By Laksiri Fernando –

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

Recently conducted survey (poll) by a company for some prominent newspapers reveals the rise of extreme right-wing nationalism in Australia. This is explicit when a highest number of voters in the sample (1801) selected the controversial Ms Pauline Hanson as the preferred Prime Minister. She is the leader of the right-wing One Nation political party.

Pauline Hanson

Pauline Hanson received 33 percent of votes while the incumbent Labor Party leader and the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese receiving 29 percent. Tragically, the opposition Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor received only 16 percent votes. This is however not a clear indicator of what would actually happen in the forthcoming elections. There were 22 percent of voters who were undecided or preferred some other people.

Albanese must have got the second place for several reasons. All governments in democracies become relatively unpopular when their tenure proceeds. This must have affected the voting. Especially, many of the measures of the recent Budget were controversial and public opinion has been critical of the government as a result.

However, the question remains why the voters in the sample voted for Pauline Hanson as the preferred PM, instead of voting for the opposition leader Angus Taylor? This is mainly where the right-wing trend in Australian politics is clear.

Hanson has a long controversial history. She was once in jail! She started politics as a member and candidate of the Liberal Party in local government. After some differences, she formed the One Nation party with some others in 1997. Since then, her propaganda and political positions were the most controversial. If I may say so, she is a ‘white racist’ in addition to many other right-wing policies. Throughout her political career, her main attacks have been against the Aboriginal people, arguing against public funding for underprivileged indigenous people.

Her second most enemies are the Asian migrants, composing Chinese, Japanese, Indonesians and even Sri Lankans. She wants to limit further migrants from these countries, and already migrated people to work hard, and not to ask any welfare concessions. She is against a welfare economy, even for the white people.

On the question of religion, she is totally against Islam, and want to prohibit the ‘head cover’ by Muslim women. Hansen has a particular (or funny) way of political propaganda. In August 2017, she attended the Senate wearing a Burqa to apparently to highlight the security risks of head cover. All other parties including the Liberal Party opposed the proposal. There is no need even to further emphasize her opposition to Muslim and Middle East migrants.

Hansen’s right-wing and conservative views are not limited to issues like migration from Asian countries and Africa. She is opposed to Abortion and same sex marriage, to say the least. She recently called the people’s concerns about climate change as ‘hoax.’ When she was addressing the National Press Club (17 June 2026) recently, her main attack was on Australia’s very prominent and praiseworthy ‘multicultural policies.’ Following is how multiculturalism can be explained in the world context.

“Multiculturalism is the coexistence of diverse cultures, races, and ethnicities within a single country, emphasizing the preservation of distinct cultural identities alongside a shared national identity. It acts both as a demographic reality of modern democracies and as an official government policy aimed at fostering equality and social cohesion.”

The above quotation is from Wikipedia. In the implementation of multiculturalism, there can be some weaknesses in any country. Australia is not an exception. When we migrate to any country, we do have certain responsibilities to integrate into the common national identity. There is nothing wrong in emphasising this common national identity.

However, the first generations of some migrants would have difficulties in respect of language, religion or other matters. These difficulties should be understood and accommodated. Different cultural aspects also will give beauty to the common national identity. I have seen this in Australia, and Australia’s present multicultural policies are, in my experience, is well managed.

Then what is wrong with Pauline Hanson? The reasons and dangers are clearer when we observe particularly her foreign policies. Of course, she is strongly with Donald Trump on the question of war against Iran. She is also with Israel on the attacks against Palestinians, Gaza Strip and Lebanon. If she or her One Nation party comes into power, although it is extremely unlikely, there is a great possibility of generating a war against or with China. Her anti-Asian policies and prominent right-wing policies are a great risk for Australia.