{"id":38647,"date":"2026-06-25T21:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/38647\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T21:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:54:13","slug":"one-nation-mps-week-from-hell-vindicates-every-single-australian-who-thinks-pauline-hanson-is-incapable-of-forming-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/38647\/","title":{"rendered":"One Nation MP’s week from hell vindicates every single Australian who thinks Pauline Hanson is incapable of forming government"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve all thought Pauline Hanson\u2019s biggest challenge in the lower house was going to come from Barnaby Joyce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It may end up being the person sitting next to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

David Farley is never going to challenge her for the leadership, obviously, but he presents a different kind of leadership challenge – because since he has been elected he has seemed completely determined to prove Hanson\u2019s critics right.<\/p>\n

A popular view among the few remaining Liberal supporters is that Hanson may be fun and fiesty, but she\u2019s not actually ready to run an entire nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And clearly One Nation wants to prove this wrong, with Hanson addressing the National Press Club and unveiling a gas policy in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

But that work could well be undone if Farley continues finding himself in headlines for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, he accidentally voted with the Greens and the Teals in a division to cap fuel tax credit rebates for large mining companies.<\/p>\n

He blamed a shortage of staff for the error.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t take a series of advisors to tell you that if you are a One Nation MP and Nicolette Boule is moving a motion, your mouth should start the process of saying the word \u201cno\u201d, preferably loudly.<\/p>\n

Everyone makes mistakes, of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Farley\u2019s are mounting.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, he appeared on ABC radio<\/a> to say that Australia \u201cis multicultured\u2026 but it is Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t exactly what his boss was going for in her calls for an Australian \u201cmonoculture\u201d.<\/p>\n

Before then, we saw him miss a vote in his first week of Parliament because he was distracted by a meeting – do we elect politicians to vote or meet?<\/p>\n

And before that, he promised he would fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag alongside the Australian flag in his electorate office because \u201cwe all live in three worlds\u201d.<\/p>\n

Again, quite a distance from Hanson\u2019s promise that she would only ever fly the Australian flag.<\/p>\n

And before that – before he was even an MP – he said 306,000 migrants is \u201cprobably not\u201d too many for Australia.<\/p>\n

He then clarified his party would cap immigration at 130,000; there\u2019s just a casual 176,000 migrant disparity between those two numbers.<\/p>\n

All of that in two months.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s concerning for One Nation that every time Farley has departed from the party position on a topic, he\u2019s done so by taking a more left-wing stance.<\/p>\n

Where does he, in his heart of hearts, sit on the political spectrum?<\/p>\n

But there is a bigger problem here.<\/p>\n

Every time we think we have reached the peak of this One Nation surge, they keep climbing.<\/p>\n

The Liberals are years away, and maybe multiple leaders away, from getting back on top of One Nation in the polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barring a miracle, the next election will be a battle between Labor and One Nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hanson has got as far as she has by standing up for disillusioned voters wanting to rail against the political class.<\/p>\n

\"Pauline<\/p>\n

It shows how many people fit into this demographic that she\u2019s still rising.<\/p>\n

But the next big demographic to win over are the people who wouldn\u2019t mind a shakeup at the top, but still feel wary about giving an outsider the keys to the country.<\/p>\n

To win them over, One Nation needs to show it is a party of government.<\/p>\n

It needs to show it can be a party of 76 MPs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of them voting in unison, all of them representing their voters, all of them behind their leader.<\/p>\n

And if Hanson can\u2019t even get one of her two MPs to be across the party\u2019s voting platform – that\u2019s an issue.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget, she hasn\u2019t been able to fully get the other MP across the platform either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Farley points to Joyce\u2019s howler on Sky News – where he promised to boot hundreds of thousands of permanent residents out of their homes before minutes later saying he\u2019d let them keep them – and tells himself he is not alone.<\/p>\n

\"Hanson<\/p>\n

But Farley\u2019s mistakes are more jarring, and are not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

He needs to be better.<\/p>\n

Every time he gets a vote wrong, his boss needs to spend valuable time addressing the controversy and clarifying the party\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

Sussan Ley can tell anyone who would listen how sustainable that situation can be for a leader.<\/p>\n

And every time he flubs, he gives Hanson\u2019s critics more ammunition that she is not ready to lead a nation, and One Nation is not a party of government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Farrer byelection was a tremendous victory for One Nation.<\/p>\n

If Farley keeps going the way he is, it might turn into a defeat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

James Bolt is a SkyNews.com.au<\/a> Contributor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve all thought Pauline Hanson\u2019s biggest challenge in the lower house was going to come from Barnaby Joyce.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,1946,1926],"class_list":["post-38647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-david-farley","tag-pauline-hanson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}