Climate denial, the normalisation of hostility and the threat to Australian lives
The growing popularity of Pauline Hanson’s
One Nation poses two threats to Australians that deserve far more attention
than the usual commentary about opinion polls and electoral manoeuvring. Its
rejection of climate science and its commitment to extending the life of fossil
fuel industries threaten the health and security of present and future
generations. Its inflammatory politics of national identity, immigration and
religious difference also risk strengthening the climate of resentment and
intolerance that violent right-wing extremists have repeatedly exploited. The
first threat unfolds through accumulating environmental damage. The second can
erupt without warning in a shopping centre, a place of worship or a crowded
public square.
There is ample historical evidence of what
happens when racist and ultranationalist ideology crosses the threshold into
mass murder. The perpetrators of the attacks in Norway, Christchurch and El
Paso killed 151 people between them. A further six people were shot dead in
Kraków in November 2026 in an attack being investigated as terrorism, with
authorities reporting preliminary indications of far-right influence. These
atrocities expose the lethal potential
of ideas that divide society into supposedly authentic citizens and threatening
outsiders. An Australian political party that repeatedly trades in such
divisions deserves unforgiving scrutiny, especially as its electoral influence
grows. [1–4]
Climate denial is a threat to human life
One Nation’s climate agenda is explicit. It
calls for Australia to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, rejects net-zero
emissions policy and champions coal, oil and gas. The party questions the
scientific basis of human-caused warming even while the overwhelming evidence
continues to mount. Its appeal to cheaper energy and protection of jobs cannot
erase the costs of policies that prolong greenhouse gas emissions. Those costs
are borne in heat-related illness and death, dangerous fire weather, coastal damage,
pressure on food and water supplies and growing disruption to the livelihoods
of millions. [5–7]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change has established that human activities, principally greenhouse gas
emissions, have unequivocally warmed the planet. Its Sixth Assessment Report
finds that extreme heat has already increased mortality and illness, that
climate change is undermining food and water security, and that every
additional increment of warming intensifies the risks. Limiting global
temperatures requires deep emissions reductions and net-zero carbon dioxide
emissions. One Nation’s proposed retreat from those measures would move
Australia in the opposite direction from the scientific evidence. [6]
The damage is not confined to the distant
future. CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology reported that Australia had warmed
by an average of 1.51°C since national records began in 1910, accompanied by
more extreme heat, longer fire seasons across substantial parts of the country
and rising seas. Australia's fossil fuel decisions also have consequences
beyond its borders because emissions contribute to a shared atmosphere. No
government can plausibly claim to protect Australians' interests while treating
the mounting human and economic costs of climate disruption as incidental to an
energy-industry agenda. [7]
Employment in coal and gas regions deserves
attention, but that is an argument for an orderly and adequately funded
transition, not an excuse to disregard climate science. Political parties can
debate the speed, cost and design of that transition. What they cannot credibly
do is dismiss the underlying physics. Continuing to produce and burn fossil
fuels without a credible emissions-reduction pathway increases foreseeable
harm. One Nation’s climate platform asks Australians to accept that harm in
exchange for promises of economic relief that do not confront its eventual
price.
The evidence of deadly right-wing terrorism
Right-wing terrorism has left a substantial
body count in Western democracies. Researchers at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies examined 893 terrorist attacks and plots in the United
States between January 1994 and May 2020. They attributed 57% to right-wing
perpetrators, compared with 25% to left-wing perpetrators and 15% to religious
extremists. The percentages demonstrate how deeply the violent far right has
figured in the domestic threat landscape. [8]
Other research exposes the disparity in
lethality. A University of Maryland study drawing on the Global Terrorism
Database for 1970 to 2017 found that attacks by left-wing extremists were 45%
less likely to result in fatalities than attacks by right-wing extremists. The
Institute for Economics and Peace reported in its 2019 Global Terrorism Index
that far-right terrorist attacks across North America, Western Europe and
Oceania had increased by 320% over the preceding five years. That destroys any
comforting notion that violent ultranationalism is a marginal or imaginary
danger. [9–10]
The atrocities themselves make the figures
brutally concrete. On 22 July 2011, a right-wing extremist murdered 77 people
in Norway, first bombing Oslo's government quarter and then attacking a Labour
Party youth camp on Utøya. On 15 March 2019, an Australian white supremacist
murdered 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand; he was
convicted of terrorism, 51 murders and 40 attempted murders. On 3 August 2019,
a self-described white nationalist killed 23 people and injured 22 others at a
Walmart in El Paso, Texas, targeting people he perceived to be Hispanic
immigrants. None of these victims was engaged in a war. They were children at a
political camp, people praying and shoppers buying groceries. [1–3]
The latest reminder came on 7 November 2026
when a gunman opened fire in Kraków's historic main square, killing six people
and wounding at least fifteen. Polish prosecutors opened a terrorism
investigation and authorities said initial indications pointed towards
far-right ideological influence. The perpetrator subsequently died in hospital.
