Pauline Hanson identifies real anxieties, then blames the wrong people. Housing, cost of living, social cohesion, and Indigenous disadvantage are genuine issues. But Hanson’s answer is to turn structural failure into a culture war against migrants, Muslims, and renewable energy.

Australia’s housing crisis is real. Her claim that immigration is its primary driver is wrong. During COVID, borders closed, migrants left, and population growth fell to historic lows. If immigration were the main cause of rising house prices, they should have fallen. Instead, they surged, driven by record-low interest rates and speculative demand.

ABS data shows that between 2001 and 2021, dwellings grew by 39 per cent while population grew by 34 per cent. We built more homes than people arrived.

The real roots lie in negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount introduced by John Howard in 1999 — after which house prices decoupled from incomes — decades of declining public housing investment, and the financialisation of housing as a wealth asset. Migration adds pressure to a system already tilted toward unaffordability, but it did not build that system.

At the Press Club, Hanson declared: “We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multi-racial society, but we must be monocultural.” This is the politics of White Australia.

Hanson herself cited the figure: 51.5% of Australian residents were born overseas or had a parent born overseas. That is not a threat to the electorate — that IS the electorate. It is also the workforce keeping this country running: 57% of GPs, 43% of nurses, 52% of farm workers, and 40% of aged and disability carers were born overseas.

At the 2026 World Cup, Nestory Irankunda, born in a refugee camp but raised in Australia scored a historic goal for the Socceroos. He embodied what Australia is. Multiculturalism is not a problem. It is Australia’s future.

Asked whether Australia was being “swamped by Muslim migration,” she replied: “Not if I’ve got any say in it.” She moves repeatedly from condemning violent extremism to casting suspicion over all Muslims. This is stigmatisation. Australian Muslims serve in the military, work in medicine, run businesses, and contribute to public life. They deserve to be treated as citizens, not threats.

The same evasion runs through her economics. She blames the cost-of-living crisis almost entirely on renewable energy, ignoring the real drivers: rents, stagnant wages, corporate concentration, and rising wealth inequality. Investors prosper while wage earners bear the burden. And she is wrong about high taxation — Australia has the eighth lowest taxation in the OECD.

What makes Hanson politically effective is also what makes her dangerous. She starts with real frustration, then offers easy enemies instead of real explanations. That is how scapegoating works — by making “the other” the target.

Australia’s problems will not be solved by blaming migrants, stigmatising Muslims, closing SBS, or declaring the country must be monocultural. The real task is to confront speculation, inequality, poor housing policy, and the economic structures that have made ordinary life less secure.