Hanson’s new stuff sounds like the old establishment. No wonder support is waning

July 17, 2026 — 3:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

What are we calling this? A fall? The ceiling? I’m not sure it’s wise to opt for anything nearly so final, so I’m going with a softening. Whatever you call it, several polls over the past fortnight now show One Nation support dipping slightly and Pauline Hanson’s approval dropping more. The turning point seems clearly enough to be Hanson’s National Press Club appearance, in which the public first got the full Hanson experience – all her main positions, her overarching worldview in one place.

Until then, the One Nation surge was a mood. “It’s not ideological,” said Redbridge pollster Simon Welsh recently, summarising what he’s hearing from people moving to One Nation. “It’s not about moving right, it’s not even necessarily about policy.” Rather “they’re coming across to One Nation … often in spite of One Nation’s position on issues like immigration”. Nothing quite kills the mood as much as when things become more about policy. The question was always whether, when, and to what extent that would happen. At this stage, all signs point to it happening enough to apply some kind of political brake.

We shouldn’t overstate this. The softening is real, showing up in enough polls to confirm it, but only roughly equivalent to the margin of error. Of more interest is that Hanson’s own softening approval significantly outstrips this. That suggests two things: one, that her popularity is fragile and impressionistic; two,........

© WA Today