Pauline Hanson's repeated security warnings ignored as the targeting campaign now escalates

Pauline Hanson's office has been formally warning the federal government that "something terrible could soon occur" if her Australian Federal Police protection isn't upgraded. The warnings haven't been acted on.

The Daily Telegraph ran the story as an exclusive this morning, following original reporting in The Nightly by political correspondent Andrew Greene. The detail is straightforward, and it's confronting.

Hanson's chief of staff James Ashby wrote to a Cabinet Minister in early May setting out the threat picture. In one of those messages he warned that "it only takes one crazy person" to physically harm the One Nation leader. Weeks later, a man armed with several knives was reportedly detained by police outside her hotel in Albury, on the eve of the Farrer poll.

What James Ashby actually told the government

Ashby's correspondence to ministers, and to commercial aviation companies, sets out two things in plain language. The first is that Hanson is being approached and confronted in public at a rate the AFP's own protection veterans describe as extraordinary. The second is that the people doing the approaching aren't all disgruntled members of the public anymore.

In formal correspondence to aviation companies, Ashby wrote that "like other high profile Australian politicians, [Senator Hanson's] personal security is sometimes tested by members of the public and those with extreme ideologies."

He went on to write that "the public's ability to track this aircraft leaves her and those onboard the aircraft vulnerable to security threats and I'm hoping you can assist in removing the aircraft from your app."

That request was made because GetUp, the left wing activist group, built a website specifically to track Hanson's private plane and publish her movements.

The National Press Club stunt that GetUp claimed

On Wednesday 17 June, Hanson made her first National Press Club address in three decades. Mid speech, a "drop down screen" was lowered onto the stage behind her. GetUp publicly claimed responsibility for the breach. ACT Policing is investigating, the AFP has been referred evidence, and the Press Club has apologised to Hanson and confirmed it's considering legal options including recovering the cost of significant damage to the media wall.

The Press Club has also rejected the membership application of David Sharaz over his involvement in the stunt.

Strip the politics out and what's left is this. A group of activists got physical infrastructure smuggled into a secure venue where a sitting Senator was speaking. That's a security breach, not a protest. The fact it ended with a banner instead of something worse doesn't make it less serious. It makes the next one more dangerous.

The Albury knife incident on the eve of polling

One Nation figures have told media a man carrying several knives was detained by police outside Hanson's hotel in Albury, on the eve of the Farrer poll. The detail came via The Nightly's reporting and lines up with the timeline of Ashby's earlier warning to the Cabinet Minister.

The Sydney charity ball protest last night that needed the riot squad

The pattern continued in Sydney that is playing out tonight. 7News reported NSW Police called in the Public Order and Riot Squad after protesters targeted Hanson at a Sydney charity ball she was attending.

The 7News bulletin ran under the headline "Riot squad called as protesters target One Nation leader Pauline Hanson at Sydney charity ball." Footage broadcast on the network showed protesters gathered outside the venue carrying socialist activist placards including "Blame Billionaires Not Migrants."

That's three significant public incidents in four days. Wednesday's drop down screen breach at the Press Club in Canberra, the reported Albury detention around the Farrer poll, and Saturday's charity ball protest in Sydney that escalated to the point a specialist riot unit was deployed.

The NSW Public Order and Riot Squad isn't a unit deployed lightly. It sits inside Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command and gets called in when the local command judges a situation has moved beyond standard policing capacity. Calling them out for a charity ball isn't a routine response. It's an escalation response.

What an AFP veteran says should already be happening

The AFP, as a matter of standard policy, doesn't comment on individual threat assessments or protection measures. A veteran officer connected to the AFP's Close Personal Protection team did speak to The Nightly. The line is worth quoting in full.

"She should be rated as a 'high' from everything we've seen and be given a full CPP detail. It is extraordinary how often she is approached out in public, and with groups like GetUp now funding activists, I cannot see why she is not rated 'high'. If Pauline Hanson is only receiving a CPP team on an 'events based' assessment then that is not adequate. Several Cabinet ministers have had CPP teams for years."

That's coming from inside the AFP's own protection apparatus, not from One Nation.

What the AFP's own numbers say about threats to federal politicians

The AFP confirmed last year that reports of violent and menacing threats against federal politicians have nearly doubled in two years:

• 555 reports in 2021/22
• 951 reports in 2024/25
• Nearly 3 reports per day on current trend

That's the baseline against which the failure to upgrade Hanson's protection detail is being measured.

Why left-wing activist groups are targeting Hanson right now

The targeting campaign isn't random. It's coming as One Nation's polling sits at its highest in years and Hanson is, as her colleagues have noted, one of the most recognisable public figures in the country. The Nightly's own editorial yesterday conceded the major parties have themselves to blame for One Nation's rise.

When a political movement can't be beaten on policy and can't be beaten at the ballot box, the people most invested in stopping it tend to escalate the tactics. The plane tracker, the drop down screen, the man with the knives in Albury. Those aren't unconnected incidents in a vacuum. They're an escalation curve, and they're aimed at one person.

The international context the AFP can't pretend isn't there

Charlie Kirk, the American conservative activist and a close ally of US President Donald Trump, was shot dead at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025 while speaking to students. He was 31. President Trump himself survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024.

It isn't only an American problem. In Australia, federal MPs' electorate offices have been attacked and firebombed. In June 2024 the St Kilda office of Labor MP Josh Burns was set alight and graffitied, one of a series of incidents that led the AFP to stand up a dedicated taskforce, and AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has since warned that Australian politicians and office holders are being targeted by violent offenders. The trend the AFP is describing is a local one, not an imported one.

Australia isn't the United States. But the AFP's own data shows the trend line moving in the same direction. The argument that political violence won't happen here because it hasn't yet isn't an argument. It's a planning failure.

What the AFP and the government have said

The AFP's standing position, stated publicly, is that it doesn't discuss individual threat assessments or the protection arrangements of specific people. Neither the AFP nor the federal government has publicly commented on Ashby's correspondence or confirmed whether Hanson's protection rating is under review. What the AFP has said publicly is that threats against parliamentarians are rising and that it treats them seriously.

What needs to happen now

There's no version of this where the AFP gets to wait. Hanson's chief of staff put the warning in writing to a Cabinet Minister in early May. Since then a man with knives was reportedly detained outside her hotel in Albury around the Farrer poll, a drop down screen was smuggled onto the stage during her Press Club speech on Wednesday, the riot squad had to be deployed to a Sydney charity ball she was attending on Saturday night, and her plane is being publicly tracked by activists.

Political violence has no political wing. Whether the target is a Labor MP, a Liberal MP, a Greens MP or a One Nation senator, there's one position any serious country takes, and it's zero tolerance.

The AFP needs to move Hanson's protection assessment to "high" and assign a permanent CPP detail. Not after the next incident. Now.