiculturalism and a revival of Australia's Anglo-Celtic cultural tradition which it says has been diminished, the abolition of native title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), an end to special Aboriginal funding programs, opposition to Aboriginal reconciliation which the party says will create two nations, and a review of the 1967 constitutional referendum which gave the Commonwealth power to legislate for Aborigines. The party's economic position was to support protectionism and trade retaliation, increased restrictions on foreign capital and the flow of capital overseas, and a general reversal of globalisation's influence on the Australian economy. Domestically, One Nation opposed privatisation, competition policy, and the GST, while proposing a government-subsidised people's bank to provide 2 per cent loans to farmers, small businesses, and manufacturers. On foreign policy, One Nation called for a review of Australia's United Nations membership, a repudiation of Australia's UN treaties, an end to foreign aid, and a ban on foreigners from owning Australian land. (2026). 9781865082912, Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781865082912
Ahead of the 1998 federal election, an electoral redistribution essentially split Oxley in half. Oxley was reconfigured as a marginal Labor seat, losing most of its more rural and exurban area while picking up the heavily pro-Labor suburb of Inala. A new seat of Blair was created in the rural area surrounding Ipswich. Poll Bludger review of Blair for 2016 federal election Hanson knew her chances of holding the reconfigured Oxley were slim, especially after former Labor state premier Wayne Goss won preselection for the seat.Antony Green. 2010 election preview: Queensland . ABC News, 2010. After considering whether to contest a Senate seat—which, by most accounts, she would have been heavily tipped to win—she opted to contest Blair. Despite its very large notional Liberal majority (18.7 percent), most of her base was now located there.
Hanson launched her 1998 election campaign with a focus on jobs, rather than a focus on race/ethnicity or on "the people" against "the elites". Instead, Hanson focused on unemployment and the need to create more jobs not through government schemes but by "cheap loans to business, by more apprenticeships, and by doing something about tariffs".Goot, Murray. Pauline Hanson's One Nation: Extreme Right, Centre Party or Extreme Left? Labour History, No. 89, Nov 2005: 101–119. .
Hanson won 36 per cent of the primary vote, slightly over 10% more than the second-place Labor candidate, Virginia Clarke. However, with all three major parties preferencing each other ahead of Hanson, Liberal candidate Cameron Thompson was able to win the seat despite finishing in third place on the first count. Thompson overtook Clarke on National preferences and defeated Hanson on Labor preferences. It has been suggested by Thompson that Hanson's litigation against parodist Pauline Pantsdown was a distraction from the election, which contributed to her loss.
Nationally, One Nation gained 8.99 percent of the Senate vote and 8.4% of the Representatives vote, but only one MP was elected – Len Harris as a Senator for Queensland. Heather Hill had been elected to this position, but the High Court of Australia ruled that, although she was an Australian citizen, she was ineligible for election to sit as a Senator because she had not renounced her British citizenship.. The High Court found that, at least since 1986, Britain had counted as a 'foreign power' within the meaning of section 44(i) of the Constitution. Disqualification. Hanson alleged in her 2007 autobiography Pauline Hanson: Untamed & Unashamed that a number of other politicians had dual citizenship yet this did not prevent them from holding positions in Parliament.
In 1998, Tony Abbott established a trust fund called "Australians for Honest Politics Trust" to help bankroll civil court cases against the One Nation Party and Hanson herself. John Howard denied any knowledge of the existence of such a fund. Abbott was also accused of offering funds to One Nation dissident Terry Sharples to support his court battle against the party. However, Howard defended the honesty of Abbott in this matter. Abbott conceded that the political threat One Nation posed to the Howard Government was "a very big factor" in his decision to pursue the legal attack, but he also said he was acting "in Australia's national interest". Howard also defended Abbott's actions saying "It's the job of the Liberal Party to politically attack other parties – there's nothing wrong with that."
The reaction of the mainstream political parties was negative, with parliament passing a resolution (supported by all members except Graeme Campbell) condemning her views on immigration and multiculturalism. However, the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, refused to censure Hanson or speak critically about her, acknowledging that her views were shared by many Australians, commenting that he saw the expression of such views as evidence that the "pall of political correctness" had been lifted in Australia, and that Australians could now "speak a little more freely and a little more openly about what they feel".
