Pauline Hanson says Australia ‘must be monocultural’ in National Press Club speech

Pauline Hanson has declared Australia cannot be multicultural and must exist as a “monocultural society”, warning high migration had caused the country to lose its identity and national values.

In an inflammatory address to the National Press Club in Canberra, the One Nation leader pledged to axe SBS and overhaul the ABC if she wins the next federal election, including imposing a licence fee for metropolitan households to watch the public broadcaster. Regional services would be protected.

In her first ever address to the club after 30 years in Australian politics, Hanson said western values were under siege, and governments were too “frightened” to crack down on Islamic extremism, including hate preachers in Sydney mosques.

“We turn a blind eye,” she said. “Why? Because we are frightened.”

Calling for a slashing of migration to help address the housing crisis, the Queensland senator sought to claim the mantle of a mainstream national leader, better in touch with voters’ concerns than Labor and the Coalition.

“We cannot be a multicultural society,” she told the packed club.

“We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.”

Hanson also made a broadside attack on transgender rights, pledging to sack Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner and claiming “almost every instrument of government [is] dedicated to a transgender ideology which seeks to redefine humanity”.

The 51-minute speech was interrupted by a banner appearing behind the podium which noted Hanson’s opposition to minimum wage increases for low-paid workers.

The banner said: “I opposed a pay rise for workers while I took a $100,000 pay rise for myself.”

Staff moved quickly to tear down the banner and Hanson later insisted small business owners were being driven to the wall by tough industrial relations rules.

Hanson promised to address the cost-of-living crisis and pledged to increase spending to address homelessness.

Asked about abortion policy, Hanson said too many pregnancies were terminated in Australia, calling for the procedure to be banned after 20 weeks. Exemptions would be in place to protect the health of the mother.

After raising a claimed $4m in donations targeting the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, for being a “liar”, Hanson said the Labor leader had “lied to become elected”.

“The public are sick to the back teeth with these lies.”

She attacked a Guardian Australia reporter for asking about her daughter, Lee Hanson, who is employed as a senior adviser to New South Wales One Nation senator Sean Bell, despite living and working in Tasmania.

Lee Hanson is expected to run for the Senate at the next election.

“I didn’t get her that job. She got the job on her own merits by someone who actually wanted to employ her,” Hanson said.

Hitting out at support for the renewables transition from the federal government and business leaders including Andrew Forrest, Hanson said environmental rules and efforts to cut carbon emissions should not be allowed to “throttle” the economy.

“We will never be able to do without coal and gas,” she said.

“We should encourage the investment in them and provide power to homes and business, as we once did, at the world’s cheapest price.”

Attacking Labor for changes to the 50% capital gains tax discount and negative gearing, announced in last month’s federal budget, Hanson said the reforms would punish ambitious and aspirational young people.

She labelled the treasurer, Jim Chalmers’ defence of the plans “pathetic”.

“The difference between Albanese, Chalmers and me is that I actually ran a small business. They have earned their income by working for government, taking their salary from the taxpayer.”

Hanson’s speech comes as One Nation pulls ahead of the major parties in opinion polls, and as she outpaces Albanese as the preferred prime minister in Newspoll this week.

Hanson has flirted with a move back to the lower house at the 2028 poll, and the party has begun allocating portfolios for opposition or government.

She lashed the federal public service for being incompetent and promised a One Nation government would direct bureaucrats on how to implement policies.

Hanson accused the media of being complicit in silencing average voters and shutting down debate. She also claimed she was a known quantity and remained outside the political establishment, despite being elected again in 2016.

She accused the media of double standards and petty attacks, of missing the party’s re-emergence and its role in speaking for disgruntled voters.

“Australians aren’t buying this crap from the political establishment and its media supporters any more,” she said.

On transgender rights, she claimed without evidence that schoolchildren were having dangerous ideology “imposed” on them, even likening trans awareness to militant Islam.

Asked if Australia was still at risk of being swamped by Muslim migration, as she claimed in 2016, Hanson said: “Not if I have anything to do with it.”