{"id":762451,"date":"2026-06-26T22:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762451\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T22:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:15:15","slug":"pauline-hansons-ex-husband-walter-zagorski-speaks-on-one-nation-leaders-past-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762451\/","title":{"rendered":"Pauline Hanson\u2019s ex-husband Walter Zagorski speaks on One Nation leader\u2019s past life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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He was once married to the woman who would become one of Queensland\u2019s most divisive and powerful political figures. Today, Walter Zagorski lives alone on a quiet suburban street lined with small boats and weatherboard homes draped in Maroons flags.<\/p>\n

At his house in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum, Zagorski \u2013 a postwar Polish immigrant who has rarely spoken to the media \u2013 opens up about the pair\u2019s fractious marriage and the influences he believes shaped her.<\/p>\n

As she soars in the polls, Hanson has travelled the country telling the story of her life and the circumstances that have shaped her views. Zagorski, watching from afar the woman he married when she was 16, has stayed silent until now.<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson\u2019s first husband Walter Zagorski at home in the Brisbane suburb of Wynnum. William Davis <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Hanson gave an intimate speech in Perth that referenced alleged domestic violence during her second marriage to Mark Hanson,<\/a> a plumber who has since died. She also talked about her first marriage, before telling her audience \u201cI\u2019ve never married again. So it\u2019s not something for me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zagorski is initially reluctant to discuss his past. Wearing a flannel shirt and a cautious look as he stands on his concrete driveway, he says while Hanson was once part of his life, \u201cshe\u2019s not any more\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t trust any [politicians]. They\u2019re not there to look after you. They\u2019re out there to look after themselves \u2026 and Pauline, she\u2019s definitely in it for herself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t vote for her. I haven\u2019t voted for her \u2026 look at the stupidity that\u2019s going on in the [United] States with [President Donald] Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is there\u2019s so much dishonesty in the system. Most people don\u2019t know the difference between honesty and dishonesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanson first rose to prominence when elected to federal parliament in 1996 for the working-class seat of Oxley in western Brisbane. Originally a Liberal, she was disendorsed over comments she had made calling for an end to welfare for Indigenous Australians.<\/p>\n

Her rallying cries against immigration and multiculturalism struck a chord in 1990s Queensland. While she lost her federal seat after a redistribution in 1998, her new party, One Nation, won 11 seats at the state poll that year.<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson working in her seafood shop in 1996.Robert Rough<\/p>\n

In 2026, Hanson has again rocketed to the forefront of national politics. One Nation recently polled above both major parties and this month for the first time, Hanson led as preferred prime minister over Labor leader and current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Oppposition Leader Angus Taylor. <\/a><\/p>\n

Zagorski met Hanson in 1970 while they both had jobs with pharmaceutical company Drug Houses of Australia in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Then in his mid-20s, he lived near the teenager in East Brisbane and would drive her to and from work.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was working there. I\u2019d drive her home and that\u2019s it. It just sort of went on from there \u2026 It was just one of those things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Her parents ran a cafe in the nearby suburb of Woolloongabba at the time.<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson with Walter Zagorski at the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary in 1970. Untamed & Unashamed – the autobiography<\/p>\n

In her Perth speech on June 11, Hanson talked about sneaking away from her family home as a teenager to see Zagorski when he was working in the oilfields, and ending up stranded in the outback town of Charleville by floodwaters before the police dispatched her back to her parents.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We were] young and stupid in love. So, I get it. I understand,\u201d she told the room in Perth.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut anyway, we ended up getting married. I had my first child at 17 and I had two children by the time I was 21. We started up a business with my parents, when I was 18 with the young baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanson married Zagorski in the regional town of Blackall.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a white blouse sort of thing, everything was good,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best mate didn\u2019t turn up, and it was a bit of a shambles after it got started. Most of the people there were all bloody riggers. The only person [from our families] who showed up was my mum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her office chose not to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

In her 2012 autobiography, Untamed & Unashamed, Hanson recalls several of the same events, though details often differ. She wrote her family had come to Blackall for the occasion, and that Zagorski\u2019s mother did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline got into politics because she figured it\u2019d be easy and she\u2019d make more money, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walter Zagorski, Pauline Hanson\u2019s first husband<\/p>\n

