One Nation has just hit the top of the national polls for the first time in the Sky News Pulse / YouGov poll's history, at 29%, ahead of Labor on 26% and the Coalition on 20%. On the same Thursday night that polling lead was running, Andrew Bolt spent the Bolt Report airing an edit of Barnaby Joyce on One Nation policy that included the first take and the correction Joyce returned to the set to record minutes later. Bolt closed the segment by asking viewers whether One Nation was ready for government. Later the same night, current Nationals leader Matt Canavan went on Sharri Markson's Sky News program and questioned the same thing.

One Nation Now Tops the Country

That's a 23 point gain on the party's 2025 federal election result. Redbridge/Accent polling conducted in the two weeks after the May 2026 federal budget had One Nation higher again at 31%, with Labor on 28% and the Coalition on 20%. Roy Morgan has had Labor and One Nation tied for the lead. The Joyce segment aired in that polling context.

Joyce's Move to One Nation

Barnaby Joyce defected from the Nationals to One Nation on 8 December 2025, retaining his New England seat as a One Nation MP in the lower house. He's scheduled to lead the party's NSW Senate ticket at the 2028 federal election. Since the defection, Bolt has interviewed Joyce on multiple One Nation policy areas including gas, taxation, and Thursday night's question on foreign home ownership.

What Joyce Was Actually Arguing

The Senate estimates hearing earlier this week revealed more than 51,000 permanent residents had accessed the federal government's first home buyer deposit scheme since eligibility was expanded in 2023. The scheme lets eligible buyers purchase a home with a 5% deposit, with the Commonwealth guaranteeing part of the loan. Joyce's underlying argument on Bolt's program was that the scheme should be restricted to Australian citizens. That's a policy question with a real number behind it.

Two Answers, Minutes Apart

In the first interview, Joyce was asked about One Nation's policy on foreign ownership of Australian homes. He suggested the policy could require permanent residents to sell or face repossession if they didn't progress to citizenship within two years. According to Bolt's segment, Joyce made phone calls on set after the interview ended, returned to Bolt within minutes, and recorded a second answer. In that take, Joyce said the policy applied to foreign citizens who weren't permanent residents, and not to permanent residents who already owned their homes. Joyce told viewers the issue "needed further clarity" and he'd got it.

What the Policy Actually Says

One Nation's published platform calls for stopping property sales to non-residents and non-citizens, with foreign owners given two years to sell or face repossession. Pauline Hanson has said publicly that "foreigners who aren't Australian citizens shouldn't own Australian homes" and previously told parliament around 108,000 dwellings are owned by non-citizens. The Indian Sun reported earlier this week that the policy as published could capture permanent residents who live, work and pay taxes in Australia but haven't taken citizenship, and that One Nation hasn't detailed whether permanent residents would receive an exemption. Joyce's first answer was consistent with one reading of the published policy. His second answer narrowed it.

Australian citizenship eligibility requires 4 years of lawful residence with the most recent 12 months as a permanent resident, under Section 22 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Most long-term permanent residents are already on track to citizenship under Labor's existing pathway. Joyce's policy, particularly in its corrected form covering only foreign citizens who aren't permanent residents, is closer to asking PRs to take a step they're already eligible for than imposing a new burden on them.

Bolt's Moral Dilemma

Bolt had Joyce's corrected answer on tape before he went to air with the segment. Standard broadcast practice when an interviewee returns to correct themselves within minutes is to run the corrected version with a brief note that the guest came back to clarify. That option was available, and Bolt acknowledged it on air. He chose a different one. He aired both takes. He told viewers he'd had "a moral dilemma" about how to present it, that he could have run only the corrected answer or saved Joyce embarrassment with editing, but he'd decided to air both. He closed by saying "One Nation is literally making up policy as it goes along" and posed the question: "Is One Nation yet ready for government?"

Hanson Settles It

The morning after the Bolt Report aired, Pauline Hanson posted a public statement on X at 9:08am setting out One Nation's policy in writing. Within hours the post had drawn more than 27,000 views.

Hanson confirmed the policy applies to "foreign owners, temporary visa holders and foreign citizens residing overseas," who would have two years to sell their Australian residential properties. She explicitly carved out permanent residents: "Permanent residents have been accepted to settle in Australia permanently. They live here, work here, pay taxes here and build their lives here. Many are on the path to citizenship. One Nation's policy does not require them to sell their homes."

