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Pauline Hanson can be wrong. But she shouldn’t be treated as an existential threat to the nation.

There is a dangerous road being travelled in Australian politics.

And Pauline Hanson is being driven down it.

Not by herself. By her opponents.

Political Opponent, Not Enemy

Disagree with Pauline Hanson and her policies as much as you want. She shouldn’t be immune from criticism.

But she is entitled to campaign for lower immigration without being called a racist.

She’s entitled to question multiculturalism without being labelled a fascist.

She’s entitled to worry about the growth of Islam without being called divisive.

She’s entitled to disagree with Welcome to Country without being smeared as a hater.

And she’s entitled to upset the cosy Two-Party status quo without being slammed as “dangerous” by the Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese had this to say about One Nation on Sunday, speaking after voters overwhelmingly backed Pauline Hanson’s party in Labor’s once safe West Australian seat of Secret Harbour,

“This is a crucial time for our movement. Because across the world, hard-right populists are on the march peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest.”

Dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest. That’s quite the charge sheet.

How dangerous does the Prime Minister want us to think Pauline Hanson is?

When Criticism Becomes Demonisation

Well, here’s what he said next,

“We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history. We owe it to the nation.”

There’s a difference between attacking someone’s political ideas and trying to turn the person holding those ideas into a political monster.

When you describe One Nation as dangerous and then frame the battle with One Nation in existential terms – we owe it to history and to the nation to defeat them – you’ve gone way past arguing about immigration numbers.

Now you’re floating the idea that Pauline Hanson is a threat to our very way of life.

And here’s how the PM went on to describe Hanson and her One Nation colleagues,

“They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts. Peddle misinformation and disinformation, turn Australian against Australian.”

Again, this isn’t merely political disagreement.

This is moral denunciation.

Pauline Hanson doesn’t just have bad ideas. She’s portrayed as someone who lies, deceives and deliberately turns Australians against one another.

Turning Up the Political Temperature

It’s exactly the sort of rhetoric that fuels the disgraceful student protests where young people chanted,

“Pauline Hanson go to hell, take One Nation there as well!”

That was one of the more sophisticated chants.

Most preferred the simpler,

“I’ll say Hanson, you say ‘f-off’!”

And then there were others calling for Hanson to be killed.

One young lady told TV cameras,

“I’d shoot her, kill her.”

Another boasted,

“Slap the shit out of that f**king bitch.”

The Prime Minister, who didn’t condemn any of that, isn’t responsible for what other people say.

He is responsible, however, for the temperature he creates.

If you spend your time telling people that your political opponent is dangerous, dishonest, divisive and something that must be defeated for the sake of history and the nation, you shouldn’t be shocked when some people decide that “defeat” requires rather more than casting a ballot.

Time for a Prime Ministerial U-Turn

The Prime Minister should try being prime ministerial.

He should be reminding people that Pauline Hanson is a political opponent, not an enemy of the state.

Threats to Pauline Hanson are not theoretical.

The police presence at the National Press Club when Pauline Hanson spoke there in June was greater than when the Prime Minister spoke.

So when she told journalists yesterday that the PM was putting her in danger, she wasn’t being melodramatic.

Hanson said,

“He’s never called anyone else out as being dangerous.

“I’ve been getting that many death threats and that’s happening.

“It’s never happened in a country like this before and the incitement that is happening is through our education system and a PM who should know better than that.”

Senator Hanson called on the Prime Minister to lower the temperature.

And just like that, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman reached for the thermostat.

Unfortunately, he turned it the wrong way, telling News24,

“The ideas of One Nation ARE dangerous. I agree with the PM on that. I think they be very dangerous to take Medicare away from the Australian people.

Just for good measure, Gorman added,

“They are dangerous, popularist and dishonest.”

Apparently, the solution to inflammatory political rhetoric is more inflammatory political rhetoric.

Victorian Labor Premier Ben Carroll went a step further. He argued that the Prime Minister was showing leadership by turning the heat up.

He told a press conference,

“The Prime Minister was showing leadership and making sure that we do not have divisive populism and divisive politics anywhere in our nation.”

There is a certain irony in declaring that you are fighting “divisive politics” while repeatedly describing millions of voters’ preferred political representatives as dangerous, dishonest and divisive.

It’s about the only luxury anyone can afford in Labor-run Victoria.

Except that we can’t afford it.

See this graffiti:

This morning Labor Minister Matt Thistlethwaite defended Albanese and Chalmers calling One Nation “dangerous” and a “threat”, saying they were “telling the truth” and that “it’s legitimate to raise that”.

An hour later this picture was taken in Bendigo alongside a video-game… pic.twitter.com/wcjeQO264J

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) August 31, 2026

On and on it goes.

Rhetoric Has Consequences

Hanson was confronted in Melbourne at the weekend by a woman screaming at her:

“Why do you allow Neo-Nazis in your party?!”

Then another yelled,

“Pauline supports domestic abusers. She likes domestic violence. Pauline doesn’t give a shit about any of you. She doesn’t give a shit.

She hangs out with Nazis. You want your kid hanging out with Nazis?”

You have to ask… what comes next?

The Left loves to compare One Nation to MAGA and Pauline Hanson to Donald Trump.

So let’s do that. Because there are some uncomfortable comparisons.

For years, Trump was described not merely as wrong but as evil. Hitler. Fascist. Authoritarian. Dictator. Threat to democracy. Existential threat.

Eventually, the argument became that Trump wasn’t simply a politician to defeat. He was a threat to be stopped.

And here is Anthony Albanese and the Left doing almost the exact same thing to Pauline Hanson.

Instead of cooling the temperature, the Prime Minister is pouring petrol on the fire and then his colleagues — like Matt Thistlethwaite — feign surprise that people can smell smoke.

“We’re explaining to the Australian people One Nation’s voting record. They are a threat to workers. They’re a big threat to workers.”

There’s a road you go down for political and policy debate.

The road we’re currently on is not it.

I just hope the Prime Minister and his colleagues perform a U-Turn before we end up with a crash.

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