Look, first up, let me apologise to Matt Canavan. Just a month ago, I accused him of being annoying and self-absorbed.

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Sure, that's his usual vibe but this week he did the right thing. He gave Pauline Hanson an utter bollocking. Andrew Bragg, who is usually normal, also deserves a merit certificate.

These two were survivors of the fathead Trump-like campaigning by Peter Dutton and Jacinta Price in the 2025 election which led to the implosion of the Coalition.

Canavan and Bragg can both tell the kind of pomposity Australians loathe plus, about one in three Australians is a migrant (and that doesn't include people like me whose parents were refugees).

So what led to this latest of Hanson stunts? Who knows - but a desperate attempt to remain in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. In the course of one week, just as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts, the One Nation leader claimed there were "no good Muslims". Then she started complaining about Lakemba, a suburb in western Sydney.

"It concerns me greatly that people can't go into certain suburbs in this country now ... they don't want to go into certain suburbs and I've been there to Lakemba, you feel unwelcome," she told ABC TV.

Wait, what? Are we going to hate on atheists and Catholics because you feel awkward in Belconnen? Or atheists and Anglicans because you feel weird in Windale in Newcastle? It can't be fear because of the crime rates. The rate of assault in Lakemba is about the same as the rest of NSW so not entirely sure what Hanson is afraid of - my guess is that the locals look different. She probably feels the same way I do when I go to the beach, where it appears everyone is tall and skinny. Sure, it's uncomfortable, but so what. Life is uncomfortable. Harden up.

Are we destined to elect One Nation in greater numbers than we have before? The Australian National University's Ian McAllister, who leads the Australian Election Study, is not convinced.

Polls don't really tell us what's going to happen when Australians actually vote. He sees the current polling for One Nation as more of a protest vote - and protest parties don't have any voter retention. He says the Greens have beaten that trend, for the most part, moving from protest party to one which retains loyal voters over elections.

What reveals One Nation voters to be protest voters? There are, he says, nearly as many former Labor voters as there are former Coalition voters. Could One Nation be on the same trajectory as the Greens in terms of moving from a protest vote to a solid and loyal vote. Possibly - but McAllister is not convinced. "They could equally go back to where they came from," he says.

There is one shift in the most recent election - and that is the way immigration has become a major concern to Australian voters.

"It really went up quite dramatically in 2025 - and you normally only find that when economic conditions are really bad. Now it is happening outside a major depression or decline and neither major party has dealt with it," he says.

Reform in the UK has weaponised immigration, says McAllister, but again it's different to the Australian experience. Migrants here are not illegal.

"But there is a widespread belief that immigration is putting too much pressure on housing, schools and health. The infrastructure is not really keeping pace."

Speaking of housing, remember when Hanson said she wouldn't sell her house to a Muslim? That was 2010 when she was threatening to leave our shores and move to Britain. Sadly, that didn't work out.

Hanson is an unparalleled stuntwoman - but is that what we want from a leader?

In 2016, in her maiden speech in the Senate, she started with her "good Muslim, bad Muslim" bit of trickery. I'd argue you can't tell a good Christian from a bad Christian and what would be the point anyway? These deranged generalisations don't make life better for any of us, do they?

In 1996, now 30 years ago, her main target was Asians with a dose of multiculturalism. And none of this is helping us have a happier, more tolerant, society.

Kurt Sengul, research fellow at Macquarie University and a Pauline Hanson specialist, says he wasn't at all surprised by her reprise of the good Muslim, bad Muslim trope.

"It was a bit of an acceleration but not too much. In terms of stunts, I wasn't particularly surprised. She's been focussed on this idea that it is impossible to distinguish between good and bad," he says.

But Sengul says history tells us One Nation can't convert their polling surge into votes. In July 2017, polls revealed 11 per cent support for One Nation. By 2019, the election results were a quarter of that.

"Translating polling into electoral success has been its biggest struggle," says Sengul. Could this time be different?

There is, he says, a structural realignment of conservative politics. One Nation will have advantages they have never had before - a really well funded campaign, ads on television, a digital spend.

"They will have a pretty healthy war chest and that might overcome many of their limitations and their dysfunction." Still, One Nation has had a parade of misfits, misanthropes and misogynists.

Pauline Hanson has an appetite for blow-ups and destruction - and amid all that has not once - not ever - delivered anything like a measurable positive outcome for Australian. She sows seeds of misery and discontent instead.

And she loves a stunt. Not sure that Australia should buy into her circus.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist.

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