Before you dismiss the headline, consider the extremist rhetoric being spouted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party over the past couple of days.
First, as tens of thousands of Aussies, most of them One Nation supporters, marched for free speech on Sunday, Albanese told the Queensland State Labor Conference:
“Across the world hard right populists are on the march. Peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest.
We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history. We owe it to the nation. And we will defeat them.
They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts. Peddle misinformation and disinformation. Turn Australian against Australian.
Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to problems which are there.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his mission to destroy One Nation is a matter of national importance because “we owe it to history.” pic.twitter.com/sBINSl5bXF
— Anthony Khallouf (@ausvstheagenda) August 30, 2026
Then at the same conference Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned about a “threat to our country and its cohesion, its people and economy posed by a dangerous and divisive Coalition of chaos”, also referring to the rise of One Nation.
On Monday, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, a censorious pantsuited harpie who should never have been let near the levers of power, went a step further when she was asked, in reference to Mr Albanese and Mr Chalmers’ comments, whether One Nation was “dangerous”. She replied:
“I think One Nation is a party that does not represent mainstream Australia.
I think some of One Nation’s elements, particularly where they have been recruiting or otherwise giving a platform to extremist views, including neo-Nazi views, that is dangerous.
I think it is also dangerous, at a time when social cohesion has never been more important, to trade on the politics of division. I also think it’s dangerous when people who purport to be leaders in our community deliberately go out with inflammatory language that seeks to divide us.”
These statements, so close together, are no coincidence, and Pauline Hanson hit back by saying that “words have consequences” and “that is how political violence is incited”.
But it is not political violence that Hanson should be worried about – it is Labor’s prohibited hate group laws, which have already been used to ban the White Australia Party.
That ban is set to be challenged next week in a High Court case that the government is refusing to mention, keeping it out of the public eye with the help of an ideologically aligned corporate media that has been bought off with millions in grants, and millions more extorted from American social media companies.
But a decision could be months away, and there is nothing to stop Labor using the laws on One Nation in the meantime, or afterwards if the court rules in favour of the Commonwealth.
This may seem unlikely, but consider that a) Pauline Hanson has jailed on bogus charges before, b) One Nation is leading in the polls, c) Albanese is a ruthless political operator and will do anything to stay in power, and d) the statements above are enough to justify a ban.
Most Australians have no idea how bad these hate group laws really are, party due to the aforementioned media blackout, despite warnings from the country’s most respected legal scholar, civil liberties groups, and even Labor MPs that they could easily be used to ban any current political party.
In brief, to ban a party, the government just has to decide it has engaged in, planned to engage in, or even just advocated engaging in conduct that constitutes a vaguely defined “hate crime”, at any time in past, even if the conduct was legal at the time.
No criminal convictions are required, which means the government can just declare a “hate crime” has been committed or advocated for, and it did exactly that when banning the White Australia Party.
A ban must also be “reasonably necessary to protect the Australian community or part of the Australian community against social, psychological, physical or economic harm”.
Viewed in this light, the comments made by Albanese, Chalmers and Rowland over the past few days alone could be used to justify banning One Nation.
Albanese calls it “dangerous”, and warns it is turning “Australian against Australian”.
Chalmers also uses the word “dangerous”, and calls One Nation a “threat to our country and its cohesion”.
Rowland agrees One Nation is “dangerous” for various reasons, including because it is (allegedly) “giving a platform to extremist views, including neo-Nazi views”.
Now consider that the White Australia Party was banned for, among other things, “consistently promoting racist and hateful propaganda”, and that the government defending the ban by saying it would “reduce [its] overall impact and influence in Australian society”.
The government, therefore, could easily decide that One Nation is so dangerous that it needs to be banned to protect vulnerable minority groups from social or psychological harm, and decide that its alleged platforming of neo-Nazi views, Pauline Hanson’s past comments about Asians and Muslims, constitute a hate crime.
Remember, no judicial process or criminal convictions are required – they can just decide a ban is necessary to protect “social cohesion”.
But even if these laws are not used against One Nation, they are still bad for One Nation.
What the prohibited hate groups laws really do is remove the right flank of politics, and prevent the Overton window from being pulled too far to the right.
Labor benefits from having The Greens on its left flank, as it appears moderate by comparison and gets its preferences anyway.
The Coalition used to benefit from One Nation in the same way, but with One Nation becoming the more popular party, it would also benefit from having a right flank.
The hate group laws effectively prevent any party to the right of One Nation from emerging – one such as Restore Britain could easily be banned – which also stops One Nation from moving to the right, and forces it to moderate and move to the centre out of self-preservation.
This is a disaster for the Australian right – One Nation should be actively campaigning against these laws, and not just hoping the White Australia Party strikes them down.
Header image: Michelle Rowland making her comments about One Nation (ABC News).
