Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is a party that is built on blame, so it was only a matter of time until Hanson began parroting the tropes of coercive control – that domestic violence victims have provoked their abuse, that it might be (and probably is) their own fault that people want to punch them, metaphorically or otherwise.
This week Hanson, herself a domestic violence survivor, told us she believes that domestic violence is a “two-way street” and that paid domestic violence leave is a “holiday”. Taxpayer-funded payments of $5000 to women leaving violent relationships are being rorted and are a possible “scam”, and child support payments have become a “cash cow” that encourage women to leave relationships so they can milk their ex-partners for money.
Becoming a single parent is an unconventional way to enrich oneself; indeed, most divorced people, male or female, would probably not recommend it as a wealth-enhancement strategy. But logic is never at home when it comes to Hanson.
The assertions were based on no evidence and in the case of the “two-way street” comment, demonstrably wrong. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, men accounted for about four in five, or 79 per cent, of family violence offenders that police proceeded against in 2023-24. And that’s only the ones who came to the attention of police.
One in six women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of a current or previous cohabiting partner, as opposed to one in 18 men.
Hanson made the remarks about domestic violence and family breakdown over two separate interviews reported this week; one on commercial radio in Brisbane and another on a podcast with a men’s rights activist-type.
Now that One Nation is enjoying mainstream support, journalists are combing through the rich back catalogue of interviews, web posts and sundry quirky remarks Hanson and her colleague Senator Malcolm Roberts have put on the record.
Hanson’s position on domestic violence is confusing when you realise that she has suffered at the hands of an abusive husband herself. But it makes sense when you consider her bootstraps attitude, and her (undoubtedly well-founded) self-identification as someone who has only ever been able to rely on herself when the going gets tough.
As Hanson said in her maiden speech: “I come here not as a polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life’s knocks.”
She got herself out of a bad marriage. If women are not happy or not safe in their homes, they should leave, just like she did.
What is missing from the Hanson makeup, it seems, is the imagination to extend her life experience into empathy for others. Hanson’s unrelenting nastiness towards her perceived scapegoats is not a byproduct of her tough-talking political model; it’s a defining feature.
It is a sign of either ambition or hubris that she is now extending her demonisation of subgroups from minorities to women – an entire half of the population.
When it comes to Hanson’s racist rhetoric, the target has changed over the years – in informative ways. In her 1996 maiden speech she took aim at the “taxpayer-funded industries that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups”.
She talked about “the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians”.
She said that “we are in danger of being swamped by Asians … they have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate”.
In 2006, she questioned (without factual basis) why “black South Africans with AIDS” were “being allowed to come to Australia” and “put a strain on our medical facilities”.
Now, she has swivelled her gaze to Muslims. She says there are “no good Muslims”, and that “Muslims breed and the taxpayer pays”.
“They do breed”, she told the far-right violent criminal Tommy Robinson, in scenes filmed by Channel Seven’s Spotlight program.
Hanson also claims that Muslim people use the NDIS at greater rates than the general population.
None of these assertions are based on evidence, which is to say that they are, at best, hyperbolic. At worst, they are brazen mistruths.
Until now, Hanson has mostly kept her anti-woman rhetoric to the margins of her political message. Apart from her recently reported remarks about family violence and the women who scam their partners for child support, she has also amped up attacks on female journalists.
In May, she referred to a female journalist as a “nasty bitch”, to the toadying laughter of her hangers-on. In June, she was rude and aggressive to female journalists when she appeared as an invited guest at the National Press Club.
But Hanson’s suspicion of women, and her adoption of men’s rights issues, is not new. It was always right there, written on the tin, from the beginning of her political career.
In her maiden speech, Hanson railed against the Family Law Act and the child support system.
“The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one-sided,” she said. “Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support, and in many cases the noncustodial parent simply gives up employment to escape the, in many cases, heavy and punitive financial demands”.
There is a problem with the child support system, but because it affects a small and economically disadvantaged sector of the population – primarily single mothers – it gets barely any political attention.
A 2025 investigation into the child support system by the Commonwealth Ombudsman found that as of December 2024, there was a $1.9 billion debt owed in outstanding child support payments and 153,694 parents who owed a debt. About 1.1 million children are supported by the program, which is generally a last resort for when separated parents cannot come to a private agreement about child support or when one party refuses to pay it entirely.
The Ombudsman’s investigation, entitled “Weaponising child support: when the system fails families”, found that the current system, run by Services Australia, allows the weaponisation of child support, also known as financial abuse. According to the report: “Services Australia is not doing enough to actively deal with the weaponisation of the child support program”.
“Anyone using the child support program can be the victim of weaponisation,” the report found. “However, academic research, parliamentary committees and complaints to our office indicate it overwhelmingly impacts separated mothers.”
But again, facts don’t matter to Hanson. Her focus on child support and family breakdown, through a men’s-rights lens, is yet another feather in her cap.
She was talking about it before the pushback against feminism became a feature of contemporary populist movements across the globe. A return to traditional gender roles has long been a feature of right-wing populist movements. But in an increasingly fractured political landscape, it is more important than ever.
As the Atlantic writer Helen Lewis has argued convincingly, misogyny and the backlash against feminism play an integral role for the disparate MAGA movement. Anti-feminism unifies its discontents.
Because whether you’re an anti-Israel conspiracy theorist who believes Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent or a pro-life activist or a gun rights champion or an anti-regulation tech bro, you can all agree on one thing: women’s rights have gone too far.
Hanson was there first. She has always had this card up her sleeve. Now she is increasingly emboldened to play it.
Jacqueline Maley is an author and columnist.
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