In the book, Zagorski is described as \u201ca good-looking guy with a vibrant personality, very young at heart and a loveable character\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to trust and love Walter \u2026 we spent most of our time together going to movies, for a drive, or just being together, even when he worked on his car,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The couple lived in Blackall before moving to Adelaide and then back to south-east Queensland as Zagorski chased work. Their son Tony was born in June 1971.<\/p>\n

Decades later, Zagorski remembers a deeply unhappy relationship, and he claims she was unfaithful \u2013 disputing he was the father of her second child, Steven. Hanson recounted his claims in her book and strongly rejected this.<\/p>\n

Hanson wrote: \u201cOur second son, Steven, was at the heart of one of these issues because Walter believed Steven was not his son. It was important to me that he accepted Steven as his son because he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson walks with her sons Tony, left, and Steven Zagorski in 2003.REUTERS<\/p>\n

Zagorski is still resentful years after the acrimonious split, and says his former partner was motivated only by money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my honest opinion, she was not a nice person,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer parents were the two people that were the guiding force for Pauline. Pauline\u2019s father worked his arse off 20 hours a day every day in the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline got all her ideas on being dishonest and sneaky and greedy and making more money from her dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson in the plane gifted to her by Australia\u2019s richest person, Gina Rinehart, in 2026. X\/PaulineHansonOz<\/p>\n

Hanson \u2013 about eight years younger than Zagorski \u2013 has previously said he abandoned her and her children for long periods without support.<\/p>\n

His status as an immigrant was never relevant to their relationship, he says.<\/p>\n

In his telling, his mother Lydia was pregnant with him at Auschwitz. He says he came to Australia as a refugee at about five before being taken to an orphanage near Toowoomba.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember my feet dangled over the edge of the boat on the deck, and I was going through the Suez Canal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, one ship went to America, one ship went to Australia \u2026 that\u2019s how I got to come to Australia. It wasn\u2019t a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he doesn\u2019t know his exact birthday, but believes it was in 1946. If correct, it\u2019s unlikely he was conceived before the liberation of the concentration camp, though he\u2019s certain that\u2019s the story his mother told.<\/p>\n

Hanson, in her book, remembers Lydia as \u201ca strong and independent lady whom I admired and loved very much\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zagorski says he doesn\u2019t know where Pauline\u2019s political views came from, and they were of no interest to him when they married.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a political man. I\u2019ve got no interest in politics whatsoever.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PaulinePauline Hanson addressed the National Press Club for the first time in 2026. Bloomberg<\/p>\n

The couple split after several years, and briefly rekindled the relationship before it fell apart again. Both claim credit for ending it.<\/p>\n

Zagorski says she did have an ambitious streak: \u201cI\u2019ve thought about it many times \u2026 I think she was looking for something \u2026 Pauline got into politics because she figured it\u2019d be easy and she\u2019d make more money, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later says: \u201cI think that in a way she did care about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zagorski says Hanson visited his Wynnum home years later to see his mother but she hasn\u2019t contacted him in a long time.<\/p>\n

When discussing Australia\u2019s institutions, Zagorski\u2019s language at times echoes that used by his ex-wife and her supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all in it for themselves. They\u2019re not there to do good for anybody,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Anthony] Albanese, I wouldn\u2019t trust him as far as I can throw him \u2026 [Angus Taylor] is an idiot. Pauline, she\u2019s about the most dishonest person I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could he see her winning the next election? \u201cPossibly,\u201d he says, though he says he won\u2019t be voting for her party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only reason she would win would be because people don\u2019t like the other guy. What choices have you got?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe might have changed in the last 20 years, I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ve never known Pauline Hanson to be an honest person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zagorski hasn\u2019t kept photos from his time with his first wife and he never remarried.<\/p>\n

He says he no longer speaks to any of his friends or family members, including son Tony, who he believes now lives in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

The saga demonstrates just how little is known about the background of a woman that polling suggests could become Australia\u2019s next prime minister.<\/p>\n

Though Zagorski says he rarely thinks about her these days, a neighbour mentions he\u2019s dropped Hanson\u2019s name into more than one conversation.<\/p>\n

At the event with Perth\u2019s business elite, Hanson was asked what advice she\u2019d give her 10-year-old self.<\/p>\n

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