Pauline Hanson and Nigel Farage in November 2025: Suppressing figures like Hanson and Farage might only clear the path for even more radical forces to follow. Photo: Pauline Hanson Facebook.
The political class — the elected and so-called insiders — are collectively petrified by the recent rise of One Nation.
That fear is misplaced.
They shouldn’t worry about One Nation succeeding. They should worry about what happens if One Nation is thwarted or suppressed — and what could follow.
If a movement that has been brewing, unsatisfied and maligned for 30-plus years is stymied by the ”lanyard class” and the ”proper” people, be it through preference deals to block electoral support or manipulation of the rules to strangle it of funding or resources, there will be consequences.
Which probably means it’s time to ask why so many people — maybe your neighbours or, heaven forbid, members of your family — are ”flirting” with One Nation and giving a giant middle finger to the politicians and their enablers who have put Australia in its current mess.
Remember, it was just over a year ago that Anthony Albanese became a verified Labor legend when he claimed the party’s greatest-ever landslide. A lot can change between now and election day 2028, but a lot has happened since election day 2025, and a stack of voters became very unhappy very quickly.
Which is probably what the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas saw and feared on the night of the Farrer byelection, which One Nation took from the Liberals just over a month ago.
She echoed many when she lamented that the win would “legitimise them”.
Karvelas explained: “I used the term earlier on in the broadcast ‘the permission structure’ — if they are able to win their first Lower House seat, that begins the process of legitimising them, and in other electorates where they may run, voters thinking well, it’s happened before, it’s normal now, you start normalising something.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson responded: “Labor, Liberal, the media, the academics and the lobbyists don’t get to decide who represents the Australian people.
“No one except the people of Australia gets to decide who is ‘legitimate’ and worthy of representing them in Parliament.”
Which is why One Nation’s success isn’t the worry; it’s what could follow that should be raising concern.
For 30 years, One Nation has been a stereotype of the political experts — Australia’s deplorables.
That’s why Jason Virgo is so important – he’s a sign that something has changed in One Nation.
Who’s Jason Virgo?
You may not know his name, but you probably know about his maiden speech in the South Australian Parliament. It caused quite a stir.
Virgo won the seat of MacKillop for One Nation in the South Australian House of Assembly earlier this year.
The openly gay (now very, very openly gay) MP fought back tears as he spoke of his immigrant partner, naming him the “love of my life”.
But how, you might ask, did this happen? One Nation hates immigrants. And probably gays (no one tell Hanson’s long-time adviser, James Ashby). So gay immigrants must be One Nation kryptonite. Like books without pictures (their opponents might say).
Not quite.
“I love migrants,” Virgo said.
“The overwhelming majority are simply searching for a better life. But two things can be true at once, and I do believe migration levels in recent years have been too high.”
Virgo probably isn’t the only immigrant-lover who thinks that.
And there are probably a lot of immigrants who look around their community — whether they are new arrivals or not — and wonder whether our population might be rising too fast. Whether the mix is right. Whether our infrastructure can cope. Whether the country they wanted when they arrived here will be the same country in a decade.
Those are legitimate concerns — whether you’re a new Australian or an old one. Especially if you don’t have the financial means to insulate yourself behind a Cashmere Curtain in Tealysium.
Which brings us to the teals. Who want to become Teals. A proper party.
First, if they do become a ”party”, no one will be surprised except the Clouseaus at the Australian Electoral Commission, who actually investigated a complaint that they were a party (as they looked like ducks, acted like ducks and certainly quacked like ducks) but found they weren’t.
For all their virtue signalling, the squeaky clean teals are funded by billionaires.
But remember, Gina’s a naughty billionaire because she gives money to One Nation, but Simon Holmes à Court and Mike Cannon-Brookes are good billionaires because they give money to the teals (got it?)
One reason the teals want to become a party (not just more resources, no, perish the thought) is to stop One Nation.
Which would be perfect.
The party of Karens representing the battlers of Point Piper in NSW (Allegra Spender), Jutland Parade in WA (Kate Chaney) and Toorak in Victoria (Monique Ryan, although apparently she’s too prickly even for these perpetually perturbed patricians), banding together to fight the real battlers.
They might just succeed. But who knows what will follow when the pendulum swings back? We can look to the UK for a clue.
In the UK, Hanson’s analogue is Nigel Farage — the one-man band who championed Brexit and has now built another party around him. It’s called Reform UK. The right-wing populist party is leading all-comers in the UK — including the hapless Labour Party, which won a loveless landslide less than two years ago (there’s more than one analogue in this story).
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is on his last legs and probably won’t be PM at Christmas (OK, it’s not a perfect match). If the UK held an election today, and if the polls are correct, Farage would be in Number 10.
To Farage’s right is Restore Britain, led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. (It is also true that in these maverick, norm-busting parties, they don’t play well with others.)
Lowe’s party is nowhere near as popular as Farage’s, but it is building, harvesting anger and drawing votes from people who don’t think Farage goes far enough on immigration and culture issues.
Lowe makes Farage look like a Queer for Palestine.
So yeah, you may not like Hanson, but what comes next could be a greater concern.
Be careful what you wish for.