Australia’s insurgent anti-immigration party, One Nation, has taken a hit in the polls following a polarising address to the National Press Club by leader Pauline Hanson on 17 June.

Since the Albanese Labor government’s May budget, which introduced substantial housing and tax reform, One Nation skyrocketed in support, leapfrogging Labor in most published opinion polls on the national primary vote.

But following Pauline Hanson’s polarising address to the nation at the National Press Club, where she called for Australia to become a “monocultural society”, One Nation has faced a rush of public scrutiny, seeing its primary vote drop among 'double-haters'—critics of both Labor and the Coalition

Newspoll found that between mid-May and the start of June, One Nation had risen in support on the primary vote, increasing its vote share from 24 to 31 per cent and overtaking Labor, which had fallen to 30 per cent.

After Hanson’s National Press Club address, Newspoll found that One Nation’s primary vote share had dropped by 2 per cent, while Labor’s primary vote share had increased by 3 per cent to 33 per cent—its highest primary vote in a Newspoll since early February.

Budget Backlash

Pauline Hanson’s party has seen its primary vote steadily increase since the 2025 federal election, with the collapse of the ailing Liberal-National Coalition, which has traditionally maintained a monopoly over the right of Australian politics. Recently, One Nation has experienced a sudden surge in its primary vote following the federal government’s May budget.

Highly polarising, the 2026-27 budget undertook various housing and tax reforms with the intention of rolling back profit incentives within the housing market to increase housing affordability.

Among the budget’s targeted cuts and cost-of-living relief were its revisions to negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT). From 1 July 2027, negative gearing will be strictly limited to new builds, while the 50 per cent CGT discount will be replaced with an indexation model that establishes a 30 per cent minimum tax on capital gains.

Despite the budget’s ambitious aims for housing, an increasingly important issue for Australians, the budget was also viewed unfavourably, with either a majority or plurality of respondents in published opinion polls expressing dissatisfaction with the budget.

The May Newspoll found the federal budget to be the most unpopular since 1993, with 47 per cent of respondents saying that it would be bad for the Australian economy, while just 22 per cent said that it would be good.

Pauline Hanson delivered a polarising address to the National Press Club. Image source: Adam Kennedy / ABC News

The budget performed the best among Labor (+36) and Greens (-2) voters, university-educated respondents (-11), respondents aged 18-34 (-12) and renters (-15), while it performed the worst with One Nation (-75) and Coalition (-61) voters, TAFE or college-educated respondents (-36), as well as respondents who owned a home outright, or did not have a tertiary education (-33).

The budget was underwater among all demographics except Labor voters. Additionally, the poll found that 47 per cent of respondents believed that the budget was “driving a wedge between younger and older generations”.

Amid a historically unpopular budget, and a lacklustre budget response from the Coalition, critics of the government thus rallied around One Nation—the de facto opposition to Labor—which immediately capitalised on public anger and opposed the changes.

Pauline Hanson described the budget as “communism taking over and redistributing wealth” and that it was “basically taking the wealth from [baby boomers] who worked hard”. While One Nation has been vague in providing alternatives to Labor’s housing policies, the party has directly tied housing affordability concerns to immigration.

In her budget reply speech, Hanson said that One Nation would increase housing affordability by slashing the GST on building materials for homes up to $1 million for the next five years. Prior to the budget, Hanson also proposed that negative gearing be limited to two properties, but ruled out any changes to CGT.

Mask Off

At the height of One Nation’s polling boom after the budget, Pauline Hanson delivered her first ever address to the National Press Club in Canberra on 17 June. Hanson railed against hot-button culture war issues like transgender rights, net zero, labour rights, abortion, the media and immigration.

However, it was her provocative stance on multiculturalism that drew heavy scrutiny. Almost immediately, media headlines seized on Hanson’s blunt rejection of multiculturalism and her call for Australia to become a “monocultural” society.

“We cannot be a multicultural society. We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella,” Hanson told the National Press Club.

While Australian historian Frank Bongiorno emphasised that such a position was not new for Hanson, with it merely being a clearer articulation of her long-held views on immigration and cultural diversity, her delivery of the speech appeared different to political observers.

Writing for The Conversation, Josh Sunman, an associate lecturer in public policy at Flinders University, described the address as a “mask-off moment” for the One Nation leader.

Whether Hanson’s comments have had a direct impact on public sentiment remains unclear, but nonetheless, they appear to have resonated with a growing minority of Australians. A poll from the Lowy Institute in June found that support for cultural diversity had significantly softened, falling by 17 per cent to 73 per cent since the last poll conducted in 2024.

This drop was most pronounced among Tasmanians (-31), One Nation voters (-25), respondents whose highest educational attainment was year 11 and Queenslanders outside of Brisbane (-24).

Support for cultural diversity slid among all demographics except respondents from the Northern Territory (+9), although the only demographic to have a majority negative view of multiculturalism was One Nation voters, with 65 per cent opposed, up from 40 per cent in 2024.

Among voters from the other major parties, support for multiculturalism remained almost unchanged among Labor voters at 88 per cent (-5) and Greens voters at 93 per cent (-2), while 70 per cent of Coalition voters continued to support multiculturalism despite a significant drop (-15).

In line with popular support for multiculturalism, Hanson’s comments also prompted immediate backlash from across the political spectrum, receiving bipartisan condemnation from senior political figures within both the Labor Party and the Coalition.

The Newspoll following Hanson’s address also found a tangible shift in voter sentiment, with One Nation’s primary vote share slipping from its peak of 31 per cent down to 29 per cent, while Labor’s primary vote climbed from 30 per cent to 33 per cent.

The Greens also saw a polling bump, with its primary vote rising from 11 per cent to 13 per cent, while the Coalition primary vote fell one per cent, down to just 17 per cent, which would be its worst ever result in history if replicated at an election.

When ranking their preferred prime minister, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led among poll respondents with 49 per cent of support, compared to Hanson at 31 per cent, and Liberal leader Angus Taylor trailing both at a distant 20 per cent.

When respondents were asked to choose between Albanese and Hanson, the Prime Minister held a 14 per cent lead against Hanson, 57 to 43 per cent, with 40 per cent of Taylor supporters backing Albanese.

Despite Hanson’s “mask off” moment, it remains clear that her party continues to pose an active threat to the incumbent Labor government. The most recent Newspoll found that Labor's support had dropped again, with both parties tied on the primary vote with 30 per cent each. 

Moreover, if an election were held today, the collapsing Coalition primary vote would likely yield Pauline Hanson a legitimate pathway to becoming opposition leader, and perhaps even prime minister. A June YouGov poll found that 38 per cent of all respondents would “seriously consider” voting for One Nation, equal to Labor’s own ceiling in the same poll. 33 per cent of respondents who would vote for the Coalition, and 30 per cent who would vote for other minor parties, also expressed interest in voting for One Nation.

Furthermore, a Redbridge MRP poll assessing federal election results on a seat-by-seat basis, conducted between April and May, found that if an election were held at the time of the poll, One Nation would win between 46 and 59 seats. With a median projection of 53 seats, such a result would put One Nation on track to become the second largest party in the Lower House.

Labor would remain the largest party, with between 70 and 82 seats, and a median of 76, giving the party a narrow one-seat majority. Meanwhile, the Coalition would be reduced to 7 to 21 seats, with a median result of 12. This result would see the National Party—the junior party in the Coalition—totally wiped out in the Lower House, while One Nation would be poised to become Australia’s regional opposition to Labor.