She wasn’t slick, but Hanson’s formidable Press Club performance proved her enemies wrong

June 17, 2026 — 4:28pm

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For months, the conventional wisdom was that Pauline Hanson would eventually trip up — that she would self-implode, be caught out by some association or crack under the weight of sustained scrutiny.

The press gallery, the major parties and the broader political class have all, in different ways, banked on some version of that outcome.

But her performance at the National Press Club in Canberra suggested something more uncomfortable. The One Nation juggernaut may not have peaked yet.

She wasn’t slick, she constantly contradicted herself and mangled her words. But, under the spotlight and on national television, she never lost her cool.

She was the same Pauline Hanson that Australians first came to know 30 years ago, but a touch more worldly and, in some ways, more sophisticated. She has been a staple of Australian culture for three decades in a way none of her opponents will ever be. Nowadays, that is a rare gift for a politician.

So it is now worth asking whether those she is trying to dislodge from office — on both sides of politics — need to adjust not........

© The Age