Pauline Hanson got photographed at a fashion show with Gina Rinehart, and the political class needed smelling salts. Angus Taylor and the Greens managed their first united front in living memory, both suddenly appalled that a senator might know a billionaire. Funny thing, though. The same fortnight, Anthony Albanese and a table of Labor royalty, Paul Keating and Daniel Andrews among them, pulled up chairs at billionaire Anthony Pratt's harbourside AFR luncheon, and not a single pearl was clutched. This from the same government that keeps planning to raid your super. A conservative woman with a billionaire friend is a national emergency. A Labor government at a billionaire's table eyeing your retirement savings is just breakfast with a view.
Hanson's own verdict on the pile on came from the back of a London taxi, and it hasn't cost taxpayers a cent. "I just see a lot of jealousy out there," she said. She's near the end of an almost two week tour of the United Kingdom and Europe that her critics, left and right, spent framing as a luxury holiday. What they left out is most of what she actually did, and while she was away they threw everything at her: her hotel, her daughter, and a supposed war with Barnaby Joyce that both of them say the media invented. Here's each attack, every one of them driven by fear of One Nation's unprecedented rise, and what the record actually shows.
CPAC London, Tommy Robinson's Luton and Liz Truss: what Hanson actually did
Hanson flew to London to speak at CPAC alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, the first CPAC ever held in Britain. She walked the streets of Luton with activist Tommy Robinson, the town he grew up in and one of the places in Britain most changed by mass immigration. "I'm just gobsmacked, because I wouldn't think that I was in England," she said on the tour, warning that what she saw is heading for Australia. She also sat down with former British prime minister Liz Truss. Australians, she said, kept stopping her in the street to say hello. That's the scandalous holiday in full: a conservative conference, a walking tour of Britain's immigration disaster and a former prime minister. Somebody call the ombudsman.
"My heart is with my country and the people," Hanson said, "and I want to do the best that I can for you."
Sicily, the Dolce and Gabbana show and Gina Rinehart
The part her critics really can't forgive is that she enjoyed herself. She went to Sicily. She accepted an invitation to a Dolce and Gabbana show, where she was seen with Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart, one of the country's great self made success stories. Barnaby Joyce, who now sits with One Nation, suggested Rinehart may have covered the accommodation. It was private time on a private trip, and Hanson has made no apology for it. Her critics would apparently prefer she'd declined the invitation and got herself photographed somewhere respectable instead, like a billionaire's harbourside luncheon. "Is it my scene? No. No way," she said of the show. "But it was an experience. It was fabulous, fantastic to see."
Angus Taylor's dismal clap back, and the Liberals standing behind it
Then there's Angus Taylor. Not long ago the right looked ready to work together, and Hanson has held that door open publicly. "I'm not your enemy, Angus," she told him from London. "Listen to the people, and work with me." His answer this week was to sniff that she was "living it up" in Europe. That was it. A woman out representing conservative Australia on the world stage, and the alternative prime minister's contribution is a jealous jab about her hotel.
It was a dismal clap back, and on the public record of his own colleagues, we very seriously doubt the idea was his. Taylor is the parliamentary face of a Liberal campaign against One Nation that others have been running harder. Andrew Hastie has said he'd rather be taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation, a war even Anthony Albanese has cheered. Tony Abbott has reportedly been working the phones to stop Liberals defecting to Hanson. Taylor's pot shot is the sound of their so-called ''war'' coming out of their leader's reluctant mouth.
Column of smoke? The Liberals copied One Nation on immigration, the Voice and net zero
It's also a strange attack from a party who keeps borrowing her homework. Days earlier, Taylor called One Nation's policies "a column of smoke" and dismissed them as incoherent. They aren't so incoherent that the Coalition hasn't followed One Nation's lead on cutting immigration and opposing the Voice, and Hanson says Taylor has since reached for One Nation positions on net zero and the fuel excise too. A policy can't be incoherent and worth stealing at the same time.
The strategy is as baffling as it is self defeating. The Liberals' opponent is Labor, the party presiding over the cost of living crisis Taylor says Hanson should be home fixing. Instead, the Coalition spent the week aiming everything at a conservative woman overseas, while One Nation outpolls them state by state. Sky's own Pulse poll this week put One Nation on 30% of the primary vote with the Coalition at an all time low of 17%, and found the Coalition has lost 46% of its 2025 election voters to One Nation. Every shot fired at Hanson instead of Labor tells conservative voters exactly which party is serious about changing the government, and it isn't the one throwing pot shots. The defections tell the same story, and the attacks only drive more of them.
The travelling MPs Angus Taylor didn't mention
Hanson also turned the travel question back on her accusers. She said Coalition and Labor MPs were in Italy at the same time she was, naming Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie and Liberal National MP Colin Boyce among the Coalition members she said were there, and pointing to a group of Labor MPs she said were in the country that week too. "Why don't you talk to your own members of Parliament," she said. Her trip cost you nothing. Whether the same can be said for every parliamentarian abroad this month is a question for the expense disclosures when they land. Strangely, no smelling salts were required for any of them.