Hanson immediately labelled Howard a "strong leader" and said Australians were now free to discuss issues without "fear of being branded as a bigot or racist". Over the next few months, Hanson attracted populist anti-immigration sentiment and the attention of the Citizens' Electoral Council, the Australian League of Rights and other right-wing groups. Then-Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock announced a tougher government line on refugee applications, and cut the family reunion intake by 10,000, despite an election promise to maintain immigration levels. Various academic experts, business leaders and several state premiers attacked the justification offered by Ruddock, who had claimed that the reduction had been forced by continuing high unemployment. Various ethnic communities complained that this attack on multiculturalism was a cynical response to polls showing Hanson's rising popularity. Hanson herself claimed credit for forcing the government's hand.
"It has been widely recognised by all, including the media, that John Howard sailed home on One Nation policies. In short, if we were not around, John Howard would not have made the decisions he did."
Other interrelated factors that contributed to her political decline from 1998 to 2002 include her connection with a series of advisors with whom she ultimately fell out (John Pasquarelli, David Ettridge and David Oldfield); disputes amongst her supporters; and a lawsuit over the organisational structure of One Nation.
In 2003, following her release from prison, Hanson unsuccessfully contested the New South Wales state election, running for a seat in the upper house. In January 2004, Hanson announced that she did not intend to return to politics. but then stood as an independent candidate for one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2004 federal election. At the time, Hanson declared, "I don't want all the hangers on. I don't want the advisers and everyone else. I want it to be this time, Pauline Hanson." She was unsuccessful, receiving only 31.77% of the required quota of primary votes, and did not pick up enough additional support through preferences. However, she attracted more votes than the One Nation party (4.54% compared to 3.14%) and, unlike her former party, recovered her deposit from the Australian Electoral Commission and secured $150,000 of public electoral funding. Hanson claimed to have been vilified over campaign funding.
Hanson contested the electoral district of Beaudesert as an independent at the 2009 Queensland state election. Hanson election bid will have voters groaning: Bligh (ABC, 25 February 2009). After an election campaign dominated by discussion over hoax photographs, she was placed third behind the Liberal National Party's Aidan McLindon and Labor's Brett McCreadie. There were conflicting media reports as to whether she had said she would not consider running again. I'll quit politics, says Hanson ( Sydney Morning Herald, 22 March 2009). Hanson defeated, blames hoax photos: The Advertiser .
On 23 July 2010, while at an event promoting her new career as a motivational speaker, Hanson expressed interest in returning to the political stage as a Liberal candidate if an invitation were to be offered by the leader Tony Abbott in the 2010 federal election. No such offer was made.
From the start of proceedings, the NSW Electoral Commissioner maintained the view that Hanson's claims lacked substance. The man who alerted Hanson to the alleged emails, who identified himself as "Michael Rattner", failed to appear in court on 8 June 2011 "Rattner" was revealed to be Shaun Castle, a history teacher who posed as a journalist to obtain embargoed progressive poll results.
"Michael Rattner" was a pun on Mickey Mouse and reports linked the pseudonym to an "anti-voter-fraud" organisation led by Amy McGrath and Alasdair Webster.
After having refused to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination, Castle apologised to the court and was granted protection from prosecution by Justice McClellan, before being compelled to answer questions relating to the fraudulent email. The judge ordered that Hanson's legal costs of more than $150,000 be paid by the State of New South Wales – a move which outraged Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham, who would have been replaced by Hanson had her challenge been successful. Questioning whether Hanson's legal action should have gone ahead at all given the nature of the evidence, Buckingham said that "This lack of judgement shows that she's unfit for public office." Earlier, the judge, Justice McClellan, said Hanson had no other remedy but to take legal action after receiving the fraudulent email.
One Nation won three seats in the Western Australian Legislative Council at the 2001 state election, but the electoral success of One Nation began to deteriorate after this point because the split-away of One Nation NSW began to spark further lack of party unity, and a series of gaffes by One Nation members and candidates, particularly in Queensland.
Hanson resigned from One Nation in January 2002 and John Fischer, the State Leader from Western Australia, was elected the Federal President of One Nation.
