Hanson faces scrutiny as media landscape shifts around her

analysis Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where this week Jake Evans gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House. In February 2025, Pauline Hanson held a press conference about her plan to allow parents to split their income for tax purposes. After a brief speech, the senator asked if there were any questions — which was received with silence, because no reporters had showed up to pose one. "Any questions? Alright. No one has a question?" In the year since then, Hanson has appeared untouchable as One Nation has risen to a stratospheric height in just a few months, after 30 years of hovering around a primary vote of about 5 per cent. It is remarkable that in a week where the government was negotiating the most significant tax changes introduced to parliament since perhaps the carbon tax, that issue has felt like a side-story. This morning, Hanson briefly took questions out the front of Parliament House, where she had arranged for a convoy of trucks carrying "Fire the Liar" signs paid for with a pool of cash raised from 77,000 supporters. The event was heavily attended by journalists. One Nation not untouchable Parliament House was Pauline's World this week — but it also revealed that One Nation is not untouchable. Labor is sharpening its message against the party, and made a meal in parliament of Hanson's press club comments that workers were lazy and too difficult to fire. It seized on a suggestion that she may be willing to walk back paid parental leave entitlements, forcing the senator to spell out that she would not do so. In the chamber, Hanson boasted about how she had prompted days of debate on multiculturalism, which tripped up Angus Taylor, who couldn't find his footing on whether to back it or an Australian monoculture. But she was also pushed to explain that "nothing would really change" in a monoculture. Hanson said her vision for a monoculture would look just like the Socceroos, a multicultural success story, who she says "are from different cultures, but they went in there to play the game for Australia". In front of the throng of journalists this morning, the Senator was pushed by an ABC reporter on whether her vision for a monoculture was just wordplay. Breaking from her talking points, Hanson told a story about a Russian woman she had met, whose mother had urged when the family immigrated to Australia it should "integrate, assimilate into the society", while the father refused. "Dad was wrong, mum was right, we have to integrate, we are Australians," Hanson recounted. LoadingIt was the first time since the press club she had used the word "assimilate", a word the party knows is more controversial, even if it says it is not afraid to offend people to achieve its aims. It was noteworthy that in a week where Hanson dominated discussions in parliament and in the news, she also felt compelled to acknowledge online that she sometimes gets it wrong. "I'll tell you up-front, One Nation won't always be absolutely perfect. We'll make a mistake here and there, but we'll be up-front about it," Hanson wrote on social media this afternoon, alluding to her new colleague David Farley's accidental vote alongside the Greens and independents on a motion to wind back fuel tax credits. Even as Hanson faces more media heat, it remains to be seen what will filter down to the public between now and 2028. The media landscape is shifting again. The face of Australia's media, Karl Stefanovic, has pivoted towards an overtly political podcast in the style of Piers Morgan or Joe Rogan, with more and more people getting information from influencers and not traditional outlets. Content generated by artificial intelligence swamps algorithms and comment threads. Across the political divide, MPs and operatives say they have seen a slick One Nation campaign machine take flight online in the last three or so months, that is clearly better funded and coordinated than it was before. Labor and the Coalition's cringeworthy memes at the 2025 federal election show both are aware of the internet war that must be won, even if they don't have a perfect grasp of it. They know which Pauline people will see depends on who wins the online fight for attention between now and 2028. Greens support changes The government had set itself two goals for this fortnight: to pass its tax changes to tighten negative gearing and capital gains tax, and to pass its bill to save tens of billions of dollars in the NDIS. It ends the week with half marks, securing support via the Greens to pass its tax changes, with the addition of a new borrowing restriction for self-managed super funds — while also bowing to the minor party's demand to give its NDIS bill a tidy up, and delay it beyond the winter break to allow further scrutiny at an inquiry. Its hasty negotiations have already required fixes, with Labor only today promising its grandfathering of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions won't come to an end for couples when one dies or there is a divorce. The Coalition, now unable to force a delay on the tax changes, made a cheeky offer to help the government pass its NDIS savings package this fortnight too, as intended — knowing full well the government would not betray its agreement with the Greens to delay a vote until August. That delay will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the government says. But it is happening anyway, as the government says it will not work with the Coalition to pass it this fortnight, even though that is their only pathway, with the Greens vowing to oppose it. It is the kind of shenanigans that might ordinarily consume the final sitting fortnight before a winter break. But a lot has changed — take the launch of a two-person Teal party today, who turned up with their own film crew for the occasion. It was only two elections ago the "teal wave" swept into parliament, promising a new kind of politics. And it was a year ago, the same time as Hanson was addressing cameras with no reporters, that independents were being asked what they would do if they held the balance of power after the election. The theatres of Parliament House, senate estimates, Question Time, are more and more becoming stages for clip farmers working on the real fight online. One Nation's Barnaby Joyce and his once-party mate Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie snubbed parliament this week for a conservative talkfest in the United Kingdom, knowing the show is happening elsewhere.