The nepotism claim that ignored what Hanson actually said
The sharpest attacks while she was away weren't about the trip at all. They were about her daughter. Commentators seized on her podcast with Robinson to claim she's lining up 42 year old Lee Hanson to inherit One Nation. Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price accused her of running a "family dynasty". Commentator Joe Hildebrand ran with it. The left wing press piled in. It began at her National Press Club address last month, where a Guardian journalist pressed her on her daughter, and it carried on while she was overseas.
What Hanson actually said was close to the opposite.
"She's got the potential, but I don't believe in nepotism. And she has to prove herself, not only to me, but also to the other members and to the public. That's something she has to earn."
This is where the story falls apart. A One Nation leader isn't crowned by their surname. Lee Hanson lost her tilt at a Tasmanian Senate seat in 2025. Before she could lead the party she'd first have to win a seat in Parliament, and then win over the party's MPs and members. Hanson made that plain in her reply: "She's got to win the seat in Parliament first, mate. And it's not up to me. It's up to my colleagues, the members of Parliament and the members of the party." That's not a dynasty. That's a contest she'd have to win twice over, once at the ballot box and again inside the party.
And don't take Hanson's word for how the party works. Barnaby Joyce, the man Nine's papers cast as the jilted heir, was asked about her comments on Friday and backed every word of them. "Lee's a good lady and she's a mate of mine and I've got no problems with this," he said. "You want the very best to lead your party to make sure you've got the best opportunity to get ahead."
"Everything that Pauline said there is factually correct. You've got to be supported by your colleagues, you've got to be supported by the Australian people and if you can tick those two boxes, yeah, you should be the leader."
Then Lee Hanson answered it herself. Sitting down with Sky News on Monday, she killed the succession story in one sentence: "Let me make this really clear, Mum and I have not talked about me taking over the party, at all." The 42 year old mother of two said the leadership isn't even a live question for her. "Right now, I've got two young children, so no thanks," she said. "I'm not even a member of a parliament. I'd like to get elected first, so if I can just concentrate on that."
"Being selected on merit is very important to me. It's got to be who's the best person, who's got the most experience, and it's also just beyond that one person, it's about the team around them as well. When the time comes for her to retire, the best person for the job will be chosen. It has to be, and our party will be involved in that decision."
So the mother says no nepotism. The daughter says merit only, and that she hasn't even discussed it. The supposed rival says every word of it is factually correct. The "family dynasty" has now been denied by every member of the family it's supposed to contain.
The Barnaby Joyce "rift" came from nameless sources, and every named person denies it
Then came the manufactured split. Nine's mastheads started it. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age ran a piece telling Joyce to "watch your back" and casting him as a "spare heir", then followed up with "sources close to Mr Joyce" claiming he'd privately criticised Hanson's sit down with Tommy Robinson. No names. From there the machine took over: Sky News aired a segment titled "Rift emerges between Hanson and Joyce", News.com.au and the ABC ran their versions, and an anonymous "source" was wheeled out to talk up unrest inside the party. Notice the pattern. Every claim of division comes from someone who won't put their name to it. Everyone who does give their name says the opposite.
Joyce went on Nine's Today show on Friday and flattened it.
"Pauline and I are great mates. We spoke yesterday, we spoke exactly about what people are trying to do, trying to divide us up. We're not dumb, we've both been around. Between the two of us it is about 50 plus years in politics. We've played this game before, and we get along very well and I'm very happy in the role I've got. Pauline's doing a great job as the leader."
One Nation senator Sean Bell went onto Sky's own air and called the reporting "the fantasy that some left-wing media are publishing", a distraction from "the Albanese Labour Government's failure to keep energy prices under control". "One Nation is the most united party in the entire country," Bell said. "If you're looking for division, look no further than the Liberal Party." Given the war Hastie and Abbott are running above, that one didn't need explaining.
Hanson's answer from London was to laugh at it. "Are you fighting with Barnaby, by the way?" she said, mimicking the question. "How you going, my mate Barnaby?" She said Joyce rang her days earlier and paid her the greatest compliment of her career, telling her she's the best leader he's worked with in any political party. "We understand each other," she said. "We don't have any ego problem. We're here for the right reasons, for the people." Bell put it simpler still: "She is the strongest leader Australia has ever had. She is overseas speaking at CPAC, and she is standing up for Australian values."
They ignored Hanson when One Nation was broke. Now they can't stop swinging out of fear
Strip the week back and it's simple. Nobody attacked Pauline Hanson's travel when One Nation was short of money and numbers. She was easy to ignore, so they ignored her. Now she has the kind of billionaire backing Labor and the Liberals have taken for granted for decades, a former deputy prime minister in her party room and nearly half the Coalition's 2025 voters in her column, and suddenly her hotel bill is a matter of urgent national concern.
Count what they threw at her in one fortnight: her hotel, her friendship with Gina Rinehart, her sit down with Tommy Robinson, her daughter and an invented war with Barnaby Joyce. Not one of them touched a One Nation policy. They can't. The Liberals are busy copying the policies and Labor is busy proving them necessary. When opponents give up arguing with what you stand for and start on your family, the argument is over and everybody knows who won it.
Hanson says she'll be back in Australia soon with what she calls hardcore policy. On this fortnight's evidence, her opponents should be more worried about that than about anything she wore in Sicily.
