The message was clear. It was from a recent migrant from South Africa who was married to a recent migrant from Bosnia.
At a round table birthday party discussion, the subject of Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club speech came up. The migrant said she did not feel qualified to comment but mentioned a hospital visit with her child which cost nothing; the lack of violence; the abundance of good food at a reasonable price; and how she and her husband were on track to buy a house. In short, she wondered: “What are you whingeing about?”
It was a good question to ask Australia’s Whinger in Chief, Pauline Hanson.
We know what she is whingeing about, or more correctly what she is identifying as the main whinges of the people she hopes will vote for her.
That whinge is fairly straightforward: outsiders will come and take away the good things we have and make things worse for us. The fear goes back as far as when homo sapiens first came out of Africa. Bands of humans came together for the purpose of ensuring outsiders did not come and take the things that made life good for them, especially habitat or land.
As human societies became more sophisticated the things that made life good became more than just land. They included infrastructure and services. So even in a fairly non-violent society the threat of the loss of good things in life remained real.
And the Whinger in Chief preys brilliantly upon this powerful human concern. It works because it has some basis in reality. Population pressure has long been a cause of environmental and economic degradation and even extinction.
Every slight inconvenience or woe in what is generally a pretty good society and economy is sheeted home to the outsiders coming in and taking what we have got. And it is not just material things but also spiritual and emotional things like a sense of belonging and a sense of permanence.
And if the Whinger in Chief can blow these things out of proportion and present herself as the only person with the wherewithal to prevent this potential economic and emotional loss to enough voters, her party will win a lot of seats at the next election – enough to end the 80-year, two-party dominance of Australian politics.
There are two important elements to this voter trend. The first is that One Nation does not offer any real let alone detailed solutions or prescriptions to fix the things that they are whingeing about. The second is that the voters, and indeed the media, are not demanding that One Nation set out some detailed proposals as to how these things might be fixed – particularly housing and health.
The only “solution” offered is the panacea of removing the outsiders, or not letting them in in the first place. The cruelty and illegality of that solution make it a non-solution. It is similar to the “Brexit” solution. That was based on the lie that the European Union and its outside bureaucrats were source of Britain’s woes. Just leave Europe and all will be well. Not so. Brexit was catastrophic and made things worse.
Importantly, much as One Nation whinges that “the system” is not working, One Nation does not propose one systemic change that might help Australia. The system of government, which supposedly does not work, is categorised as the two-party system so the two major parties can be blamed because they are the system, when in fact they are the creatures of the system, not the system itself.
What about parts of the system that make its working dysfunctional such as the weak laws about political donations? What about disclosure and regulation of lobbyists’ activities? What about parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive through committees – an important part of the system that can make it function better, but which One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson choses to play virtually no part?
One Nation is also silent on freedom of information laws which are critical to “the system” working in an accountable way. What about One Nation whingeing about media scrutiny and banning some journalists from access?
If One Nation is taking votes away from Labor, as the polls suggest, then that is partially the fault of Labor, not of One Nation. Labor has arguably failed on the systemic part of open, accountable, democratic government. And Labor allowed immigration numbers to blow out to such an extent that polling suggested that the great majority of people were concerned about absolute numbers. That gave fuel to One Nation’s divisive, racist, and culturally exclusivist policies.
It was obvious and pointed out by some, including me, that any post Covid catch up in immigration numbers would play in to the hands of those who would opportunistically seize on the issue, and this is precisely what has happened. But those who called for caution and restraint in immigration numbers were branded racist when it had nothing to do with race. It was just a sane argument about population growth. High population growth puts strain on economies and people’s incomes and access to infrastructure and services. That causes resentment and sets up a platform for the likes of One Nation.
One Nation has been able to use the stresses caused by high population growth on infrastructure and health, education and child and aged care to blame outsiders for those stresses. One Nation does not have a population policy, only an immigration policy, so that it can hit emotional buttons with the tried and tested method of blaming outsiders.
But if you think of the economy and society as a bus with say 15 too many people on it to get up a hill, the bus will only get up the hill if 15 people get off and it would not not matter what their religion or skin colour.
The important thing for the Government is whether it can get population growth down enough to relieve the pressure on infrastructure and services that is causing the discontent upon which One Nation feeds. Compared to that, few voters, other than captains of industry who want cheap labour and more customers, care about rising overall national income. Only per-capita income matters when looking at Voter satisfaction.
Better to live in a country with higher per-capita income more evenly spread than a country with higher overall income less evenly spread.
In any event, Australia is doing pretty well, thank you very much. As the recent migrants from South Africa and Bosnia (nations scarred by racial and religious violence) said: “What are you whingeing about?”
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 23 June 2026.
Pauline is currently the preferred Prime Minister. I know how that would end if it happened. She’s popular because the two main parties are missing what the majority think because of their own agendas. Trans men playing women sports and using their public facilities for one. How can any party think that’s ok? Immigration, yes you can look through the headlines and understand why immigration is so high but are we getting the best? One thing that stands out is the current gangland wars in Australia. Look at the names. Not many Anglo saxons these days and in their day did seem to operate with rules. Just saying, they were born in Australia doesn’t cut it. Their values weren’t picked up in school, more likely in the home. Ignoring this just plays into Pauline’s hand. The African gangs in Melbourne who were described just as youths, another own goal by government. People aren’t as stupid as the intellectuals would like. Likewise this net zero rubbish. If the war in Iran showed anything it shows why we should still be investing in our own refineries for what we can get out of the ground. Thinking solar and wind will make up for the shortfall if coal is switched off is decades away from reality. Likewise EV’s. It should just be a choice not a government policy to make us convert. I have range anxiety, when I can travel 500k and don’t need a fill up or if I did, it took 5 minutes, no waiting, I’ll consider one. At the moment these are just a suitable run around for me. Most countries limit foreign ownership of land. We seem to be selling it all off in a lot of cases to citizens of other countries who are using it as an investment should their country go to crap. What’s wrong with protecting that?
They’re the issues that attract people to One Nation. A lot of her other policies are political death, things like Abortion, Childcare etc are poison if weren’t for the important issues I mentioned earlier. If the 2 main parties listened the majority rather lecture like they know what we should think then One Nation would be no threat! Putting her down is getting her more supporters just like Hilary’s “deplorables” sealed her fate and Trumps rise!
Whinger in Chief! Brilliant!
Hanson reportedly responded to a media question whether she thought Trump had done anything wrong. She replied she didn’t think so.
Quel Horreur!
If I was a conspiracy theorist I would believe that Pauline is actually in the control of the “Big Australia” brigade. Her opposition to mass immigration means that anyone who questions it based on environmental or sustainability concerns are instantly discredited and accused of being xenophobic racists. This is probably why The Greens dropped their Zero Population Growth policy they had in the early nineties.
“Population pressure has long been a cause of environmental and economic degradation and even extinction”.
When I was born Australia had 7.58 million of our species and the world about 2.5 billion. Australia had 0.3% of world population. Since then Australia has increased by 3.7 times to 27.8 million which is 0.34% of the world’s 8.3 billion which increased by 3.3 times. The world is reacting to high population: Africa with poverty and conflict; Europe, USA, Australia against high immigration; Middle East with religious conflict and occupying neighbour’s land. Right wing populous parties are gaining in popularity in Europe, USA, Australia as a reaction to the higher immigration and population. Our dominant human species has reached saturation level which is causing political chaos and degradation of other flora and fauna species.