One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has slammed her critics as “bastards” amid allegations she’s been AWOL at Senate estimates as her party overtakes Labor in the polls. A new poll released over the weekend suggests the veteran MP is now the most popular leader of the most popular political party in the country. But her rising popularity comes despite Labor claims she’s been absent from 88 per cent of Senate estimate hearing days over the past decade.
In response, she insisted Queenslanders were better off with her travelling around the state and listening to voters rather than ask questions of bureaucrats who “have been told not to answer the questions”. “These bastards, all they are worried about is trying to kick me in the guts to make out that I’m not doing anything,” she said. “I’m getting the answers from the Australian people, directly from them, and that’s what a lot of these politicians don’t do.”
“They’ll say my voting record was down because there are things that I don’t need to be there for,” she said. “It’s not legislation that’s going to change the country, it’s all parliamentary procedures and that type of thing, or calling for documentation, so it’s not important.” Her outburst followed Labor frontbencher Murray Watt telling The Australian newspaper that she had missed 12 regular parliamentary sitting days since the 2025 election. “It shows that she would rather be partying with billionaires than fighting for working people,” Senator Watt said.
The days Ms Hanson was AWOL include a seven-day period when she was suspended for wearing a burka in parliament, and another five days she took off without approval being granted from the Senate. One of the events she attended during this time off from parliament included flying to the US for a Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas. She also attended less than one-third of divisions in the Senate since the election, choosing to skip the grind of procedural motions or voting on legislation.
According to the latest Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll, published by the Australian Financial Review, support for One Nation has risen four points to 31 per cent. Labor’s primary vote is at 28 per cent, and the Coalition has crashed to 20 per cent. “I have always said the polls are only polls, but it’s clear Australia is asking for a different direction,” Senator Hanson said in a Facebook post on Monday. “I want to thank you for your support, and the One Nation team will be working hard to help this country every day.”
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said the polls were “an indicator, not a vote”, and the party was delighted but not arrogant. “It’s not One Nation that’s changed. It’s the Australian public that’s changed, and they’ve changed in waves,” he told Sunrise. “It’s not an aberration. It’s real.” Health Minister Mark Butler said that One Nation’s rise reflected the fact that “households are under enormous pressure right now”. “And we saw even before the war in Iran that our economy was pretty hot, building a lot of price pressures in the system,” he said. “You know, people are just wanting government to deliver more relief to the pressure that they feel on their households, on their housing budgets, on their expectation for fuel into the future, on healthcare costs and many other things like that. I think that over two years out from an election, there’ll be a million polls between now and the election day.”