That's Joyce's second answer, ratified in writing by the party leader within 14 hours of Bolt going to air with the "literally making up policy as it goes along" framing.

Hanson also placed the policy in the context of existing Commonwealth law. She noted the Commonwealth already bans most foreign persons, including temporary residents and foreign-owned companies, from purchasing established dwellings, with limited exceptions. That ban was introduced by Labor on 1 April 2025 and extended in the May 2026 federal budget through to 30 June 2029, confirmed by Treasury and the ATO. Hanson's argument was that One Nation's policy effectively extends those bans from established dwellings to new homes as well. "Politicians attacking One Nation's policy are attacking a principle the government already applies," she wrote.

Where Canavan Has Spent His Time

After the Bolt interview aired, current Nationals leader Matt Canavan went on Sharri Markson's Sky News program and said the segment was "a bit sad" and "pretty tough to watch." Canavan referred to Hanson as "the putative Prime Minister Pauline Hanson" and said the original policy idea would be "heartless and unnecessarily divisive."

Canavan's most public media interventions in 2026 have been about One Nation. In February he criticised Hanson over her "no good Muslims" comments. In March, on his first news conference as new Nationals leader, he hit at Hanson again over identity politics on the right. Thursday night was the latest. Each of these has come at a moment when One Nation has been polling above his own party.

Canavan was Joyce's chief of staff from 2010 to 2013 and his closest political ally for years. He became Nationals leader on 11 March 2026 after David Littleproud quit the role, in a leadership change The Conversation described at the time as a Nationals response to One Nation's polling surge.

The right needs preferences from One Nation to ever return to government. The Nationals leader spending his 2026 media energy on the centre right party polling 29% rather than the Labor government polling 26% leaves voters with a fair question to ask about whose interests the pattern serves.

A Wider 2026 Pattern From Bolt

The Joyce segment isn't the only signal of where Bolt has positioned himself in 2026. His Herald Sun columns and Sky commentary this year have staked out positions that don't sit with parts of the centre right press on several active matters.

On the Roberts-Smith Prosecution

Bolt has publicly supported the criminal prosecution of former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with five war crime offences. Those proceedings are active. In his Herald Sun column and on his Sky commentary around Anzac Day, Bolt has argued patriotism can't be measured by blind loyalty to a Victoria Cross holder facing serious charges. He has framed support for the prosecution as a test of Australia's values.

On Andrew Hastie

Bolt has also publicly defended Liberal MP and former SAS officer Andrew Hastie, who has served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition under Angus Taylor since 17 February 2026, against what Bolt has described as a smear campaign. Hastie gave evidence for the defence in the 2022 Roberts-Smith defamation trial and appeared as a key interviewee in the December 2023 Stan documentary "Revealed: Ben Roberts-Smith - Truth on Trial," made in collaboration with 60 Minutes, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and narrated by Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters.

One Nation has publicly opposed Hastie's role. James Ashby, Pauline Hanson's chief of staff and longstanding adviser, delivered what The Conversation described as "a very direct political threat" to Hastie on Sky News last week. Ashby said One Nation would "stand by Ben Roberts-Smith right to the very end, despite what the allegations are" and noted One Nation had 430 paid members in Hastie's Canning electorate. One Nation used the Roberts-Smith issue at the Farrer by-election with corflutes reading "HE FOUGHT FOR US. ONE NATION STANDS WITH HIM."

In one Sky segment defending Hastie, Bolt said Hastie had been "savaged on social media and email campaigns as a rat, a traitor, a coward" and noted the Federal Court of Appeal judgment had referenced Hastie's evidence in the earlier defamation proceedings with praise for his honesty. Bolt has separately publicly nominated Hastie as a future Opposition Leader, and spoken positively of Hastie and Angus Taylor as Liberal leadership figures.

The Roberts-Smith criminal proceedings are active and untested.

The Published Record

The pattern across Bolt's 2026 published work is observable. On his program this week he aired both Joyce takes and questioned One Nation's readiness to govern. In separate columns and segments this year he's backed the prosecution of a former soldier One Nation has publicly stood by, and defended a sitting Liberal MP One Nation is openly campaigning against. He's also publicly nominated that MP, now Deputy Opposition Leader, as a future Coalition leader.

One Nation now leads the primary vote in the Sky News Pulse / YouGov poll for the first time in that poll's history. The polling, like the segment, sits on the public record.

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