One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s social media following has exploded over the past six months as her party soars in the polls. Across the four major platforms, Hanson has picked up almost 600,000 followers – an increase of 60 per cent – closely matching the meteoric rise which has her at 18 per cent of the primary vote in this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor, and outperforming the Coalition in other polls.
Six months ago, this masthead tracked the social media following of every federal politician, and found Hanson was the second most followed figure with 918,400 followers across Instagram, X, TikTok and Facebook. Since that date, her total follower count has risen to 1,480,300.
The biggest percentage increase came on Instagram, where her follower count has grown by 256 per cent, from 73,000 followers to 260,000. In terms of individual followers, her Facebook is ahead, where she picked up 321,000 new followers, an increase of 56 per cent. Her X followership has increased by 23 per cent to 201,700, and TikTok by 14 per cent to 128,600.
After former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce defected from the Nationals and joined One Nation, his total followership has grown by around 100,000 as he almost tripled his Instagram followership from 10,800 to 31,400 and almost doubled his Facebook following from 86,000 to 163,000.
Other One Nation senators have also seen growth in their followership. Senator Malcolm Roberts has picked up over 100,000 followers, going from a total followership of 578,000 to 693,600. New senator Tyron Whitten has gone from less than 5000 followers to almost 30,000 after opening Instagram and X accounts, and significantly boosting his Facebook. Data was not measured for the party’s fourth senator Sean Bell, as he entered Parliament late last year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remains the most followed politician in Australia with just under 2,300,000 followers, a 16 per cent increase over the last six months.
Deputy Nationals leader Kevin Hogan this morning lamented his own party’s lack of focus on Labor’s economic management as the Nationals remain distracted by the ongoing Coalition split.
“We do have issues we need to work out. But yes, our primary goal, our primary focus needs to be unseating this Labor-Greens alliance government, because they’re a bad government on many, many fronts, not least to the cost-of-living pressures for Australian families and businesses,” he told Sky News.
“Jim Chalmers is after your money … They’re going to be looking to tax. What’s what we should be talking about. We’re not talking about that enough this week because of what’s going on. I lament that,” he told Sky News.
Hogan’s remarks follow reports that the government is considering changes to capital gains tax.
Before the reports, Treasurer Jim Chalmers was already under fire after the decision earlier this week by the Reserve Bank to lift rates for the first time in two years amid higher-than-expected inflation.
The Trump administration is withdrawing some 700 federal immigration enforcement agents from Minnesota, although about 2000 agents will stay in place, White House border tsar Tom Homan said.
In an unprecedented surge, US President Donald Trump deployed thousands of armed immigration enforcement agents in and around Minneapolis this year to detain and deport migrants, triggering weeks of feuding with the state’s elected leaders, deadly confrontations with residents and street protests across the nation.
Homan said the mass deportation campaign was in the interest of public safety, but that he was partially reducing the deployment because he was seeing “unprecedented” cooperation from Minnesota officials.
“Immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country,” Homan said. “President Trump made a promise. And we have not directed otherwise.”
Asked about Homan’s announcement, Trump said: “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Homan’s announcement encouraging but insufficient.
Reuters
NSW Premier Chris Minns has spoken with the Lebanese Muslim Association after another threatening letter was sent to Lakemba Mosque.
The letter included a drawing of a mosque on fire, with people inside, alongside statements such as “human waste preaches here” and “deport Lebanese garbage waste”.
The drawing also included people in the mosque as it burnt, with the words “garbage”, “filth” and “scum” on the mosque.
The premier said he has expressed his support to the Muslim community following the threat, which is the second threat sent to the mosque in the past fortnight.
“People should be able to attend and pray without fear or intimidation,” the premier said.
“The NSW government will continue to call out Islamophobia wherever it occurs, just as we will continue to call out racism and all forms of religious hatred.”
Secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association Gamel Kheir told ABC Radio this morning that security guards would be required at the mosque during the upcoming month or Ramadan.
“I think sadly, we are in a sad reality that security guards are going to be required, both in mosques and in schools. We are pleading with the government and the police that there will be a need for visual presence to deter possible attack and possible retaliation,” he said.
Kheir said Islamophobia had accelerated in recent weeks, spreading fear among the local Muslim community.
Sydney independents Zali Steggall and Sophie Scamps, and Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie, have released a statement condemning a visit to Australia by Israeli President Isaac Herzog set to begin on Sunday, saying the trip will stoke division, damage social cohesion, and disrespect international law.
“It is unacceptable that Australia should host the head of state for a country which the International Court of Justice has found is committing the crime of apartheid, and which the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found was committing genocide,” Wilkie said in the statement.
