Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart were met by chants of "Pauline Hanson go to hell, take Rinehart there as well" on Saturday night, as the pair arrived at Sydney's Star casino for the Charlie Teo Foundation's annual Rebel Ball.
Footage posted to X by commentator Kobie Thatcher showed a crowd outside the venue carrying red flags and placards reading "Smash racism" and "One Nation, zero policies", with the chant directed at the two women as they walked into the black tie event.
Video: 7News. 7News reports the NSW Police Riot Squad was called to The Star as protesters gathered outside Charlie Teo Foundation's Rebel Ball on Saturday night.
The event was a charity ball, not a political rally
The Rebel Ball is the Charlie Teo Foundation's annual fundraiser for brain cancer research, held this year at the Sydney Event Centre at The Star in Pyrmont. According to the Foundation, Rinehart has been a founding supporter since the charity's official launch in 2018, and was the night's guest of honour. The black tie evening was hosted by radio broadcaster Ray Hadley OAM, with Marcia Hines AM performing.
That's what separates Saturday's gathering from the protests before it. The Rebel Ball isn't a One Nation event or a political function. It's a charity dinner raising money for medical research, and the people inside had bought tickets to support it.
Who organised the protest
The protest was called by the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and the Refugee Action Collective under the banner "No room for racism". The Sydney call out, circulated on activist Facebook pages, named Hanson, One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce and Rinehart as its targets.
The Sydney network is associated with long time refugee and anti racism organiser Ian Rintoul, the public spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition Sydney.
Protesters with placards outside Pauline Hanson's Sydney Charliet Teo charity ball event Video: @KobeThatcher.
The third stop in a fortnight
Saturday's gathering was the latest in a run of demonstrations trailing Hanson around the country.
The same networks turned out in Moonee Ponds in Melbourne on 12 June, where around 400 people gathered and the original One Nation dinner venue, Casa Giorgio, cancelled hours before the event. The party relocated to Canvas House in South Melbourne and the dinner went ahead.
Five days later, on 17 June, protesters gathered outside the National Press Club in Canberra for Hanson's first ever address to the club. About 40 demonstrators chanted "Pauline Hanson go to hell, take your racists there as well" as One Nation senators arrived. Inside the venue, the activist group GetUp claimed responsibility for a banner that dropped behind Hanson during her speech, which the National Press Club has now referred to the Australian Federal Police. The Press Club said political activist David Sharaz was "seen filming the incident on his phone and, after the banner had lowered, left abruptly", and has rejected his membership application.
Socialist Alternative's Red Flag magazine has openly framed the wider effort as "combating the threat of Pauline Hanson's One Nation", citing One Nation's recent Farrer by election win and its surge in national polling.
Why Rinehart is a target too
Rinehart has appeared on the protest target lists in recent weeks because of her public alignment with Hanson.
The mining magnate used her keynote speech at the Townsville Bush Summit on 18 June, just two days before the Rebel Ball, to thank Hanson by name and lay out her ideas of a regional investment plan that mirrored One Nation's platform. The speech, delivered to a News Corp audience, was paired with Hancock Prospecting's announcement of a $1.4 billion stake in Elon Musk's SpaceX three days earlier.
Hanson has also said publicly that Rinehart raises policy ideas with her. In an interview with SBS News in May, Hanson said, "Why shouldn't she talk to me about policy? No one changes my vision, what I have for Australia, what I want to do. I'm quite happy to listen to anyone. Why wouldn't I listen to Gina Rinehart?" Hanson has also taken delivery of a Cirrus G7 aircraft gifted by one of Rinehart's companies, and has travelled to the US to address the Conservative Political Action Conference at Mar a Lago on Rinehart's private jet.
Where this is heading
The protests have so far stayed outside the venues. But the pattern is consistent. Organised crowds. The same chant. A target list that now runs from a sitting senator to one of the country's most prominent business figures, confronted as they walked into a charity event for brain cancer research.
One Nation has argued for weeks that the activity around Hanson is escalating. Saturday night did nothing to weaken that argument.
