‘Global parasites since 1913’: One Nation senator calls US ‘world’s greatest terrorist organisation’

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts labelled the United States “the world’s greatest terrorist organisation” in a 2024 interview, in comments that will challenge Pauline Hanson to bring her controversial colleague to heel and raise questions about the party’s fitness to govern.

Roberts described the US as “globalist parasites since 1913” in an interview with Israeli podcaster Efrat Fenigson in September 2024, when Joe Biden was still president, but his remarks have resurfaced just as One Nation leader Hanson prepares to front the National Press Club in Canberra for the first time on Wednesday.

The address to the Press Club – more than 30 years after Hanson was first elected – is seen within the party as a test of her ability to face tough questions as One Nation surges in all the polls to become a mainstream political force.

Its primary vote has reached 29 percentage points in the latest Resolve Political Monitor, ahead of Labor on 28 points and the Coalition on 20 points.

At the same time, Hanson now leads as preferred prime minister too, with 33 per cent of voters nominating her, 29 per cent nominating Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and just 16 per cent of voters naming Angus Taylor as their preferred PM.

One Nation will spend some of the $4.3 million raised so far in its “Fire the Liar” campaign on a new anti-Albanese television ad during Wednesday’s State of Origin game – one of the most expensive time slots of the year – and on Tuesday launched a second advertisement set to US country anthem Won’t Back Down by Bailey Zimmerman, featuring Hanson comforting despairing Australians.

In the podcast interview, Roberts tells Fenigson – who bills herself as an independent journalist, podcaster, public speaker and marketing expert whose “path to sovereignty unfolded with the outbreak of COVID” – that he had lived in the US for five years, married an American woman and had two children who were dual Australian-American citizens.

The senator, who entered parliament as a One Nation MP in 2016, would be in the box seat to hold a senior ministerial or shadow ministerial portfolio such as Defence or Foreign Affairs if the party can translate its surge in support into more seats and a formal conservative coalition role at the next election, due in 2028.

“That country that I had so much respect for is just the world’s greatest terrorist organisation now. American people are fantastic; they are lovely people. So caring, so frank, so easy to engage, so wonderful. But their government has been hijacked by these globalist parasites since 1913 and probably before, and it’s now controlling the world’s largest military force ever,” he said.

“They don’t even need a fraction of what they’ve got. They can walk into any country on Earth. They can bring Australia along with us just like little patsies following. Britain’s going in after them.”

Roberts then said he agreed with former US Republican congressman Ron Paul that “every major war since 1913 is directly attributable to the Federal Reserve Bank”.

Roberts was contacted for comment. Despite his office promising a response, it did not provide one. Hanson’s office declined to comment.

The remarks are embarrassing for Hanson, who used her appearance at a conference at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last November to urge Australia to lift defence spending to at least 5 per cent of gross domestic product, and has steadfastly backed the US invasion of Iran.

This is not the first time that Roberts, a close ally of Hanson, has created a headache for the party leader. Last month during a press conference in Parliament House, Hanson had to step in and clarify that Roberts did not believe the Bondi terror attack was a hoax, something he had speculated about on a separate podcast.

Roberts’ comments about the US emerged on the same day that the progressive Jewish Council of Australia claimed that Hanson’s One Nation had “cultivated relationships with far-right networks” that hold antisemitic views, in a submission to the royal commission into antisemitism.

Coalition MP Garth Hamilton, who has helped lead criticism of Hanson from within Coalition ranks, said Roberts “is not some fringe volunteer handing out how-to-vote cards, he is a senior One Nation senator and Pauline Hanson’s right-hand man in the Senate. If One Nation ever got near government, this is the sort of person who could be sitting around the cabinet table.

“Anyone who labels the United States the world’s greatest terrorist organisation is not fit to be defence minister, foreign minister or anywhere near Australia’s national security decisions,” he said.

“Pauline Hanson needs to say whether she agrees with Malcolm Roberts or whether she believes he is wrong. Australians deserve to know whether One Nation would put anti-American conspiracy theories at the heart of our foreign and defence policy.”

Opposition spokesman for industry and sovereign capability Andrew Hastie said on Tuesday that if Hanson and her chief of staff wanted to target him and his seat of Canning at the next election, he was ready, and if they “want war, I’m going to give them war”.

“If they think that I’m just going to bow the knee and do a preference deal because I’m scared, think again,” Hastie told 2GB.

He conceded that voters in his WA electorate of Canning were telling him they supported Hanson, but in a swipe at One Nation’s new ad campaign, he said: “We’re not going after sugar hits on social media. It’s easy to pop off on a 30-second reel online and get a whole bunch of likes. It’s much, much harder to model a policy, cost a policy, and get a policy out the door and win an election, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

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