Pauline Hanson has attacked Anthony Albanese as a “liar” and a “clown”, accusing the Prime Minister of wanting to use government censorship to stay in power.
The comments are an escalation of a war of words that has erupted between One Nation and Labor after Mr Albanese used a Queensland Labor conference to brand Senator Hanson’s party “dangerous” and “divisive”.
In the days since, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has claimed the party is “infiltrated by extremists and neo-Nazis”, while Senator Hanson has accused Labor of inciting political violence against her.
Taking to X on Friday, Senator Hanson said the Prime Minister ought to look in the mirror.
“Anthony Albanese says One Nation is ‘dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest’,” she said.
“He says some parties will ‘say anything and do anything to win votes’, ‘bend any facts’ and ‘peddle misinformation and disinformation’.
“This clown needs to hold up a mirror to himself.”
“This is a Prime Minister who routinely lies to Australians. He tells people struggling to pay their mortgage, rent and grocery bills that the country is in ‘good shape’.”
The One Nation leader then went on to compare the Prime Minister to the leaders of authoritarian states such as China, Russia, and Iran.
“He wants his government to have more power over free speech,” she said.
“Australia should be moving away from government censorship, not building the Orwellian machinery for it.
“China does it. Iran does it. Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar do it. Now Albo wants to build it here.
“There is nothing this liar will not do to hold onto power.”
Labor has recently flagged plans to beef up the powers of the e-Safety Commissioner, an unelected bureaucrat who has been repeatedly accused of undermining freedom of speech.
A Labor and Greens-dominated Senate committee handed down a report that backed the bureaucrat being given significantly increased investigative powers – despite the concerns of free speech advocates.
“The committee acknowledges concerns about the breadth of the proposed information-gathering powers… however, the committee is satisfied that the proposed powers are necessary to enable the eSafety Commissioner to effectively investigate compliance with the existing law,” the report states.
But Senator Hanson hit out at the plans in her post on Friday.
“There are genuine social problems associated with social media. But the answer is not giving a government like this the machinery to decide what is misinformation, what is dangerous and what Australians should be allowed to see, say and share,” she said.
Labor proposed a major crackdown on online misinformation after it was returned to government in 2022, however the Albanese government was forced to abandon the plans after it was widely denounced by legal experts and free speech advocates, and opposed by the Coalition and much of the crossbench.
The move would have enabled bureaucrats at the Australian Communications and Media Authority to impose massive fines on social media companies that fail to adequately crack down on misinformation and disinformation on their platforms.