Pauline Hanson told 3AW's Tom Elliott on Tuesday that Victoria should be able to sack judges who hand down sentences the public won't wear, and that she's spent years pushing for an independent board with the power to haul them in. No such power exists in Victoria. Judges hold office until they turn 70, and the only grounds for removing one are proved misbehaviour or incapacity. A sentence, however soft, isn't one of them.
The One Nation founder and federal leader was in the 3AW studio alongside Warren Pickering, the party's recently appointed Victorian leader, ahead of the state election in November.
"I've advocated for an independent board to be set up," Hanson said. "So if the sentences handed down by a judge are not in line with what the public believe in, then they can be called before the board, be made accountable, and you're going to be put up to losing your job."
She went further a moment later. "I think the people have a right to say, hey, listen mate, you're not giving us the sentence that befits the crime," she said. "They've got to be made accountable."
The Judicial Commission of Victoria is barred by law from reviewing a single sentence a judge hands down
Section 87AAK of the Constitution Act 1975 establishes the Judicial Commission of Victoria. Section 87AAL gives it four jobs: setting standards of professional conduct, handling complaints about judicial officers, supporting investigating panels, and educating the public about what it does. It covers judges, magistrates, coroners, judicial registrars and VCAT members.
What it won't do is set out on the Commission's own complaints page. It doesn't examine "a decision made by a judicial officer or VCAT member". It doesn't examine "judicial processes, or the way an officer has applied the law".
That exclusion is exactly what Hanson is pointing at. A complaint about how a judge behaved will be examined, while a complaint about the sentence that judge handed down goes nowhere.
Sacking a Victorian judge needs a panel finding first and 60% of both houses second
Elliott put it to Hanson that judges are appointed effectively for life, and asked what she'd do about it. Hanson said the lifetime protection she had in mind sat with the federal courts, and that at state level it should be possible to "get rid of the judges".
Victoria's bar is high, but it isn't absolute. Section 87AAB of the same Act says the Governor in Council may remove the holder of a judicial office on an address from both houses of parliament "agreed to by a special majority in the same session praying for that removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity".
Two conditions sit on top of that. A resolution of either house is void unless an investigating panel has already concluded that facts exist that could amount to proved misbehaviour or incapacity. And "special majority" is defined in the same Act as three fifths of the whole number of the members of the Assembly and of the Council, which is 60% of every seat in each chamber, not a majority of whoever turns up to vote.
The Act then shuts every other door: "Except as provided by this Part, no holder of a judicial office can be removed from that office."
So a Victorian judge can be removed, but only for misconduct or ill health, and only through a process that starts with a panel finding and ends with 60% of both chambers. Nothing anywhere in it reaches sentencing. That's the gap Hanson wants a board with real teeth to fill.
Victoria's judges aren't anonymous, and the Judicial Commission names them when it's finished
The Supreme Court publishes a full list of its bench, giving each judge's name, division and date of appointment, with Chief Justice Richard Niall at the top since 3 February 2025. The same court publishes video recordings of judicial welcome ceremonies, so the faces are on the public record too.
The Judicial Commission publishes an outcome statement when it finishes an investigation, and most of them name the judicial officer involved. It put out three in July.
None of that reaches the sentence. A judge's name, appointment date and written reasons are all public. The decision itself is reviewable only on appeal, and only by other judges.
Warren Pickering says he'd take the premiership and leave the Liberals as the junior partner
The sharpest answer in the interview hasn't been reported anywhere. Elliott asked Pickering what happens if One Nation and the coalition together hold enough seats to force Labor out, and One Nation ends up with more of them than the coalition does.
Asked whether he'd seek to become premier of Victoria, Pickering said: "Absolutely." Asked whether that would make the coalition the junior partner, he said "absolutely" again, and said it would be the will of the people who voted that way.
He wouldn't be drawn on dividing up ministries. "We need to earn the trust of Victorians for the next four months before we even start to consider things like that," he said, while confirming the party has already settled on its senior ministerial advisory picks. Hanson named one portfolio outright, saying that if One Nation gets education it "would definitely be Colleen Harkin".
Pauline Hanson tells Jess Wilson to get rid of the arrogance before anyone talks preferences
Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson has ruled out an alliance with One Nation and says she's focused on winning a majority in her own right. Hanson's answer was that the attitude goes first.
"To have the sheer arrogance saying we're not going to form a coalition, I don't want a coalition with them either," Hanson said. "If they have a certain number of elected members and we have a certain number of elected members, will we join our numbers to actually make sure we can form a government to get rid of the Labor government?"
She said she was quite willing to talk, then addressed Wilson directly: "Get rid of the arrogance, Jess." One Nation has put the Greens last and Labor second last in every state for years, she said, and the Liberals know it.
It's the same wall Jane Hume put up. The Liberal and National parties need a net gain of 16 seats in the 88 seat lower house to govern alone and end 12 straight years of Labor.
One Nation's Victorian policy document is still weeks away, and the farming policy lands on 29 August
Hanson put the candidate count at about 122, covering all 88 lower house seats plus upper house tickets, with four in the regions. She said One Nation took 1,200 expressions of interest for the state election and 1,500 for the next federal one, and that a large number came from former police officers. The party's upper house ticket was announced on Monday.
Pickering said the policy document is comprehensive and asked voters to hold their judgement until they've read it, with the farming policy to be released around the Farmers Fight Back event on 29 August. On crime he gave the shape of it: "We want to make, firstly, bleeding heart judges accountable for these second time offences. We've got to get rid of this tag and release program that's just making Victorians feel unsafe."
On treaty he was blunter about the timing. "Day one week one we'll be rolling back the First Nations Assembly in Victoria," Pickering said. "It's undemocratic and it divides us by race." He put the cost at about $70 million a year. Hanson said she thinks it's north of $100 million.
Tom Elliott says an unnamed judicial officer described the Victorian bench to him as left wing
Elliott volunteered his own account during the interview. He said he met a judge or magistrate last year who told him the Victorian bench is "so overwhelmingly left wing" that "they do not believe in incarcerating people", and that the mindset is hard to shift. He didn't name the person, and the claim rests on his recollection alone.
Hanson picked the thread up when Elliott asked about One Nation locking out the ABC, The Age and The Guardian from Monday's events. The three outlets are "left leaning like your judges", she said. She also said the ban won't last, that she did the same to the ABC for nine months in 1996, and that the message is simply to give One Nation a fair go.
Hanson has been clear about what she'd do with the numbers. She wants an independent board that can call a judge in over a sentence and put that judge's job on the line, and Pickering wants tag and release gone with it. Delivering it means amending the Constitution Act, which is exactly the sort of thing a parliament with One Nation numbers in it could put on the table in November.
