A strategy to highlight Pauline Hanson’s ties to the divisive “Make America Great Again” brand could backfire if adopted by the Coalition more broadly, an expert warns, after high-profile Liberal Andrew Hastie lashed the One Nation leader for her unwavering support for Donald Trump.
One Nation’s recent success in South Australia, where it won more than 20 per cent of the primary vote, has shown the party has managed to wrangle itself from the extreme fringes of Australian politics into the mainstream.
Its steady federal polling – hovering between 26 to 29 per cent – has cemented the party as a credible threat to the Coalition in the battle for conservative voters increasingly disillusioned with the major parties.
Despite the overlap in their voter bases, the Coalition has typically sought to draw a clear line between itself and One Nation’s populist rhetoric.
That divide was on display last week when Mr Hastie criticised Senator Hanson – a longstanding supporter of Mr Trump – for backing the US leader’s actions in Iran and urged Australia to join the war effort.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 in an operation that has been deemed illegal under international law by a number of critics, including legal experts.
Mr Hastie, who is a military veteran and Mr Trump’s loudest critic in the Liberal Party, branded her rhetoric as sounding “very MAGA first, rather than Australia first”, before he doubled down a few days later, in an unprompted attack on the One Nation leader.
“On one side, you’ve got Pauline Hanson boosting Donald Trump for the war in Iran,” he told ABC Insiders.
“I’ve got a brother in the navy — the question is, could I put my hand on heart as a parliamentarian and send him and his shipmates into the Strait of Hormuz?
“And I can’t, because I know we don’t have the capability to defend against Iranian drones and missiles.
“Now, the government should have remediated that … but nor, like Pauline Hanson, should we be quick to commit Australians to a war that I think is going to be much more complex than otherwise suggested.”
But Mr Hastie’s ability to criticise Mr Trump, and consequently link Senator Hanson to these criticisms, comes from the “luxury of not having to maintain the support of his parliamentary colleagues,” ANU Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations Jill Sheppard told NewsWire.
Any strategy to link the pair plays on Mr Trump’s unpopularity with Australians to try to “drag down” Senator Hanson’s domestic popularity, Dr Sheppard said, but for the Coalition to adopt this as a formal campaign approach would be fraught with many issues, particularly for Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.
This is despite the One Nation leader’s public support for the US leader and endorsement of his MAGA movement, including lavishing praises of his aggressive economic, migration and climate policies during conservative conference at Mar-a-Lago in November last year.
“If they are running down the MAGA path in an attempt to run down One Nation, then Angus Taylor will inevitably get asked: ‘Do you not like Donald Trump?’ And that will be a harder question for him to answer,” she said.
“Former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton struggled with it as well. Even Anthony Albanese struggles with the question of how we feel about Trump as a country, because we still have very good relations with the US.”
But ultimately, One Nation’s biggest threat to the Coalition is its exposure of a major fault line in the two parties, Dr Sheppard said.
“The party isn’t quite sure in 2026 how much they want to be pro business, pro migration, or how much they want to lean into a slightly more populist view on direction of the country,” she added.
It was an issue that had been brewing in the Coalition for many years, Dr Sheppard said, but one that One Nation had readily capitalised on in the wake of economic downturn, bolstered by its more “disciplined” approach to politics in recent years.
“Most parties like One Nation have fizzled away by this point. One Nation, and particularly Pauline Hanson, are particularly tenacious,” she said.
“They’re much more committed to being a party in Australian politics, even when it’s been on the extreme fringes of Australian politics, than any other similar party in the past. And also they seem a lot more professionalised these days.”
“I think both major parties have really struggled to deal with the rise in the One Nation vote share because they’re not used to such a sustained challenge, whether it’s in the left or right.
“They think about themselves as being the entrenched parties of government and anyone else trying to challenge them is an interloper, who is by default from the fringes or ideologically extreme.
“But obviously, at 21 per cent of the vote in South Australia, that’s not just extremists. That is mainstream voters, as much as anything.”
