![\"Rob](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2e2c563a2c883f4262123a6f31f663ad728622cdd079d5da02f3e6a34b3716fd.png\")
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Updated July 17, 2026 \u2014 12:57pm,first published 12:02pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Political watchers are pondering, as Hanson\u2019s poll numbers soften across the board, whether the company she kept overseas \u2013 and some of the colleagues at home \u2013 could be the undoing of the momentum she had spent decades building.<\/p>\n Related Article Individually, each episode might have been manageable. Together, they became a test of whether One Nation was ready for the scrutiny that comes with becoming a genuine political force.<\/p>\n Hanson, however, issued a familiar defence.<\/p>\n \u201cSupporters are seeing straight through the lies and distortions that have been employed against One Nation over the past month by the media and political establishment,\u201d she wrote on Facebook<\/a>, adding they were \u201cdesperate tactics by a desperate establishment\u201d.<\/p>\n But the images from the UK forced Hanson\u2019s star parliamentary colleague, Barnaby Joyce, into an awkward defence.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t support so much of what Tommy Robinson does, but I think it\u2019s incredibly important that we understand the social dynamic and how that came about,\u201d Joyce told ABC radio.<\/p>\n Joyce argued Australia should understand the conditions that produced figures such as Robinson, while ensuring similar social divisions did not emerge here.<\/p>\n But what Joyce said on air and what he thinks appear vastly different. This masthead reported that he has told associates Hanson\u2019s decision to appear with Robinson was ill-advised<\/a> and showed a misunderstanding of voters\u2019 attitudes, exposing tensions within the small group of large personalities within One Nation.<\/p>\n Hanson has been unequivocal in her support of Robinson<\/a> for years, but the One Nation machine itself is trying to walk back the meeting, claiming it was a set-up by Seven\u2019s Spotlight.<\/p>\n Related Article If Robinson posed questions about Hanson overseas, Malcolm Roberts raised them back home.<\/p>\n There is growing speculation within One Nation, noting the 71-year-old\u2019s declining physical health, that Roberts could now fall on his sword before next election and be replaced \u2013 potentially even by Hanson\u2019s longtime chief of staff, James Ashby.<\/p>\n Roberts has been one of Hanson\u2019s closest political allies for a decade after surviving the parliamentary citizenship saga and returning to the Senate. In the past few weeks, several of his controversies have resurfaced.<\/p>\n He appeared on conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones\u2019 program and described Jones as a \u201cbeacon of hope around the world\u201d whose \u201ccredibility is very, very high\u201d. Jones, now bankrupt, has been ordered to pay almost $US1.5 billion in damages to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre<\/a> after repeatedly claiming the massacre was a hoax.<\/p>\n Roberts praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for standing up to \u201cglobalists\u201d and shared a notorious antisemitic mural online, describing it as \u201cthe most powerful pic I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d. Roberts also suggested it was \u201chighly likely\u201d the US Air Force was spraying chemtrails and has promoted the work of a notorious antisemite.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The controversy prompted condemnation from Jewish community leaders and renewed questions about whether Hanson would distance herself from her senator. She did not.<\/p>\n Perhaps that is not surprising. Hanson herself once floated the idea the Port Arthur massacre was a false flag operation<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThose shots, they were precision shots. I\u2019ve read a lot and I\u2019ve read the book on it \u2013 Port Arthur. A lot of questions there,\u201d Hanson was filmed saying in an Al Jazeera undercover investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Joyce again found himself defending the party in an interview with Sky News\u2019 Andrew Bolt, who described Roberts as a \u201ccomplete kook\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mind of Malcolm Roberts \u2026 he\u2019s an incredibly decent human being \u2026 is not the mind of me or the mind of other people,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cI\u2019m not here to start carpeting Malcolm. I\u2019m not going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts, whose long history of conspiracy theories has frequently been wrapped in antisemitic tropes, accused the \u201cmainstream media\u201d of waging a campaign against him through \u201cselective cherry-picking and dishonest distortions\u201d designed to protect the political \u201cuniparty\u201d.<\/p>\n Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, who has stepped up his attacks on One Nation recently, suggested Hanson was \u201cliving it up\u201d in Europe instead of dealing with the controversy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question here for Pauline Hanson is: what is she going to do about it? She\u2019s over in Italy right now,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n Julian Leeser, a Jewish MP and Liberal frontbencher, said Hanson should show the \u201cmoral courage to stand up and do what is right\u201d and sack Roberts.<\/p>\n \u201cAntisemitism must find no home in any part of our national life. Ms Hanson must act,\u201d Leeser said.