Hanson's fiery address creates risk for One Nation

This was a press club address like no other. Lengthy, fiery, action-packed. Now even the police have been called in.

One Nation would be thrilled with the attention.

The main drama centred on a secretly installed GetUp banner that suddenly unfurled the moment Pauline Hanson started empathising with cost-of-living concerns.

It was an attention-grabbing stunt, now the subject of a Federal Police probe.

Hanson wasn't bothered by the banner.

The more politically troubling elements of the speech she unfurled herself, staking out positions that may prove to have only limited appeal.

To be sure, the One Nation leader will chalk up her performance as a raging success.

The ultimate "outsider" came to the establishment stage where the major parties usually play and displayed more confidence and resolve than most.

She picked fights with journalists and put on a display of defiance.

A long list of grievances

Viewers at home heard about how Australians are "mad as hell", and "sick of tired of being ignored" on everything from migration to radical Islam, a lack of housing, cost-of-living pressures, national debt, acknowledgements of country, Indigenous programs, funding for renewables, Snowy 2.0, the "transgender insurgency", the ABC and SBS, the media more broadly, foreign aid, the public service, and abortion rights.

The list of grievances was long.

The list of solutions, less so.

Beyond slashing immigration and scrapping various departments and agencies, the plan to lift living standards was vague.

Asked directly about wages and conditions for battlers, Hanson sided with bosses, delivering a line even Liberal politicians from the WorkChoices era would have been afraid to utter.

"Businesses tell me you can't sack people these days. They're on the phones, they don't work, they don't turn up, they actually are lazy."

The One Nation leader, who voted against Labor's wage theft and "same job, same pay" laws, called for an "overhaul" of industrial relations.

She even appeared to question the worth of paid parental leave: "Why should business pay them if they're not at work?"

One Nation's demographic wall

If the normal rules of politics were to apply, these are the sorts of comments that Labor and the unions would ensure haunt Hanson all the way to polling day.

At the very least, they risk limiting One Nation's appeal.

So, too, Hanson's argument that Australia "cannot be a multicultural society" and must be monocultural instead.

One Nation's plan to slash the migration intake clearly has strong popular support.

Attacking multiculturalism is another matter.

It's where the major parties are quietly confident One Nation will hit a demographic wall. Multiculturalism, they point out, is a part of modern Australia and a point of pride for many.

Hanson's performance at the press club gives Labor and the Coalition plenty to be nervous about. The willingness to break norms, open fights on new fronts, and take control of the agenda creates danger for the establishment.

It also creates risk, however, for One Nation.

In one press club appearance, we've learned more about where Hanson stands.

Her political opponents won't need a clever unfurling banner to zero in on the vulnerabilities.

David Speers is national political lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.