Pauline Hanson to face media scrutiny in media appearance like no other
Pauline Hanson will today face the Australian media on their own turf for the first time in her 30-year political career, with her willingness to do so showing her party’s transition to a legitimate alternative government.
The One Nation leader will address the National Press Club this afternoon before facing questions from several members of the media, including some from the owner of this masthead, Nine.
Pauline Hanson will address the National Press Club this afternoon. AAP
These are televised luncheons that feature speeches by politicians and industry leaders, some of whom include Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.
It is Hanson’s very first address to the institution since she entered federal politics in 1996, first as an independent MP for Oxley and later as a Queensland senator.
Her appearance is a unique opportunity for her to speak to a national audience for a lengthy period of time, according to Nine’s chief political editor Charles Croucher.
He said her appearance showed One Nation is now treating itself as an alternative government.
“As mainstream Australia is taking a look or even embracing Pauline Hanson, the senator is now sharing her beliefs in Australian politics’ most mainstream venue,” he said.
“This is a good thing.
“Just as politicians speaking on podcasts and social media exposes more Australians to their potential leaders, so too does a senator or MP speaking at the press club.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during an address to the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on April 2. Alex Ellinghausen
The One Nation leader’s right-hand man, Barnaby Joyce, has forecast that Hanson’s appearance will be “nothing like any other press conference”.
“Pauline will be up for grilling and people will be out for her with steak knives, I can see that coming from a mile away,” he told Nine’s Today yesterday.
“We’ve got to man up to the challenge.”
Hanson said this week she would continue to announce policy measures years out from the next federal election, allowing voters time to absorb her message.
“Unlike the major political parties, who will only get let you see their policies only a matter of weeks before the election,” she told reporters on Monday.
Her National Press Club address is an opportune place for her to announce a headline policy.
Hanson’s recent meteoric rise in popularity, fuelled by voter dissent against the Coalition, has positioned her as a viable option for voters after spending years as a fringe party leader.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week declared the Coalition was no longer a mainstream party and is now the fringe party.
But One Nation’s rise could affect Labor’s vote too.
The latest The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age’s Resolve poll found Hanson leapt over Albanese as the preferred prime minister as One Nation led the primary vote for the first time at 29 per cent.
Meanwhile, Labor’s vote slipped to 28 per cent and the Coalition’s fell to 20 per cent.
One Nation’s anti-Labor campaign has also raised more than $4 million in donations, which Hanson is using to help pay for more advertising.
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