On 24 May 2007, Hanson launched Pauline's United Australia Party. Now Pauline's for a united Australia , The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 May 2007. Retrieved 28 February 2010. Under that banner, Hanson again contested one of Queensland's seats in the Senate in the 2007 federal election, when she received over 4 percent of total votes. The party name invokes that of the historic United Australia Party. Speaking on her return to politics, she stated: "I have had all the major political parties attack me, been kicked out of my own party and ended up in prison, but I don't give up." Hanson flying below radar for one last shot at Senate ( The Age, 20 November 2007). In October 2007, Hanson launched her campaign song, entitled "Australian Way of Life", which included the line: "Welcome everyone, no matter where you come from." Hanson launches campaign song ( The Age, 5 October 2007)
After an unsuccessful campaign in the 2009 Queensland state election, Hanson announced in 2010 that she planned to deregister Pauline's United Australia Party, sell her Queensland house and move to the United Kingdom. Pauline Hanson says goodbye to Australia ( Woman's Day, 15 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010.) I won't call Australia home: Hanson plans to emigrate ( Sydney Morning Herald, 15 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010. Right-wing Australian politician Pauline Hanson to move to Britain ( Telegraph (UK), 15 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010. Buyers intrigued by Pauline's paradise ( Brisbane Times, 15 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010. The announcement was warmly welcomed by Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP). British far-right leader welcomes Hanson ( Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010. When considering moving, Hanson said that she would not sell her house to Muslims. However, following an extended holiday in Europe, Hanson said in November 2010 that she had decided not to move to Britain because it was "overrun with immigrants and refugees." Hanson lives in Beaudesert, Queensland.
In November 2014, Hanson announced that she had returned as One Nation leader, prior to the party's announcement, following support from One Nation party members. She announced that she would contest the seat of Lockyer in the 2015 Queensland state election. One Nation held the Queensland seat of Lockyer from 1998 to 2004. In February 2015, Hanson lost the seat by a narrow margin.
After being elected to the parliament, she and other One Nation senators voted with the governing Coalition on a number of welfare cuts,
and usually supported the government.
On 17 August 2017, Hanson received criticism after wearing a burqa, which she claims "oppresses women", into the Senate. Attorney-General George Brandis got a standing ovation from Labor and Greens senators after he gave an "emotional" speech saying to Hanson: "To ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments is an appalling thing to do." Following the incident, polling found that 57% of Australians supported Hanson's call to ban the burka in public places, with 44% "strongly" supporting a ban. In August 2017, the party's constitution was changed, for Hanson to become party President for as long as she may wish and to choose her successor, who may also continue until resignation.
On 22 March 2018, Hanson announced that One Nation would back the Turnbull government's corporate tax cuts. She subsequently reversed her position, citing the failure of the government to cut immigration levels and support coal-fired power.
On 15 October 2018, Hanson proposed an "It's OK to be white" motion in the Australian Senate intended to acknowledge the "deplorable rise of anti-white racism and attacks on Western civilisation". It was supported by most senators from the governing Liberal-National Coalition, but was defeated 31–28 by opponents who called it a racist slogan from the white supremacist movement. The following day, the motion was "recommitted", and this time rejected unanimously by senators in attendance, with its initial supporters in the Liberal-National Coalition saying they had voted for it due to an administrative error (One Nation did not attend the recommital vote).
On 18 September 2019, the Liberal government announced that Hanson would co-chair the newly announced parliamentary inquiry into family law along with Kevin Andrews. She proposed a parliament motion advocating opposition to the proposed Great Reset of the World Economic Forum, on the belief that it is cover for creating a New World Order. Her proposal was defeated by 37 votes to 2.
In 2019, Hanson campaigned against a ban on climbing Uluru, a sacred site for local Aboriginal people. Shortly before the ban came into effect, in August, the Nine Network paid for Hanson's trip to Uluru and on their A Current Affair program she was shown in a controversial episode climbing the rock.
Beginning in May 2019, Hanson was a regular contributor on the Nine Network's Today. She was removed from the role in July 2020 after describing people who lived in Melbourne public housing as drug addicts who couldn't speak English.