“This visit is divisive and in no way conducive to social cohesion. Indeed, it is clearly inflaming the situation. It is highly inappropriate to have invited President Isaac Herzog, inappropriate to provide him with a visa and inappropriate to host him at Parliament House. It shows disrespect for international law.”
Herzog’s visit has been criticised by a number of political figures from the Greens and the crossbench, as well as Labor MP Ed Husic, who yesterday said he was “very uncomfortable” with the prospect of Herzog’s presence.
Chief among criticisms of Herzog’s conduct during the war in Gaza are his signing of an artillery shell to be used in the conflict, and his rhetoric about the collective responsibility of Palestinians for the actions of Hamas.
In the crossbench statement, Scamps said: “Inviting a foreign head of state who was found to have incited the commission of genocide is deeply distressing for many Australians, and risks igniting further division at the very time when Australian leaders should be doing everything they can to rebuild social cohesion and bring our nation together.”
Steggall said: “I appreciate that many in the Jewish community support President Herzog’s visit to Australia in the wake of the shocking Bondi terror attacks. However, in the broader interests of community cohesion, President Herzog’s presence is likely to be deeply divisive and will cause further harm to national unity”.
The Israeli president is expected to visit Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has declined to say whether he is meeting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley today to hold further discussions on a potential reunion of the Coalition, saying he didn’t think it was “constructive” to divulge details of their talks.
“All that does is create the hype and hyperbole here, running around with excitement. We’re calm, considered, and we’ll work through it,” Littleproud told journalists at Parliament House.
Asked how the discussions are progressing, Littleproud said: “They’re ongoing, and I don’t intend to have a running commentary in the media. As I said yesterday, the National Party has been respectful all the way through, and with that respect comes the fact that you don’t give running commentary about where we’re at, but we’ll continue to work in a constructive way. I think that’s the most important thing that we as the National Party demonstrate because that’s the consistency we showed from the very start”.
In recent media appearances Littleproud has repeatedly said his party “did nothing wrong” to precipitate the resignation of frontbench senators Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell, and Sussan McDonald – a move that ultimately led to the Coalition split on January 22. But, Littleproud said, that should not be taken to mean that the Liberal Party had done anything wrong.
He has also repeatedly criticised the media, using words like “vitriol and vile” to describe reporting of the split, saying the National Party had been “vilified for the last two weeks”.
A One Nation coalition with the Liberals and Nationals is “the only way” to wrest government from Labor, party leader Pauline Hanson has declared.
Hanson said she would “of course” be interested in joining forces with the conservative parties to form government, though blasted them for failing to get their act together and deliver for Australians.
“That’s the only way to move forward because I’m not going to be government, and either is, by the looks of it, the Coalition or the National Party,” Hanson told Sky News late yesterday.
“The fact is, that I am a conservative at heart, and I work with them to give them supply. Would I join up to the rabble that they are at the moment? No way in the wide world, but I have my strong policies that we need because they’re doing nothing to address the important issues that the Australian people want.”
Staying with Littleproud on Sky, the Nationals leader has dismissed queries about whether he would consider working with Pauline Hanson to form a coalition with One Nation if the Liberal-National Coalition does not reunite.
“We actually take anyone that runs against the National Party seriously as a threat, and they are trying to take away the National Party’s voice in parliament,” he told Sky.
“Engaging in this sort of hypothetical … does nothing other than to play into a political narrative.”
Littleproud would not rule out the possibility of working with Hanson in the future.
National Party leader David Littleproud said there will be a Liberal-National Coalition “well before the election”, amid speculation about whether the two parties will forge a path to reform.
“My intention and intent is that there will be a Coalition at some point in the future, well before the election,” he told Sky just now.
Littleproud has met with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley for negotiations in the past week. Ley has given the Nationals leader an ultimatum to reform the Coalition – on the condition of keeping three shadow cabinet ministers benched for six months – or risk a permanent split.
He refused to answer questions on the progress of his discussions with Ley.
James Paterson, the finance opposition spokesman, said that the Nationals’ polling numbers this week “look like a rounding error” and urged them to agree to reform the Coalition for their own party’s sake.
Returning to Paterson’s appearance on Sky earlier, the Liberal senator said he did not want to see the door shut on further negotiations to reform the Coalition.
“It is in all of our collective interest to reform the Coalition on reasonable terms … We don’t want to take any steps that would make it harder for the Coalition to reform,” he said.
Paterson said that while the split had been terrible for both parties, it had been far worse for the Nationals.
“In the limited polling that we’ve had since the split, while it’s been terrible for both parties, it has been particularly bad for the National Party, who are looking like a rounding error in national polls at the moment.
“I don’t think it’s in their interests in the long term to stay outside the Coalition … If the National Party is not in Coalition with the Liberal Party, they are no longer a party of government, they can no longer deliver for their communities, and there is nothing to distinguish them from other parties of protest.”
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