His precise motivation remains under investigation, but the consequences of the
attack are already beyond dispute: another ordinary public space became a scene
of mass slaughter. [4]
Australia cannot pretend the danger is elsewhere
The Christchurch murderer was Australian.
That should have permanently extinguished any assumption that racist mass
terrorism is an imported problem with no local roots. Australian intelligence
agencies have also repeatedly warned of a deteriorating environment for
politically motivated violence. ASIO raised the national terrorism threat level
from POSSIBLE to PROBABLE in August 2024. In its 2025 assessment, its
director-general warned that the risk of politically motivated violence was
already 'flashing red' and could remain elevated until 2030. Australian
parliamentary research has since described political polarisation, threats and
extremist recruitment as direct challenges to public safety and democratic
participation. [11–12]
A Senate inquiry into right-wing extremist
movements identified the methods by which extremists manipulate mainstream
political disputes to attract recruits. Questions about housing, migration,
economic insecurity and distrust of government are legitimate subjects for
debate. Extremist propaganda recasts them as evidence of an existential
struggle against religious, racial or cultural enemies. That shift, from
grievance to collective blame and then to a claimed justification for violence,
is precisely where public rhetoric becomes dangerous. An incendiary statement
by an elected politician does not inevitably produce a terrorist. It can,
however, help make an exclusionary worldview sound normal to those already
susceptible to radicalisation. [13]
Contemporary radicalisation adds a further
danger because an attacker may have no formal membership in an organisation.
Research from the Institute for Economics and Peace into 32 fatal far-right
attacks since 2011 found that fewer than one-quarter of perpetrators had
definite face-to-face contact with other far-right extremists, while more than
one-third appeared to have been primarily radicalised online. Manifestos,
conspiracy theories and the glorification of earlier killers can circulate
internationally. The lone-actor phenomenon sharply limits the reassurance
offered by police surveillance of known extremist groups. [14]
One Nation and the politics of division
Pauline Hanson’s political career has
repeatedly depended on portraying particular communities as threats to the
Australian nation. In 1996 she warned that Australia risked being 'swamped by
Asians'. In 2016 she repeated the language of being 'swamped', this time
referring to Muslims, whose culture and ideology she described as incompatible
with Australia's. The party's 2026 immigration platform called for sharply
reduced migration, a longer wait for citizenship and welfare, refusal of entry
to people from nations it says foster extremist ideologies, and withdrawal from
the UN Refugee Convention. The immigration proposals are party positions, not
enacted law. The continuing political message is unmistakable: selected
outsiders are cast as a danger to the national community. [5, 15]
This rhetoric comes not from an anonymous
extremist forum but from an established parliamentary party. The language of
collective suspicion can acquire a veneer of respectability when repeated by
elected officials, broadcast across mainstream media and rewarded at the ballot
box. It can also be borrowed by harder-line movements whose objectives are far
removed from democratic policy reform. The overlap between themes in mainstream
nationalist rhetoric and extremist propaganda does not establish organisational
links or criminal responsibility. It does create a compelling reason to ask
what happens when public figures encourage Australians to see entire
communities as alien, suspect or irredeemably incompatible.
The consequences extend beyond the people
directly targeted. Once prejudice is normalised, social trust erodes and
political opponents are more readily portrayed as enemies rather than fellow
citizens. Australian parliamentary investigators have warned that extremists
deliberately exploit mainstream political concerns and manipulate them to lure
people, including young Australians, towards more dangerous ideologies.
