The real Hanson shock: She’s Labor’s enemy... with benefits

September 19, 2026 — 5:00am

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The phrase “rise of One Nation” is standard media shorthand for its phenomenal poll gains. It’s also completely wrong-headed. One Nation did not “rise”. As Pauline Hanson said many times, she did nothing different. It was the fall of the main parties. That was the motive force.

The failures of the Coalition and Labor so frustrated and angered voters that they switched their support to One Nation. Hanson’s increased poll support is an index of despair at the main parties rather than expression of admiration and respect for her or her plans.

This is a crucial difference. It means the major parties have an opportunity to persuade their former supporters to return.

So the Hanson shock is also the Hanson opportunity. Australia’s traditional enemy is not any country. It’s our complacency. By jolting the main parties out of their complacency, Hanson could turn out to be a national ally in defeating this pernicious enemy.

We are seeing the Albanese government act accordingly. While expressing disdain for the right-wing populist party, Labor is increasingly adjusting its policies and its rhetoric to improve its appeal and reduce its vulnerabilities.

As one minister puts it: “Everyone sitting around the cabinet table is a politician and we’re all thinking about how to deal with the biggest political change in a generation.”

Exhibit A is Labor’s much-anticipated immigration announcement this week. Immigration, of course, has been Hanson’s single biggest grievance for the entirety of her 30 years in politics.

In response to its savage new salience, the government has not produced a new-model immigration policy but it has announced running repairs to the old one. It’s not a new model because the planned immigration intake is unchanged, to the evident astonishment of Liberal leader Angus Taylor. He kept repeating “there are no cuts”. That’s true, and also surprising.

The May budget said net overseas migration (or NOM) for the current fiscal year was forecast to be 245,000 and 225,000 the year following. These numbers are exactly unchanged today. So what was the point?

The crux of this is not the numbers but the words. The budget papers have always stated the net overseas migration figure as a “forecast”. Not a target. And governments have treated it accordingly.

‘You can’t put everything on........

© Brisbane Times