Following the 2019 federal election, One Nation obtained $2.8 million in electoral expenses from the Australian Electoral Commission. Later, the Commission required One Nation to repay $165,442 as money that had not been spent or not spent for electoral purposes. In addition, it is reported: "Hanson has personally agreed to an enforceable undertaking. And the party must in future make sure all invoices are in Hanson’s name, the party’s name or the name of a party officer. And make sure that all invoices match payment receipts, credit card or bank statements."
In June 2021, following media reports that the proposed national curriculum was "preoccupied with the oppression, discrimination and struggles of Indigenous Australians", the Australian Senate approved a motion tabled by Hanson calling on the federal government to reject Critical race theory CRT, despite it not being included in the curriculum.
Hanson later stated that her opposition was to a motion that the Aboriginal flag and Torres Strait Islander flag, which are both official flags of Australia, should be raised inside the Senate chamber alongside the Australian flag.
In 2023, Hanson criticised New South Wales One Nation leader Mark Latham's homophobic tweet in response to openly gay fellow politician Alex Greenwich, and called for him to apologise.
On 24 November 2025, Hanson wore a burqa on the Senate floor in a scene similar to a stunt performed in 2017. This was after a bill to ban the burqa failed. The entire Senate chamber was suspended for 90 minutes as a result of Hanson's action. She was formally by the Senate the next day and was suspended for seven sitting days.
| + Queensland Legislative Assembly |
| + New South Wales Legislative Council |
| + Australian House of Representatives |
| + Australian Senate |
In 1998, the resurgence of popularity of Hanson was met with disappointment in Asian media. Her resignation from politics in 2002 was met with support from academics, politicians and the press across Asia. In 2004, Hanson appeared on the nationally televised ABC TV interview show Enough Rope, where her views were challenged.
Hanson is opposed to same-sex marriage and voted against it in the Senate. She also stated she would ignore a majority "yes" result in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey on the issue.
Hanson called for Australia to help Donald Trump by entering the 2026 Iran war.[16]
After Hanson was elected to Parliament in 1996, journalist Tracey Curro asked her on 60 Minutes whether she was xenophobic. Hanson replied, "Please explain?" This response became a much-parodied catchphrase within Australian culture and was included in the title of the 2016 SBS documentary film
In 2006, Hanson stated that African immigrants were bringing diseases into Australia and were of "no benefit to this country whatsoever". She also stated her opposition to Muslim immigration. Ten years after her maiden speech, its effects were still being discussed within a racism framework, and were included in resources funded by the Queensland Government on "Combating racism in Queensland". In 2007, Hanson publicly backed Kevin Andrews, then Minister for Immigration under John Howard, in his views about African migrants and crime.
Hanson does not support reinstating the White Australia policy.
In 2018 Hanson called for immigration numbers to be capped at 75,000 a year. In 2025, Hanson called for immigration to be cut to 130,000 a year.
After the January 2017 Melbourne car attack, Hanson repeated her stance on banning Muslims from entering Australia. In a live interview after the attack, she stated: "all terrorist attacks in this country have been by Muslims", on which she was corrected by a journalist. In response, the Islamic Council of Victoria asked for a public apology for Hanson's statement.
On 24 March 2017, after the 2017 Westminster attack, Hanson made an announcement in a video posted to social media, holding up a piece of paper with her own proposed hash tag “#Pray4MuslimBan”. “That is how you solve the problem, put a ban on it and then let’s deal with the issues here”, she said.
On 22 June 2017, Hanson moved a motion in the Senate calling on the government to respond to the Halal inquiry. The motion was passed.
On 17 August 2017, Hanson wore a burqa onto the floor of the Australian Senate in a move to rally support for a national ban of the religious attire, citing "national security" concerns. The move quickly became widely condemned by Labor, the Greens and the Liberal Party. In response, the Attorney-General George Brandis, who is tasked with giving advice on national security legislation, gave an "emotional" speech calling Hanson's stunt "an appalling thing to do" and advised Hanson "to be very very careful of the offense you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians", to which both Labor and Greens' Senators gave a standing ovation.Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine:
In September 2022, Hanson tweeted that Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi should "piss off back to Pakistan". This came after Faruqi was slammed over an allegedly "appalling" tweet about Queen Elizabeth II after her death. Subsequently, Faruqi decided to launch court proceedings against Hanson for "breaching section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975". On 1 November 2024, it was reported that Federal Court of Australia judge Angus Stewart had ruled that Hanson's tweet was an "angry personal attack", unconnected with the issues Faruqi raised, and was therefore "anti-Muslim or Islamophobic". Hanson was ordered to delete the tweet and Faruqi was awarded costs for the entire proceedings. Hanson said that she would appeal the decision. along with Sue Chrysanthou, Hanson is appealing the judgement.
