Pauline Hanson vows to make Australia a monocultural society

Pauline Hanson has declared immigration has driven Australia into a “state of crisis” and called for a “monocultural society” as she vowed One Nation would fight for people to get their country back.

In her wide-ranging inaugural speech at the National Press Club – briefly interrupted by a Banksy-style protest stunt orchestrated by GetUp – the One Nation leader said that people had been trying for years to silence her.

She argued that hate preachers should be deported, defended her plan to scrap financial support for Indigenous Australians, and pledged to tackle the “transgender insurgency”, dump renewables, and back the construction of one nuclear power plant on the east coast.

Immigration

Senator Hanson said immigration “has our country in the state of crisis” after the post-COVID surge of arrivals that hasn’t been offset by people leaving, and declared multiculturalism an “utterly flawed policy”.

“We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural,” she said.

She questioned whether the “Australian electorate” supported the fact that 51 per cent of people living here were either born overseas or had migrant parents, contrasting it with the US where she said the figure was 14 per cent. Pew Research Centre data shows approximately 30 per cent of the US population are either first- or second-generation migrants.

Senator Hanson took particular aim at hate preachers, saying they were a “social cancer” who should be deported or hit with the full force of the law, and said her gravest concern was radial Islam.

“I’ve seen too much footage on our TVs from what’s happened in Britain, Canada, France, Germany – they’re all just absolute s-holes … and I don’t want Australia to become like that,” she said when asked whether she believed Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Muslim migration”, an echo of her first speech in 1996 that pushed back on Asian migration.

The call for Australia to be a monoculture received the most pushback from Senator Hanson’s political opponents, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said on social media after her speech that diversity was a strength of modern Australia.

“We are a great country here in Australia. We are the best country on Earth,” he told reporters earlier when asked if he viewed One Nation as a threat.

“One of the reasons why we are the best country on Earth is not just the natural environment that we have, it’s the people, people who’ve come here, the workers here, these young kids in there from a variety of backgrounds who enrich our nation with their presence.”

Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, who has previously sued Senator Hanson for racial discrimination, decried the speech as “the same tired, hate-filled message” the One Nation leader had sold for years.

“It’s clear the Australia of One Nation’s fantasies is a mean and selfish place where punching down on migrants and Muslims becomes the norm, where women’s right to choose are wound back, and where we fight each other for scraps dropped from above by the billionaires pulling the strings,” Senator Farqui said in a statement.

Scrap Indigenous supports

Among the cuts Senator Hanson outlined in response to a question about fighting inflation was a plan to abolish “the Aboriginal department”.

She later elaborated, saying that all State and Federal funding for Indigenous-specific programs should be scrapped because it lacked accountability.

“My vision for Australia is that we’re all Australians regardless of race, colour, creed, where you are. We’re all treated as Australians equally on an individual needs basis, not based on race,” she said.

One Nation senators routinely turn their backs on the acknowledgement of Country made at the start of each Senate sitting.

Senator Hanson on Wednesday started her speech by telling people not to expect “a divisive Welcome to Country” from her.

Attacks on Albanese

More than $4.5 million in donations has flowed to One Nation over the past week since Senator Hanson launched a “fire the liar” campaign taking aim at Mr Albanese.

The minor party’s leader doubled down on the accusations on Wednesday, calling the Prime Minister and his government liars nine times.

“Albanese lied to become elected, and Australians are paying for it,” she said while speaking about the cost of living.

Later, touching on housing and the changes to capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing – which she opposes – she said that young people were “the latest victims of the Government’s lies”.

She also spoke forcefully about free speech, saying that too many people were frightened of what would happen if they spoke up on the issues she talks about.

“They feel demonised and condescended. And they’re mad as hell about it. It’s as good an explanation as any for the earthquake that is changing the political landscape in Australia and other countries,” she said.

One Nation has a policy to enshrine free speech protections in the constitution, which would require a referendum.

However, when asked whether this would stop the gag orders she places on One Nation party members from speaking to media, she said that those were necessary for her to retain control of her party.

She said when she first formed One Nation, “I had nothing but trouble, putting out bushfires, people who thought they were in these executive positions and thought they were running the party”.

It has re-established a branch structure over the past year and Senator Hanson said a lot of enthusiastic people had come on board again.

“We’ve restricted these people until we know who they are, are they right people in these positions,” she said.

“Because I know the majority of you are going to go out there and try and hound or criticise me or anyone who’s associated with this party or is a member... I know what you’re up to, and that’s why I have to be in total control of it.”

The party has also stepped up its vetting regime, which Senator Hanson described as an “international vetting process” to examine potential staff and candidate Facebook pages and past statements.

However, she didn’t detail what her red lines were for rejecting people.

Reporting over the past two months has revealed One Nation had a convicted rapist on its staff, who has now been sacked, and several cases of officials making racist and anti-Semitic comments online.

Gender issues

Senator Hanson also used a significant portion of her speech to attack what she described as the “transgender insurgency” that “must be dismantled”.

If One Nation won government, Senator Hanson would sack Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody and the head of the Australian Human Rights Commission Hugh de Kretser and stop public agencies signing up to the Australian Workplace Equity Index.

It would also hold a national discussion about when abortions should be allowed.

Senator Hanson said there were too many abortions in Australia and that she personally thought 20 weeks was too late to terminate a pregnancy.

She also declared that “childcare is completely out of control” when it costs taxpayers $16 billion a year in subsidies.

“When I see that sort of money being put into childcare, I think we need to have a complete investigation into it, where the money’s going,” she said.

Energy and climate

Bringing down energy policies was central to Senator Hanson’s pitch on cost of living as she declared “the hoax of global warming” the one policy that had led to climbing numbers of Australians experiencing hardship.

One Nation would scrap the climate change department and all subsidies for renewable energy.

Solar panels would be allowed on rooftops, but there wouldn’t be any more large-scale renewables projects under her plans, which included building new coal-fired power plants in South Australia and Queensland, and a nuclear power plant somewhere on the east coast.

The latter would likely be publicly funded unless private investment could be found.

Senator Hanson said the Coalition’s policy at last year’s election for seven nuclear plants had been a mistake.

Media cuts and bans

Also on the chopping block were national broadcasters SBS – to be scrapped completely – and the ABC, which would be wound back to regional-only and a subscription streaming service under One Nation.

Senator Hanson had a couple of fiery exchanges with journalists during the question session, which extended beyond the usual end time because her speech ran for twice as long as the standard format.

“I don’t answer to the media. I answer to the Australian people,” she said during the address.

She subsequently told Guardian reporter Sarah Martin, who has written many stories scrutinising One Nation, that she was “such a trashy journalist” who would be banned from getting any answers in the future.

And asked by senior SBS correspondent Anna Henderson about the broadcaster’s role in reporting on Australian news, Senator Hanson told her bluntly that she was going to be jobless.