<\/p>\n Among those watching the controversy is Mark Latham, the former Labor leader who later served as a One Nation MP in NSW<\/a> before his split with Hanson in 2023<\/a> over his homophobic attacks on a fellow politician<\/a>.<\/p>\n Latham recalled Roberts travelling from Queensland to Sydney after he joined the party in 2018 and insisting every Labor decision was directed by the United Nations.<\/p>\n When Latham pushed back, Roberts reportedly replied: \u201cOh, they didn\u2019t tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was simply no point in trying to reason with Roberts,\u201d Latham wrote on Facebook this week. \u201cI cringed every time he came south of the Tweed.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone who supports Hanson agrees Roberts is the problem. Some think he is her strength.<\/p>\n George Christensen, the former Nationals MP<\/a> and One Nation candidate, argues the scrutiny over recent weeks had been deliberately designed to derail the party\u2019s rise. He described Roberts as one of One Nation\u2019s strongest parliamentary performers.<\/p>\n \u201cDamaging Roberts weakens One Nation,\u201d Christensen wrote in his weekly newsletter Nation First<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cForcing the party to defend him keeps it off other issues. Pressuring Pauline Hanson to distance herself from him, or even remove him, would take one of the party\u2019s strongest parliamentary performers out of the fight. That is the wider purpose of this campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there was Sicily. As she was posting online about the price of groceries, photographs emerged showing Hanson poolside at the Grand Hotel San Pietro in Taormina \u2013 the town where the second season of hit TV show The White Lotus was filmed \u2013 alongside billionaire Gina Rinehart.<\/p>\n There was no suggestion of wrongdoing. But politics has always been about optics as much as policy.<\/p>\n Pollsters so far believe One Nation voters, declared or potential, are not bothered by the relationship. Coalition strategists, conceding that attacking Hanson personally does not work among the electorate, have moved on to highlighting the circus that surrounds her.<\/p>\n Tony Barry, a director at research and polling group Redbridge, says One Nation voters are generally prepared to overlook \u2013 or are unaware of the relationship between \u2013 Hanson and Rinehart.<\/p>\n \u201cThose with some awareness typically dismiss it as their outsider getting needed insider treatment,\u201d he said. The Rinehart holiday was again left to Joyce to mop up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a holiday, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Joyce told Nine\u2019s Today program<\/a>. \u201cA person\u2019s allowed to have free time.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce said he did not know who was funding the trip.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say it\u2019s a fair bet that Gina\u2019s supported it somehow \u2026 but it\u2019s her money,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cI really don\u2019t know the details of it.\u201d<\/p>\n As with the Robinson video, the images from Sicily are now part of a broader conversation about Hanson\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who has led his party\u2019s charge against One Nation<\/a> since its rise in the polls after the Bondi massacre, says people are starting to look more closely at the party.<\/p>\n \u201cApply scrutiny to One Nation as you apply scrutiny to the Coalition, to Labor, to the Greens, and anyone else who wants to lead this country,\u201d he said this week.<\/p>\n Hastie said Hanson could no longer expect to be treated differently from other leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cPauline Hanson wants to be prime minister of this country, so her and her team deserve proper scrutiny.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cWhen you find out that people like Senator Malcolm Roberts are talking about chemtrails and other sorts of odd things \u2014 they\u2019re not really focused on delivering good economic solutions for Australian people to improve our standard of living.\u201d<\/p>\n Over coming days, Hanson will give two addresses at the Conservative Political Action Conference<\/a> in London, where Liz Truss reportedly told attendees: \u201cMaybe you\u2019re going to see a future Australian prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n After three decades, Hanson has finally built the political momentum she always believed would come.<\/p>\n Whether she can keep it may depend less on Labor or the Coalition than on the company she keeps.<\/p>\n Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Mining](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784203876_808_98617c492fc528cc7b037f480584e41210f2a492.jpeg\")
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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and senator Malcolm Roberts.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784268553_972_2d217e08a4ab8b166c3676155926c2bce6ba68355b551628fc4007615b883cd5.jpeg\")
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\u201cThe risk for Pauline Hanson is that at some point her relationship with Gina Rinehart sends a signal to her supporters that she is now operating by a different set of rules, which erodes her anti-establishment credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/3f583ef674da9f76942a94fe3954aa47a19fd0b1.jpeg\")
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Rob Harris<\/a> is the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated July 17, 2026 \u2014 12:57pm,first published 12:02pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-805516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}