In November 2025, Hanson wore a burqa on the Senate floor in a scene similar to a stunt performed in 2017. This was after a bill to ban the burqa failed. The entire Senate chamber was suspended for 90 minutes as a result of Hanson's action.
Hanson did not relent in articulating her views and continued to address public meetings around Australia. The League of Rights offered financial and organisational support for her campaign against Asian immigration, and in December she announced she was considering forming a political party to contest the next election. Alexander Downer, minister for foreign affairs under John Howard, issued a media release calling on Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge to distance themselves from racist slurs. foreignminister.gov.au Hanson Must Disassociate Herself From Racist Slurs In 2000, the University of NSW Press published the book Race, Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand, which identified Hanson as a central figure in the "racism debate" in Australia of the 1990s, noting that senior Australian academics such as Jon Stratton, Ghassan Hage and Andrew Jakubowicz had explored Hanson's significance in an international as well as national context.
Academics, commentators and political analysts have continued to discuss Hanson's legacy and impact upon Australian politics since her rise to prominence in the 1990s and her political comeback in 2016. Milton Osborne noted that public opinion research indicated Hanson's initial support in the 1990s was not necessarily motivated by racist or anti-immigration sentiments, but instead from voters concerned about globalisation and unemployment. In 2019, Hans-Georg Betz identified Hanson as among the first populist politicians to mobilize a public following by targeting "the intellectual elite" in their messages, and that in the twentyfirst century, with "today’s army of self-styled commentators and pundits summarily dismissing radical right-wing populist voters as uncouth, uneducated plebeians intellectually incapable of understanding the blessings of progressive identity politics, Hanson’s anti-elite rhetoric anno 1996 proved remarkably prescient, if rather tame".
(Original work published 2021) She has been accused of having "sought to exploit the COVID-19 crisis by manufacturing anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia with the purpose of legitimising her party's long-standing policies on issues like immigration", such as by "almost exclusively referring to COVID-19 as the 'Chinese virus. She is also said to have "used the crisis to call for Australia to withdraw from its free trade agreement with China, has urged Australians to boycott products made in China, called for the immediate suspension of all Chinese foreign investment into Australia and suggested that backpackers and foreign workers should be denied welfare assistance and called for Australia to cease all foreign aid". She accused the United Nations and World Health Organisation of acing as a "propaganda arm of the Chinese Government". Hanson has also been implicated of having "floated the unfounded conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was developed in a Chinese laboratory and has suggested that China has ‘unleashed’ Coronavirus on the world". This occurred during a time of increased racist attacks against Chinese and Asian people living in Australia.
In 1980, Hanson (then Pauline Zagorski) married Mark Hanson, a divorced tradesman working on the Gold Coast in Queensland. They honeymooned in South-East Asia. Mark Hanson had a daughter from his previous marriage, and he later had two children with Hanson: Adam and Lee. Together they established a trades and construction business, in which Hanson was in charge of the administrative and bookkeeping work, and would on occasion assist her husband on more practical work. Hanson has written about her difficult marriage, where alcohol and domestic violence impacted her family. They divorced in 1987. Lee was a candidate for One Nation in the 2025 Australian federal election.
In 1988, Hanson began a relationship with Morrie Marsden, a businessman in Queensland. Together, they established a catering service under the holding company Marsden Hanson Pty Ltd, and operated from their fish and chips store, Marsden's Seafood, in Silkstone, Queensland. Marsden worked on Hanson's campaign for political office in the seat of Oxley in 1996, and was a member of her staff after her election. When Hanson began to receive national and international media attention for her views, Marsden left the relationship. Hanson had begun a relationship with Ipswich man Rick Gluyas in 1994. Gluyas encouraged her to run as a candidate in the 1994 Ipswich City Council election, in which he also ran. Both were elected. Hanson and Gluyas ended their relationship some time after this, with Hanson retaining the home and property they had owned jointly at Coleyville, near Ipswich.
