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Pauline Hanson turns 72, One Nation is leading the polls, and Labor is rattled. Here’s everything that happened in one remarkable week for Australian politics.

Pauline Hanson turned 72 during the week.

And who popped in to celebrate? None other than Clive Palmer.

The One Nation leader posted a photo of their meeting, captioned:

“Look who’s come to visit me on my birthday, bearing gifts! I really appreciate the gesture.”

Look who’s come to visit me on my birthday, bearing gifts!

I really appreciate the gesture. pic.twitter.com/LYiBtx434m

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) May 27, 2026

Labor Throws the First Punch — And Misses

But not everyone was in a generous mood.

Labor’s head-kicker in chief, Senator Murray Watt, posted this on social media:

“Happy birthday Pauline. While partying with another billionaire buddy, the rest of us showed up to Parliament to work for Australians.”

A couple of things:

First, Pauline Hanson wasn’t required in Canberra during the week since she wasn’t involved in any of the Senate Committee Hearings that were being conducted.

So she wasn’t skipping work to party with billionaires.

And Murray Watt knew that. He just hoped you didn’t know that.

As for Murray Watt… well, he WAS in Canberra, where he spent most of his time working for Australians… COMPLAINING about having to work for Australians.

He whined during a Senate Committee Hearing last week that:

“If this committee continues to ask what are now eight times the number of questions that were asked under the Coalition government, then that is going to take time to manage.”

Translation?

“I’m here to be questioned, but not excessively questioned, and certainly not in a manner that involves questions.”

Senator Murray Watt wants all the trappings of ministerial office without the hassle of having to be transparent. Which is a little bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Except it wasn’t his birthday.

Ahead in the Polls

Speaking of the birthday girl, here’s a gift:

The latest Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll, released just before I came on air, shows One Nation is now the most popular political party in the country.

Not just beating the Coalition. One Nation is now leading Labor in the polls!

Primary support for One Nation has jumped four points to 31 percent, while Labor’s primary vote has fallen three points to 28 per cent.

The Coalition has dropped two points to 20 percent.

The poll, taken two weeks after the budget, shows that on a two-party preferred basis, calculated by asking voters how they’d direct their preferences at an election, Labor would only just beat One Nation… 51 to 49.

She Batted Every Question Out of the Park

So when Senator Hanson was asked the other morning if she wanted to be Prime Minister, it wasn’t a silly question.

And I thought she answered it with the perfect blend of confidence and humility. She said,

Do I want to be PM? Well, I tell you what, I won’t knock the job because I believe that I have the ability to do it. I’m not going to underestimate myself and say no I can’t do it.

Then she added:

It’s not about Pauline Hanson wanting to go and be PM; it’s getting the right person into position to drive this country so that we can have a future for our kids and our grandchildren.

“Prime Minister Pauline Hanson” is not a far-fetched question. Not given the latest polling.

Now, it’s always dangerous for politicians to comment on the polls. But when asked, Senator Hanson… handled it perfectly.

She pointed out that she’s not the one saying she’ll win 59 seats. And she’s not the one saying she’s more popular than Labor. So, again, humility. But there was no false humility either:

I didn’t do the poll. Nothing to do with me. This is what’s coming out. They said we’d get about 23 percent in South Australia we got that.

They thought we’d do quite well in Farrah. But they never picked 40 percent. There’s such an undercurrent in this country that people are fed up and they want change

So she didn’t claim anything while cleverly waving a very detailed receipt of why the claim might just be very accurate.

The other thing I noticed about Senator Hanson’s interview with my colleague Andrew Clennell is how well she handled the trickier questions.

She wants to slash immigration. But wait. Doesn’t that mean we won’t have any skilled workers?

She replied,

In 2022/23 we brought in 739,000 people. They said it’s because we need skilled labor. Only 51,605 were skilled and of that only 1800 in the construction industry.

As the kids like to say, ‘Drop the mic!’

Well, I mean, what about Muslims? Doesn’t she want to ban Muslims from coming to Australia?

Our politicians and media insist on differentiating between Islam and radical Islam, between Muslims and Muslim extremists.

Pauline Hanson proved she can play that game too… expertly… which I’d say makes her pretty hard to argue with.

She told Clennell,

I want to ban the burka. If you’ve got people coming that are radical Islamists and their ideology is incompatible with this country, then yes, I do.

And then she added,

This is a Judeo-Christian country. We’ve got different religions here by all means, but do you believe that sharia law, female circumcision. multiple marriages that the taxpayer paid for is any good?

Do you want to see terrorism on our streets? Because this is the ideology that we’ve been bringing into this country.

I’m not going to back away from this. I do not want Australia like Great Britain.

That’s all well and good, but what about her newly elected South Australian MP, Jason Virgo, who announced during the week that he was in a gay relationship with a Muslim?

Gottcha!

Or not…

Jason is a man who’s very much in love with his partner and so be it. The fact is, let’s get back to the basics when you have imams who are pushing hatred in our mosques and in our streets. Let’s deal with the real facts here.

She was batting away these gottcha questions like the political equivalent of Don Bradman. Even the ones she DIDN’T see coming…

Andrew Clennell:

Your new federal MP David Farley has said he’ll fly three flags in his office including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag. This is something you’ve previously opposed, so what do you make of this stance by David Farley?

Hanson replied:

Well that’s the first I’ve heard about it, to tell you the honest truth.

And then, with a smile, she said:

We have a point of difference there, don’t we? But that’s his office. He can do whatever he wants to. But our policy is only one flag, and that’s the Australian flag.

The trapdoor opened… and there was no trap!

David Farley for Farrer will be sworn in to the House of Representatives at 12 noon, bringing your One Nation federal Parliament team to 6! pic.twitter.com/WMBGnlObAm

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) June 2, 2026

Live and let live, with one flag to rule them all.

Senator Hanson was, of course, asked about her private plane. Because it’s not fair that Senator Hanson gets to fly on a private jet while every other MP has to work hard at rorting taxpayer-funded family travel allowances.

Hanson responded:

I don’t know why people have such a problem with me having a plane that gets me out to regional and rural areas.

It’s no cost to the taxpayer, you don’t pay for the fuel.

You don’t pay for the plane.

But it gets me to areas that are hard for me to go to and the people love it when they see me.

But, but… the plane was supplied by Gina Rinehart, which means Gina Rinehart is running One Nation. Doesn’t it?

Hanson brushed the charge off like a piece of lint from her jacket:

I’ve got a lot of prominent people, former donors to the Liberal Party that are coming on board with One Nation.

Gina Rinehart has been supportive of my policies. Why? Because she can see that this is going to drive change in this nation.

Her voice is no different to anyone else’s.

Why Is Labor So Rattled?

More interesting to me than that interview was the reaction to it … again, from chief Labor head-kicker, Murray Watt.

The cameras had barely finished rolling before Senator Murray Watt rushed onto social media to criticise Pauline Hanson for,

“Always backing the billionaires, not the battlers.”

Why would a Labor heavyweight waste his Sunday morning sledging Pauline Hanson? Unless he was concerned she was eating birthday cake AND into Labor’s vote.

___

Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.