Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) has experienced a stark rise in popularity, increasing from 6.4 percent of the national vote to around 25 percent of the primary vote since 2025. Polling from organisations such as Redbridge Group and Accent Research indicate that PHON could win between 49-59 seats if a federal election were to be held this year, forcing Labor into a minority government and effectively wiping out the Coalition. So, with over 30 years of experience in politics and the not insignificant possibility of a One Nation power swing, the question becomes:
What has Pauline Hanson actually done?
On the One Nation website is a page titled Pauline Hanson Achievements which details Hanson’s crowning accomplishments. The first 10 dot-points are what Hanson believes to be her most important successes since the 2019 election.
The Covid-19 Vaccination Status (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill 2021 is the first achievement in this list and one of just three private senator’s bills that Pauline Hanson has introduced during the last seven years. The bill aimed to prevent ‘discriminatory’ vaccine mandates and entry requirements during the pandemic. At the time, vaccination was only mandatory for high-risk professions like healthcare, emergency services and education, and vaccination entry requirements were exclusive to public venues. Despite Hanson’s claim that the bill exposed ‘deep divisions’ in the government, it was rejected by a majority of 44 votes to 5. It’s important to note that out of the numerous bills Hanson has introduced throughout her long career, not a single one has passed.
The next achievement listed is Providing Life-Saving Medicine for Children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). Hanson alleges that her lobbying forced the government to add a key SMA medication to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). Despite this one case, she has consistently voted against the interest of disabled Australians, public health and Australian parents. Hanson advocates for the NDIS to be limited to individuals with severe physical disabilities; the removal of neurodivergent children from classrooms; Australia to remove itself from the World Health Organisation; Medicare reform; unpaid parental leave; and diminishing subsidies for childcare, all of which would negatively impact the families Hanson claims to support. This reduces an extremely important issue to a one-off political stunt.
Another listed accomplishment is the Family Law Inquiry and Changes to Family Courts. Hanson co-chaired the Select Committee on Australia’s Family Law system from 2019 to 2021 and took credit for the Coalition’s decision to establish an enquiry into the family law system. During this time, she claimed that women frequently fabricated domestic violence claims to win custody disputes and proposed that the system was overwhelmingly biased in favour of women. This idea has since been debunked by several advocacy groups. It is speculated that Hanson’s ‘obvious agenda’ was fuelled by her son’s family court case involving domestic violence allegations.
Her final achievement is titled Scheme Created 100,000 New Apprenticeships. This is in reference to her proposed pilot program which would fund over 1,000 new apprenticeships in regional areas. The $60 million plan used taxpayer funds to subsidise 75 percent of apprentice wages in their first year and was alleged to cost up to six times more than existing schemes. Hanson has since claimed that it laid the groundwork for future schemes which is where the 100,000 figure stems from. Despite being listed under substantial achievements since 2019, the plan was proposed in 2018 before the federal election.
The other six achievements are listed as: Public Funding for Roads and Projects in Regional Queensland, Defeated Legislation to Ban Cash, Blocked Over-The-Top ‘Ensuring Integrity’ Law, Senate Vote to Oppose Critical Race Theory in Australian Schools, and Dairy Industry Code of Conduct. All mentioned above share one commonality: One Nation did not write, propose, or amend any of these initiatives. If the threshold for Pauline Hansons crowing achievements over the last seven years amounts to voting yes on someone else’s proposal—i.e. what senators are paid to do—then it would be fair to characterise Pauline Hanson as an effective politician. Unfortunately for her, that is not the case. What adds to Hanson’s incompetence is her pitiful 53 percent attendance rate. The average attendance for members of the upper and lower houses rests between 85 and 93 percent.
In its current state PHON it is more dangerous than ever. It is able to coast through with faux-credibility by taking credit for other MP’s polices, performing surface-level political stunts, and spewing over-the-top far-right rhetoric without falling under the same scrutiny as any of the other major parties.
To the One Nation voters who are rightly disillusioned with the current state of Australian politics I ask this:
Do we really want our own orange idiot?
This post was featured in Glass Magazine’s 2026 Winter Edition.
