About Pauline Hanson
Pauline Lee Hanson (née Seccombe, formerly Zagorski; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician who is the leader of One Nation. She has been a senator for Queensland since 2016, and was the member of Parliament (MP) for the Queensland division of Oxley from 1996 to 1998. Born in Brisbane, Hanson worked in small businesses and was a councillor of Ipswich City Council, joining the Liberal Party in 1995. She was preselected as the Liberal candidate for the division of Oxley at the 1996 federal election, but was disendorsed by the party shortly before the election for her controversial comments about Aboriginal Australians. Hanson remained on the ballot paper as the Liberal candidate, winning the election to sit as an independent, before co-founding One Nation in 1997. She was unsuccessful in her re-election attempt at the 1998 election. Hanson unsuccessfully contested the 2001 election as the leader of One Nation, but was expelled from the party in 2002. A District Court jury found Hanson guilty of electoral fraud in 2003, but her convictions were later overturned by the Queensland Court of Appeal. She spent 11 weeks in jail prior to the appeal being heard. Following her release, Hanson ran in several state and federal elections, as the leader of her United Australia Party and as an independent before rejoining One Nation in 2013 and becoming leader again the following year. She was narrowly defeated at the 2015 Queensland state election, but was elected to the Senate at the 2016 election, along with three other members of the party. She was re-elected at the 2022 election. Since 1996, Hanson has been widely characterised as radical right, far-right and right-wing populist. She has called for massive reductions in the number of migrants allowed into Australia, and has made controversial critical comments about Indigenous Australians, Asian Australians, Islam and African migrants. In 2017 and 2025, Hanson gained media attention for wearing a burqa into the Australian Senate. She was suspended from the Senate for seven days for the 2025 event. Hanson won the election and took her seat as an independent, before co-founding One Nation in 1997 and becoming its only MP. Hanson's first election to office was in 1994, earning a seat on the Ipswich City Council, on the premise of an opposition to extra funding.
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