In 1996, Hanson began a relationship with David Oldfield. In 2000, all of Hanson's relations with Oldfield ended when he was dismissed from Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
In 2005, Hanson began a relationship with Chris Callaghan, a country music singer and political activist. He wrote and composed the song "The Australian Way of Life", which was used in Hanson's 2007 campaign for the Australian Senate, under her new United Australia Party. In 2007, Hanson revealed that she and Callaghan were engaged. However, in 2008, Hanson broke off the relationship.
In 2011, while campaigning for the New South Wales Legislative Council, Hanson began a relationship with property developer and real estate agent Tony Nyquist.
On 20 August 2003, a jury in the District Court of Queensland convicted Hanson and David Ettridge of electoral fraud. Both Hanson and Ettridge were sentenced to three years imprisonment for falsely claiming that 500 members of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement were members of the political organisation Pauline Hanson's One Nation to register that organisation in Queensland as a political party and apply for electoral funding. Because the registration was found to be unlawful, Hanson's receipt of electoral funding worth $498,637 resulted in two further convictions for dishonestly obtaining property, each with three-year sentences, to run concurrently with the first. The sentence was widely criticised in the media, and by some politicians, including the prime minister, John Howard, and Liberal politician Bronwyn Bishop, as being too harsh.Mackenzie, Geraldine. "The Hanson trial: please explain?", Southern Cross University Law Review, Vol. 8, 2004, pp. 162–176. .
On 6 November 2003, delivering judgment the day after hearing the appeal, the Queensland Court of Appeal quashed all of Hanson and Ettridge's convictions. Hanson, having spent 11 weeks in jail, was immediately released along with Ettridge. The court's unanimous decision was that the evidence did not support a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that the people on the list were not members of the Pauline Hanson's One Nation party and that Hanson and Ettridge knew this when the application to register the party was submitted. Accordingly, the convictions regarding registration were quashed. The convictions regarding funding, which depended on the same facts, were also quashed..
In 2011, Hanson was a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice. Pauline Hanson says she felt betrayed and set up after being fired from Celebrity Apprentice at news.com.au, 15 November 2011. Retrieved 6 August 2016
Following her successful relaunch of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party at the 2016 federal Senate election, with four senators elected, including herself, a documentary was made by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) entitled .
Hanson purchased an investment property in Maitland, New South Wales, in 2012, selling it in 2023 for $1.1 million. As of January 2026, Hanson owns two properties in Queensland.
Hanson has shareholdings in BCB Coal, Webjet and AMP Limited.
David Ettridge, the One Nation party director, said that the book's claims were intended to correct "misconceptions" about Aboriginal history. These alleged misconceptions were said to be relevant to modern-day Aboriginal welfare funding. He asserted that "the suggestion that we should be feeling some concern for modern day Aborigines for suffering in the past is balanced a bit by the alternative view of whether you can feel sympathy for people who eat their babies".Murdoch University The International Prohibition Of Racist Organisations: An Australian Perspective The book predicted that in 2050 Australia would have a lesbian president of Chinese-Indian background called Poona Li Hung who would be a cyborg.Books Google Subjectivity By Nick Mansfield, The Subject and Technology Page 161 In 2004, Hanson said that the book was "Ghostwriter" and that, while she held the copyright in the book, she was unaware that much of the material was being published under her name.
In March 2007, Hanson published her autobiography, Untamed and Unashamed.
In 2018, Hanson and Tony Abbott launched a collection of Hanson's speeches, Pauline: In Her Own Words, compiled by journalist Tom Ravlic.
In the 2017 Bald Archies, Hanson was featured prominently with one such artwork including Told Ya painted by Jack G Kennedy.
In 2023, Merry Sparks painted a picture of Hanson in a similar style to a picture of Mao Zedong in similar red colours to those used by the Chinese Communist Party.
|
|
