{"id":812618,"date":"2026-07-20T17:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812618\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T17:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:08:13","slug":"pauline-hanson-shares-seven-pitch-for-spotlight-special-that-says-program-would-highlight-uncontrolled-immigration-pauline-hanson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/812618\/","title":{"rendered":"Pauline Hanson shares Seven pitch for Spotlight special that says program would highlight \u2018uncontrolled immigration\u2019 | Pauline Hanson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Seven producer urged Pauline Hanson to travel to Britain<\/a> to meet Nigel Farage and film a Spotlight special highlighting so-called \u201cuncontrolled immigration\u201d, according to a pitch posted to social media by the One Nation leader.<\/p>\n

The pitch also suggested that Seven might cover some of the travel costs for the One Nation<\/a> leader and her team and that the program wanted the Reform UK leader to \u201cinvite Ms Hanson to Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n

The current affairs program strongly endorsed an anti-immigration position, and said they had the facts to prove what was \u201cthe backbone of our story\u201d. The email used the phrase \u201cuncontrolled immigration\u201d seven times.<\/p>\n

The senior producer Luke Mortimer said the program would \u201cillustrate the strain uncontrolled immigration is placing on our infrastructure\u201d and demonstrate what Australia is allegedly facing \u201cif we don\u2019t take back control of who comes to our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters in Britain are seeing pictures of boatloads of migrants, often young men from the Middle East and Africa, crossing the British Channel, and they\u2019re seeing their seaside towns turned into camps for people who claim refugee status,\u201d Mortimer said, in a pitch Hanson shared on her Facebook page<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

The One Nation leader appears to have shared the post because she is unhappy with her portrayal on Spotlight.<\/p>\n

Despite the sympathetic approach of the producer, Hanson was grilled by reporter Liam Bartlett about why she met Tommy Robinson<\/a>, a man who has violent criminal convictions and is considered too extreme for Nigel Farage\u2019s rightwing Reform UK party.<\/p>\n

In the post, Hanson asks her followers \u201cif last night\u2019s show reflects their pitch?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bartlett told viewers Hanson was supposed to meet Farage but the meeting was overtaken by events when he resigned from the UK parliament and called a byelection in the face of financial scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Seven has confirmed it was a Spotlight pitch, but distanced itself from the leaked email by saying it was one of hundreds of communications between Seven and Hanson\u2019s team in the run-up to the show.<\/p>\n

In the email, Mortimer appears to imply the program would fund Hanson\u2019s travel to the UK. \u201cWe can discuss travel arrangements,\u201d Mortimer said.<\/p>\n

Seven has denied paying for Hanson\u2019s travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been extensive, if not hundreds of emails, phone calls and messages over more than six months to organise this Spotlight special, with many developments in the news cycle leading to what was broadcast last night,\u201d a spokesperson for Seven said on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpotlight is proud to have produced a balanced piece of journalism which fairly quizzed Senator Hanson but also allowed her views to be explored and heard in a high-rating special and we thank Senator Hanson for her candid access.\u201d<\/p>\n

The email from Mortimer repeats the talking points of One Nation and anti-immigration activists and claims many Australians are unhappy with the levels of immigration.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMany Australians would be shocked to know our figures are already further down the line \u2013 38.1% of Greater Sydney was born overseas,\u201d he said. \u201cCouncil areas such as Strathfield have a population of almost 60% that was born overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program proposed taking Farage and Hanson to the UK seaside town of Bournemouth, which it claimed \u201chas seen a surge of more than 50% of foreign-born residents, thousands of which are being housed in hotels at the taxpayers expense\u201d.<\/p>\n

Instead, the program filmed Hanson and Robinson walking through Luton, 50km north of London, which has a significant Muslim population.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate seeing the burqa,\u201d Hanson said on camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women covered up, I can\u2019t stand it \u2026 I don\u2019t want this happening in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartlett also asked Hanson about her view on the \u201cconcept of mass deportation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I love it,\u201d she said, but clarified she was targeting \u201cthe ones who are here illegally in the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

The One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce defended Hanson\u2019s decision to meet Robinson when he appeared on ABC\u2019s 7.30 on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Asked for his position on Hanson\u2019s comments about Muslims, Joyce first acknowledged Robinson had done \u201csome things\u201d that were \u201cbasically against the law\u201d but said Hanson was not \u201ccondoning of every action of Tommy Robinson. I don\u2019t think that was ever said\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Seven producer urged Pauline Hanson to travel to Britain to meet Nigel Farage and film a Spotlight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-812618","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\/812618","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=812618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}