Hanson digs her heels in, Taylor goes on tour

Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Courtney Gould gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House.

Pauline Hanson doesn’t like to back down.

She didn’t when the Senate demanded it after she wore a burka in the chamber last year. Nor when she used her second maiden speech to claim Australia was in “danger of being swamped by Muslims”.

And she certainly didn’t immediately this week when the One Nation leader was condemned for suggesting there were no “good” Muslims.

That’s not to say that she didn’t eventually offer something of an apology. She did. Hanson apologised but only if the person who took offence met her specific criteria: someone who “doesn’t believe in sharia law, or multiple marriages, or wants to bring ISIS brides in, or people from Gaza that believe in a caliphate”.

And then she added: “In general, that is what they want — a world caliphate. And I am not going to apologise … I will have my say now before it’s too late.”

The only Muslim that came to mind for Hanson was a non-practising woman who once ran for the party. Emma Eros, who identified herself as that woman on radio this week, put it best.

“She digs her heels in and shoots herself in the foot and then goes 10 steps back,” Eros told Sydney’s 2GB.

“I stood for your party. I took a lot of heat for your party. I contributed to your party and there are a lot of people that will support your political views. Just articulate and address them and mean them … don’t give a half-arsed apology.”

One Nation’s ascension over the Coalition in recent opinion polls has emboldened Hanson, who has been making these kinds of comments for years, in the chamber in the Senate, in interviews, and on her social media accounts.

But an idea that she’s mellowed since she first appeared in parliament has persisted anyway. It’s what former prime minister Tony Abbott said himself on ABC’s 7.30 last week.

That idea is a fallacy. In an interview with Four Corners, her latest recruit, Barnaby Joyce, seemed to acknowledge that not everything that works for Hanson in Queensland would work for him in New South Wales where, if he is to run for the Senate, he has to appeal to voters in Western Sydney.

Hanson will recalibrate. She’s been doing this a long time. Hanson now says her policies were doing Donald Trump long before he was. But she was doing Trump long before him in other ways as well. She (and her team) know that, for many, she is a meme, and she plays into it.

During her time away from the political arena she did anything, and everything, to maintain relevancy and she wasn’t afraid to make a mockery of herself (see: singing the YMCA on The Celebrity Singing Bee).

She still does it today (see: the sandwich press steak). A silly distraction, a reset and then she’ll repeat the cycle.

Taylor on tour

Hanson wasn’t the only one on the apology (non-apology) tour this week. Fresh off his installation as opposition leader Angus Taylor was also doing the rounds.

He conceded mistakes were made in the Peter Dutton era by not matching Labor’s tax cut. Taking calls from listeners on talkback radio he spoke of wanting to restore confidence with Liberal voters. He didn’t pass judgement on the reasons why some may have jumped ship to One Nation.

Taylor respects them. But he wants them back.

It’s been a busy week for the new opposition leader. He rebranded his website and unveiled his new shadow frontbench. No longer were the Nationals out in the cold. They were back.

The reshuffle could be seen as a classic case of keeping your friends close and enemies closer. He promoted Andrew Hastie to the industry portfolio. Tim Wilson, who has made no secret of his own leadership ambitions, was elevated to shadow treasurer — a position Taylor previously held.

So who will Angus Taylor be as leader?

A week into the job and Taylor has signalled where he’s going to go. While he won’t quickly release policies, he says any policy would have to “protect Australia’s way of life”. Supporters of Sussan Ley claim that was the direction the Liberals were already heading under her leadership. 

But his stop at the Kyle and Jackie O show gave us a hint as to how he’ll try to position himself to the voter at large. He’s a dad. He has a self-described eclectic playlist that covers everything from Mozart to heavy metal. He likes Natalie Imbruliga’s cover of Torn.

It’s very much in the Scott Morrison mould.

The FM airwaves can be tough for politicians to master. A good interview will go unnoticed by the broader media. A bad one will cut through. Dutton was victim to it in the election campaign when he revealed he’d much rather live in Kirribilli than the Lodge if he were to be elected prime minister.

It’s an art form that Anthony Albanese has become quite good at.

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‘Contempt’ for IS mothers

The prime minister received an at-times fawning reception as he made the rounds himself this week. In Hobart, one radio host described him as being the “total package”. “He’s got the mind of a scholar, the body of granite,” the host declared. The prime minister brought another host a muffin after they’d said they were craving one.

Albanese, and the rest of the government for that matter, have had the luxury of the heat being turned on the opposition in recent weeks. Some of that heat transferred when the news dropped that a group of Australians with links to Islamic State fighters were trying to make their return from Syria.

The 34 women and children have been living in the war-torn country since the fall of IS. Given the current focus on social cohesion, the government was quick to stress it wasn’t helping to repatriate the cohort. The fact they’d obtained passports was because they had a legal right to them like any Australian citizen.

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A tough-talking Albanese, at a time when debate about Australia’s borders and “way of life” is already so fraught, said the women had made their bed and had to lie in it.

It was unfortunate for the children involved but he had nothing but “contempt” for the mothers.

There is little the government can do to stop these women returning if they are able to get out of Syria. Another group of women and children in the same situation returned late last year. Four women and 13 children were repatriated in October 2022. But the returns haven’t just been under Labor — orphaned children were repatriated under the Morrison government in 2019.

Labor has already moved to delay one of the women returning under temporary orders, citing security advice. The rest have been threatened with facing the “full force of the law” on their return.

So far 10 returnees (nine male and one female) have been charged with the crime of entering a region controlled by a terrorist organisation.

The sole woman pleaded guilty but avoided jail time. 

What to do with those who remain, at least at this moment, stuck in the camps is an enduring challenge, as Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil said this week. But the government is running out of time to find a solution.