Pauline Hanson has flagged a dramatic return to frontline lower house politics, confirming she is seriously considering a tilt at the House of Representatives as One Nation rides a wave of renewed support across the country.
Fresh from her party’s strong showing in South Australia, where One Nation secured seven seats in the state parliament, Hanson says a move from the Senate to the chamber where governments are formed is “on the cards”, setting the stage for a possible political comeback more than three decades after she first exploded onto the national scene.
“Yes, it is on the cards, and I have to consider that,” Hanson told Adelaide radio station 5AA. “A lot of people criticise me – ‘Oh, she can’t get anywhere because she’s in the upper house’.
“So don’t underestimate me, or what I may do.”
The remarks come as One Nation’s federal fortunes appear to be climbing, buoyed by strong polling and growing confidence within conservative circles that the party is evolving from a protest vote into a genuine political force.
Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, has already hinted she could contest the electorate where she lives in Queensland, with the most likely battlegrounds believed to be the Coalition-held seat of Wright or Labor’s marginal seat of Blair.
Either contest would carry symbolic weight – particularly Blair, where Hanson unsuccessfully sought re-election in 1998 under the newly formed One Nation banner after electoral boundaries abolished her original seat of Oxley.
That 1996 victory in Oxley remains one of the most seismic moments in modern Australian politics, launching Hanson from political outsider to national lightning rod almost overnight.
Now, at 71, she appears to be contemplating one last charge at the centre of power.
The move would also sharpen One Nation’s ambitions federally. While the party currently holds four Senate spots and one lower house seat through the defection of Barnaby Joyce from the Nationals, it is chasing its first outright elected House of Representatives victory at this weekend’s Farrer by-election in New South Wales, where candidate David Farley is considered a serious contender.
A Hanson candidacy in the lower house would be a major escalation, and a sign One Nation believes its moment may finally have arrived.
For Australia’s political establishment, it would also be a warning: Pauline Hanson may be nearing the twilight of her career, but she is clearly not done making headlines – or waves – just yet.
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