Is Pauline Hanson a liar or the only truth-teller? What voters think on Melbourne’s margins

In Pauline Hanson’s inflammatory first appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, she laid out her party’s major policies. She declared Australia must exist as a “monocultural society” and could not be multicultural, claimed migration was too high, argued against paid parental leave, and said “too much money” was going to the wages of childcare workers.

One Nation has been polling strongly in Pakenham, south-east of Melbourne. One of the most marginal state electorates in Victoria, it’s held by Labor on a razor-thin margin of just 0.4%. The popular sitting MP, Emma Vulin, will not recontest the seat in the state election in November due to illness, with Labor preselecting 23-year-old Alessandra Soliven as its candidate.

Former Labor strategist turned pollster Kos Samaras, a director at RedBridge, has described Pakenham as “classic One Nation territory”. Working-class pockets in the area are being “pummelled” by cost-of-living pressures and the sense of a stagnating quality of life is fuelling dissatisfaction with the major parties. These demographics are consistent across the outer south-east, Samaras said, helping explain why One Nation is concentrating its efforts there.

Guardian Australia went to Pakenham on Thursday and asked people on the street what they thought of One Nation, Hanson’s speech and the party’s policies. Most had caught snippets on social media or radio news. Here’s what they said.

Victoria Oh, 38

Oh said her impression of Hanson was that she was “racist” and politics was becoming “too American”.

Cutting back on migration would be “a big loss to the Australian economy”, she said, “especially with international travels, holidays, student visas, the amount of work that we have here that is reliant on immigration, and reliant on international students as well.

“We’ve always been a very multicultural country and that’s not really what [Hanson] intends to happen.”

Oh did not agree with Hanson’s claim that childcare workers were being paid too much. “I look after my child, I don’t send him to childcare, but the work is crazy, so I believe that they deserve as much as they can get. Same with teachers … there’s so much responsibility. Six children to one – I’m struggling with one to myself!”

Rochelle Bennett, 30

Voting these days, Bennett said, was about “trying to pick the better of two evils”.

“It’s real hard. I think that literally they’re all liars, they’re just all liars.”

Of One Nation, Bennett said: “That’s a tough one. Some things I think are good, some things I think are a little bit controversial”.

She said “a little bit of a crackdown on immigration, a little bit” would be a good thing.

“But I think some of the things [Hanson] comes up with is a little crazy, like walking up to Uluru and saying she should be allowed on because she was born in Australia, so she’s Indigenous Australian when she’s clearly not – that was crazy.”

On Hanson’s “monoculture” policy, Bennett said: “Australia has always been multicultural. Australian was originally Aboriginal and then the English come in and the Irish and all these other cultures … so I don’t think you can just make it one culture, it just isn’t doable. Australia is known for being multicultural.”

Tara Coles, 42

Coles said One Nation “make a lot of sense”.

“I like the fact that [Hanson] is honest and she’s actually putting the average Australian first and just cutting through the bullshit, not trying to pander to minorities a lot, and just says it as it is,” she said.

Other politicians weren’t “transparent with their policies at all”, she said. “They’re just saying what will get them the vote and then backflipping on everything and just doing whatever they want and not listening to average people at all”.

Coles said she wasn’t interested in politics until recently. “I’m just kind of sick of the bullshit and I want to give someone else a go, because how worse can it get?”

Coles firmly believed in a connection between migration levels and housing scarcity. “I know people that are borderline homeless now and it’s not like from lack of trying. They’ve worked their asses off, they’ve got partners, they can’t save anything.”

Katrina, 72

Katrina, who spoke to Guardian Australia on condition her last name not be used, said she thought Hanson was “racist, probably is not coming from a place that she makes herself out to, she gets lots of money, she’s done a lot of things that are really bad”.

“I’ve never liked the woman. Never will. I don’t really agree with much of what she has to say … I don’t have time for her or anything like that at all. It doesn’t matter if she’s got one or two good points, to me, the rest outweigh anything that she might have good to say.”

She added: “I think we’d be going backwards if we elected her.”

Sam Mukherjee, 47

Mukherjee said he understood One Nation was “giving a good fight to Labor” but there was little fiscal and material detail in the party’s policies.

“The way things are going, it’s a good alternative but then also what we could see is some concrete plans which are missing.”

Mukherjee was equivocal about Hanson’s “monoculture” claims. “I don’t think she necessarily means that she is not inclusive. That’s what my understanding is. And obviously Australia is a very large country and we do have people from various countries here,” he said. On migration: “I think definitely it has to be a planned migration. It can’t be an unplanned migration, not having infrastructure, not having housing in place … that would obviously not be good for the country.”

Asked if he would vote for the party, he said: “You know, if they have come up with a good plan, then why not?”