Political leaders who cultivate fear of minorities cannot simply assume that
their words will remain within the boundaries they intend. [13]
The growing popularity of One Nation can’t be
dismissed as a harmless protest vote. ABC reporting in February 2026 documented
substantial polling momentum for the party and a Redbridge survey in which 34%
of respondents preferred its approach to migration. That survey measured
preference for a particular policy approach, not One Nation's total electoral
vote. As its influence expands, its rhetoric can shape the priorities of larger
parties, set the terms of debate and push views once considered extreme into
everyday political discussion. The risk arises from what becomes acceptable
across the political system, not only from what One Nation itself might
legislate. [15]
Political leaders must answer for foreseeable harm
The relationship between rhetoric and
terrorist violence cannot be reduced to a neat statistical formula. The
available evidence establishes that racist and ultranationalist ideologies have
repeatedly motivated mass murder; extremists exploit inflammatory mainstream
controversies; and Australia’s security agencies consider politically motivated
violence a pressing threat. A party that chooses to characterise whole
religious or ethnic communities as an alien threat should be held accountable
for the social danger of that choice, whether or not its leaders advocate
violence. [1–3, 11–14]
That accountability applies across the
political spectrum. Anyone who excuses violence by their own ideological allies
while condemning it in their opponents forfeits credibility. Recent CSIS
research also found an increase in US left-wing terrorist incidents in the
first half of 2025, although their lethality over the preceding decade remained
lower than that of right-wing and jihadist attacks. The lesson is to confront
violence consistently while recognising the documented historical danger posed
by the violent far right. [16]
The public response should be equally
uncompromising on climate. Australia cannot vote away the physical consequences
of greenhouse gas emissions, and it cannot rely on future generations to repair
every damage we choose to postpone. The same society that demands
evidence-based public health and security policy should demand evidence-based
energy policy. One Nation's ambition to revive fossil fuel dependence while
discarding emissions commitments is a direct challenge to that obligation.
[5–7]
The cost is measured in human lives
The danger of One Nation’s growing
influence is not merely that it could disrupt the fortunes of established
political parties. Its climate policies would weaken Australia's response to a
scientifically documented threat to human health and safety. Its recurring
appeal to religious and cultural exclusion risks deepening the atmosphere of
hostility that violent extremists have exploited internationally. These are not
equivalent mechanisms, but both expose Australians to avoidable dangers with
consequences that can outlast the politicians responsible.
Norway's 77 dead, Christchurch's 51 and El
Paso's 23 are not abstractions in a debate about political correctness. They
are the victims of people who converted ideologies of hate into murder. The six
killed in Kraków are an immediate reminder of the vulnerability of ordinary
civilian life. Australians should judge political rhetoric against that
history, and climate policy against the science of a warming planet. The issue
is ultimately not whether One Nation's slogans win applause or votes, but
whether Australians are willing to tolerate politics that increase foreseeable
risks to human life. That is why the rise of One Nation demands more than
electoral analysis. It demands resistance grounded in evidence, democratic
responsibility and the protection of people who will bear the cost.
One Nation, Israel and the Profits of War
One Nation's enthusiastic support for Israel exposes another disturbing dimension of its politics: its apparent willingness to place ideological allegiance above international humanitarian law and the protection of civilian lives. Pauline Hanson has repeatedly opposed Australian recognition of Palestinian statehood and defended Israel's security priorities, despite mounting evidence of atrocities committed against Palestinians. [17] In September 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding reinforced by subsequent UN investigations.[18], [19]. Yet One Nation's political messaging has shown little willingness to confront the implications of these findings. Its apparent indifference to Palestinian suffering sits uneasily beside its professed concern for human life and national security. The consequences extend beyond Gaza. Israeli military operations in Lebanon, Iran, Syria and elsewhere have contributed to regional instability, civilian suffering and the continuing danger of wider war. Uncritical political support for Israel risks giving legitimacy to military actions that demand independent scrutiny and accountability.
There is also an unmistakable economic dimension. The Middle East's recurring wars and escalating military tensions have become extraordinarily profitable for the international arms industry, particularly manufacturers in the United States and Israel. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global arms industry revenues surged in 2024, with demand fuelled partly by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and growing regional tensions. Israeli arms exports increased by 56% between the five-year periods 2016–2020 and 2021–2025, strengthening an industry that supplies Israel's military while profiting from international demand for its weapons systems. These profits create powerful commercial interests in continued military procurement and expanding defence budgets, irrespective of whether individual companies actively seek the continuation of conflict. By offering largely unquestioning political support to Israel while failing to challenge the humanitarian consequences of its military campaigns, One Nation contributes to a political environment in which militarism receives encouragement and the commercial beneficiaries of warfare escape sufficient scrutiny.
For a party that claims to put ordinary Australians first, its apparent readiness to support a geopolitical agenda that enriches weapons manufacturers while civilians continue to die deserves far more critical examination.
Hastening Armageddon?
One Nation's embrace of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement introduces an even more disturbing dimension to its support for Israel. Among MAGA's influential religious allies are Christian Zionists whose interpretation of biblical prophecy assigns Israel a central role in the events preceding Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. Prominent evangelical figures such as Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, have built powerful political movements around religious support for the Israeli state, while academic research has documented how apocalyptic beliefs influence parts of the Christian Zionist movement.
