News and politics live updates: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson speaks at National Press Club in Canberra

In a fiery National Press Club address, Pauline Hanson has unleashed on the Albanese Government warning that One Nation is rising because Australians are “mad as hell” and ready to take their country back.

“Remember, when first campaigning to be elected, the Albanese Government said it would reduce power bills by $275. Surely the slogan, ‘Fire the Liar’ has relevance to millions of Australians. Was it a lie to campaign in 2022 on the slogan “A better future”? Is this how Australians feel today?” Senator Hanson said.

“The cost of energy feeds into everything we use, we eat, we manufacture, everything. So, food is dearer, housing is dearer, rents are dearer, there is your cost of living crisis.

“Albanese lied to become elected, and Australians are paying for it.

“How many times were you, the media, condemned for simply asking before the last election whether a Labor Government would make changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing? Didn’t they lie to the electorate?

“I am meant to be a voice for that electorate. The public are sick to the back teeth with these lies.

“When the Prime Minister was delivering a speech to miners in the coal mining region of NSW, the Hunter Valley, in the 2025 election campaign, did he fall off the stage and deny it?

“Let me be blunt, if you lie once, why won’t you lie again and again and again?”

Read the full speech here.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has told a Special Broadcast Service journalist she’ll “be out of a job” during her Q&A at the National Press Club.

After the Queensland Senator declared she’d axe the taxpayer-funded media outlet alongside the ABC in her earlier speech, SBS Australia’s Chief Political Correspondent Anna Henderson questioned her position.

Henderson had mentioned that SBS provides news services to Australians across 60 languages.

During some back-and-forth over the question, Senator Hanson told Henderson she could understand her curiosity as “you’re going to be without a job”.

“I want them to be able to learn to speak English before they get here to get their citizenship and that will help them assimilate into our society,” Senator Hanson said.

“So, where’s the assimilation? We are a monocultural nation, not… multicultural, and our language is English, and that will help people actually be able to go out there and get a job.”

She claimed that people could get their news from other sources online and that “Sky is great to go and look for news”.

Pauline Hanson has been quizzed on her views about abortion and whether she would support setting time limits on when pregnant women can have the procedure.

Senator Hanson has told the press club that “it’s a discussion that needs to be had” but declared that aborting a baby “the day before birth is abhorrent and disgusting”.

“That’s what I oppose, and that’s what many, you know, common sense Australians believe.”

“I’m not advocating the time at this stage, but I can tell you, even from 20 weeks, I think it’s too, too late to have an abortion”

“But definitely, you know, 39 weeks to have an abortion that is clearly not humane”.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has labelled government ministers “incompetent” and insisted the public service is “poorly run”.

“I’ve spoken to them on the floor of Parliament, and I listen to their comments. They are incompetent, and they are useless,” she told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“They don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know how to run their portfolios, and they rely on the departments and the bureaucrats to give them the information.

“The public service has been, I think, poorly run for a long, long time.”

She also told the Press Club that she “loves” her work but tried to stay out of Canberra as much as possible. It comes as she was criticised recently for her low attendance in Senate Estimates.

Pauline Hanson has blasted a reporter from The Guardian who questioned the Senator about whether she approved a $150,000 taxpayer funded job for her daughter Lee Hanson.

Journalist Sarah Martin, who regularly writes about One Nation, posed the question to the party leader following her press club address.

“Honestly, you never give up. I’ve never seen a person that’s such a trashy journalist,” Senator Hanson responded.

“What you put out all the time, you’ve got this obsession with constantly trying to pull down myself, my party, or Mrs. Rinehart.”

“Whatever you do, you will be banned,” Senator Hanson warned Ms Martin.

“I didn’t get her that job, she got the job on her own merits by someone who actually wanted to employ her”.

The audience responded with applause to Ms Hanson’s takedown.

Pauline Hanson says One Nation is “scrutinised a hell of a lot more” than other parties after she was asked about vetting processes.

The question at the National Press Club comes after the party had a string of controversies with candidates and organisational staff.

“I think One Nation is scrutinised a hell of a lot more than any other political party,” she said.

“The focus has always been on us… you really need to have a look at the other political parties (and) the problems that they’ve had over the years.

“Don’t forget that I’ve only been back running this party again since 2015.

“(Before that) we didn’t have the big machine behind us, so we’ve actually had to build that. Now we’ve improved our resources.”

One Nation’s leader has been asked if she still opposes foreign aid, particularly given China’s rising influence in the Pacific.

Pauline Hanson responded by arguing that many pacific partners have accepted aid from both the Australian government and Beijing.

“You talk about the Chinese, the amount of money that we’ve helped with our Pacific partners, and we’ve given them foreign aid.”

“That’s like they’ve said to us, ‘Up you, we’re actually going to just, you know, take the Chinese and have them here.’ There has to be give and take.”

Senator Hanson then warns that Australia must recognise the “threat” posed by Beijing.

“We cannot disregard China. We have to realise the threat that it could be in our vicinity.”

One of the questions put to Pauline Hanson at the National Press Club was about comments she made recently in the wake of a ‘ditch the witch’ campaign against Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.

The One Nation leader had told the State Labor leader to “suck it up, sweetheart” and claimed former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer had called her a ‘witch from Ipswich’ in a 1990s newspaper.

Veteran journalist Michelle Grattan said that the widow of Mr Fischer had denied these claims and was upset they had re-emerged in recent weeks.

Senator Hanson said she was confident the late Mr Fischer had made the comments but said she couldn’t recall what year she had read them.

Pauline Hanson has declined to commit to holding daily press conferences with journalists during the next election campaign.

Asked at the National Press Club whether she would allow scrutiny like other political leaders in elections, Ms Hanson said she is yet to decide.

“I’m not going to be anyone’s football to kick around,” Senator Hanson replied.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called for the “mainstream media” to “scrutinise” her but not “pile on” while staring down Canberra journalists at the National Press Club.

“I have a few more words for the mainstream media. One Nation’s new support brings with it much greater responsibility. I get that,” she said.

“It’s your job to scrutinise my party, its people and its policies. Unlike the Prime Minister, I welcome it.

“I’m an elected representative and I should be scrutinised.

“That doesn’t give you the license to pile on. It doesn’t give you the license to delegitimise my party.

“It doesn’t give you the licence to say preferencing One Nation is immoral. It doesn’t give you the license to continue to repeat the lie that we are a racist party - because that is untrue.

“The Australian people can make up their own mind. And they are.”