One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is claiming a protest staged during her inaugural address to the National Press Club on Wednesday must have been an inside job despite campaign group Get Up claiming responsibility and adamant denials of involvement from the club.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday joined a chorus of MPs from across the political spectrum to condemn the protest as Hanson and Get Up waged a meme war, poking fun at each other for their responses to the incident.
“I think it’s disgusting this has been allowed, and to me, it would have had to be someone on the inside [of the club] has given them permission or allowed them access to put that up,” Hanson told Sky News on Thursday.
“If they thought they were going to stop me, think twice about it. That doesn’t stop me. So I hope there’s a full investigation into it.”
During a fiery inaugural appearance at the club, an automated banner was unfurled behind Hanson which chided her for accepting a $100,000 salary bump while opposing pay rises for workers.
Hanson received the pay rise after Barnaby Joyce defected last December and One Nation achieved minor party status. Hanson this month opposed the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase the minimum wage by 4.75 per cent.
Get Up on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the stunt, and the club has denied involvement of any personnel or contractors in the incident while issuing an apology to Hanson. Club CEO Maurice Reilly leapt on stage to tear down the banner and CCTV footage has been handed to the Australian Federal Police who are conducting an investigation. The AFP was contacted for comment.
Security for Hanson’s speech was ramped up, with extra police on site, guests ushered through a single entrance away from protesters, and a security sweep of the club before the event, including sniffer dogs checking for bombs.
Two men are understood to have entered the club on Tuesday, allegedly drilling the automated banner into the media wall backdrop without the consent of the club. The club is considering its options to seek compensation from the alleged perpetrators for damaged caused to their site.
The next day, during Hanson’s address, an individual inside the venue activated a remote device to unfurl the banner.
Addressing a press conference in Sydney on Thursday, Albanese said the protest was a matter for the AFP, saying: “these actions can be counterproductive, and one of the things that I’ve said consistently, consistently, is that we need to turn the temperature down.”
“I think that people should be allowed to go to the National Press Club and address the press club with whatever views people have in a respectful manner, and that should be treated respectfully,” Albanese said.
By Thursday afternoon, Hanson had uploaded an altered version of the banner to her Instagram, with the caption: “I quite liked the glasses GetUp! gave me in their new poster”. Hanson also made the image her profile picture.
In a subsequent post, Get Up chided Hanson for having altered the image, saying: “She deleted mummy Gina’s [Rinehart] flying wads of cash … She literally can’t even post a meme without LYING. Fire The Fraud!”
Unrepentant, Get Up on Thursday began selling T-shirts and crop tops printed with an image of the banner for $45 each, alongside a range of shirts that say “I will never vote One Nation”.
Get Up and its media manager David Sharaz, who was seen filming the stunt from his table at the club before quickly leaving the room, did not respond to requests for comment.
Leading Nationals MPs Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie criticised the protest, with the latter calling it “the biggest own goal since Anthony Albanese did a fundraiser against One Nation”.
McKenzie said that any decision to prosecute Get Up over potential illegal conduct would be welcome.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said he did not want to “support a stunt like that”, saying he didn’t think protest activity “is healthy in that sort of an environment”.
“I do think that the message on the sign was entirely appropriate to raise the point that Pauline Hanson and One Nation have always voted against laws to lift wages, while, of course she has been happy to take a $100,000 pay rise herself as a party leader, but I do think that there are more appropriate ways to get that message out there than what happened yesterday,” Watt told the ABC.
National director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Grace Vegesana, who opposes much of One Nation’s platform, said Hanson’s “increasingly escalatory language used to create division” warranted pushback.
“It’s important to have resistance to that, and to remind people that sometimes things are actually really ridiculous, and often it’s humour that cuts through to communities,” Vegesana said.
During her Wednesday address to the press club, Hanson flagged that outlets including Guardian Australia and the ABC could be excluded from future press conferences over allegations of bias against her.
The federal parliamentary press gallery committee condemned the stance in a statement on Thursday, saying: “The ability to scrutinise and question politicians is one of the fundamental functions of our work as journalists”.
“Against this backdrop, the gallery committee strongly objects to threats made by One Nation – or by any political party – to ban certain journalists and organisations from doing their jobs as important observers and interpreters of federal politics.
“Journalists have an essential role to play in a free and open democracy, and such restrictions would undermine and ultimately weaken Australia’s political system.”
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Nick Newling is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.