This raises a profoundly unsettling question: to what extent are American policies towards Israel and the wider Middle East influenced by religious expectations of an eventual apocalyptic conflict rather than the preservation of peace and human life? Pauline Hanson's enthusiastic support for Trump, including his military intervention against Iran, places One Nation politically alongside an American movement in which such beliefs have influential advocates. Hanson herself may not subscribe to Armageddon theology, but her apparent willingness to endorse Trump's militarism without seriously questioning the ideological forces influencing American foreign policy should concern Australians. When religious fundamentalism, ultranationalism and the commercial interests of the weapons industry converge around international conflict, the risks extend far beyond Gaza, Lebanon or Iran. They threaten to draw American allies, including Australia, into increasingly dangerous confrontations whose consequences could be catastrophic. [20], [21], [22], [23]
Conclusion
The growing support for One Nation should alarm every Australian concerned about the future of this country and the safety of its people:
- Its rejection of climate science and embrace of fossil fuels threaten to accelerate environmental destruction, with consequences for human health, food security and the survival of future generations.
- Its divisive nationalist rhetoric risks legitimising the prejudices that violent right-wing extremists have repeatedly exploited to justify terrorism and mass murder.
- Its largely unquestioning support for Israel, despite damning UN findings concerning genocide in Gaza, raises further concerns about the normalisation of militarism, the perpetuation of international conflict and the enrichment of the powerful weapons industries that profit from war.
Australians who regard One Nation as merely a protest vote against the major parties should consider what their support may ultimately help legitimise. The consequences of political choices are not confined to parliamentary debates or election results. They can be measured in devastated communities, destroyed environments, escalating conflicts and innocent lives lost.
Supporting One Nation is therefore not simply a question of political preference. It is a question of what sort of Australia we are prepared to create, and how many human lives we are willing to put at risk in the process.
Sources and further reading
[1] Norwegian Government, Joint Efforts Against Extremism
(2024). https://www.regjeringen.no/no/documents/joint-efforts-against-extremism-better-conditions-for-preventive-work/id3050497/?ch=1
[2] New Zealand Royal Commission, Executive Summary on Christchurch. https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/executive-summary-2/executive-summary
[3] US Department of Justice, El Paso sentencing (2023). https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/pr/texas-man-sentenced-90-consecutive-life-sentences-mass-shooting-el-paso
[4] AFP and SBS, Kraków shooting reports, 7–9 November 2026. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/poland-krakow-shooting-what-we-know/z32qipdba
[5] One Nation, official policies. https://onenation.org.au/policies
[6] IPCC, AR6 Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/summary-for-policymakers/
[7] CSIRO, State of the Climate 2024. https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2024/November/State-of-the-Climate
[8] CSIS, The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United
States (2020). https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
[9] University of Maryland, Disparities in Violence Among
Extremist Groups. https://ccjs.umd.edu/feature/umd-led-study-shows-disparities-violence-among-extremist-groups
[10] Institute for Economics and Peace, Far-right attacks
surge by 320% (2019). https://www.visionofhumanity.org/far-right-attacks-in-the-west-surge-by-320-per-cent/
[11] Parliamentary Library, The Increasing Threat of
Politically Motivated Violence (2026). https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/Research/Issues_and_Insights/2026/PoliticalViolence
[12] Parliament of Australia, ASIO terrorism threat level and
polarisation. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/AandENo23/Report/Chapter_1_-_Introduction
[13] Senate inquiry, Right Wing Extremist Movements in
Australia, Chapter 7. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/RWExtremists23/Report/Chapter_7_-_Committee_view_and_recommendations
[14] Institute for Economics and Peace, The Rise of the
Self-Radicalised Lone Wolf Terrorist. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/increase-in-self-radicalised-lone-wolf-attackers/
[15] ABC News, More People Say They Will Vote One Nation, 10
February 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-10/one-nation-policy-platforms-pauline-hanson/106296838
[16] CSIS, Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence (2025).
https://www.csis.org/analysis/left-wing-terrorism-and-political-violence-united-states-what-data-tells-us
[17] One Nation Opposition to Palestinian statehood recognition (2025). https://www.onenation.org.au/hanson-palestinian-statehood
[18] UN Commission of Inquiry, finding of genocide in Gaza,(2025). https://www.un.org/unispal/document/israel-has-committed-genocide-in-the-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds-16sep25/
[19] SIPRI, global arms industry revenues and military demand, December 2025. https://www.sipri.org/news/press-release/2025/sipri-top-100-arms-producers-see-combined-revenues-surge-states-rush-modernize-and-expand-arsenals.
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