Pauline Hanson has outlined the sweeping changes she would pursue during the first 100 days of a One Nation government, promising to slash immigration, overhaul the NDIS, abandon Australia’s Net Zero agenda and remove Welcome to Country and related acknowledgements from government institutions and schools.
The One Nation leader used an appearance on Paul Murray Live to set out what she regards as the immediate priorities of a government led by her party, offering one of the clearest indications yet of how Hanson would attempt to translate One Nation’s dramatic rise in support into a governing program.
Her agenda concentrates on issues that have defined One Nation for years — immigration, national identity, government spending and climate policy — but places them inside a first-100-days framework traditionally used by parties seeking to demonstrate they are ready to govern rather than merely protest.
One of Hanson’s first targets would be Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country practices across Commonwealth institutions.
She said she would remove them from government departments and official government communications and would seek to end their use throughout the education system.
“I wouldn’t be having it in the educational system, schools. I’d shut that all down,” Hanson said.
Her position reflects One Nation’s broader argument that the ceremonies, acknowledgements and widespread display of Indigenous symbolism have become divisive rather than unifying.
The terminology is important.
A Welcome to Country is traditionally delivered by a Traditional Owner or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person authorised to welcome visitors to their traditional country. An Acknowledgement of Country can be delivered by anyone and has become commonplace at government meetings, public events, workplaces, schools and on official websites.
Hanson’s comments indicated that a One Nation government would seek to substantially unwind the Commonwealth’s institutional use of both practices.
She also objected to government material carrying acknowledgements and has previously criticised the routine display of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags alongside the Australian national flag.
Such moves would fit into a much broader One Nation approach to Indigenous affairs.
Hanson has previously pledged to abolish the National Indigenous Australians Agency if her party forms government, arguing that government policy should be based on citizenship rather than race.
Supporters of Welcome to Country ceremonies take a fundamentally different view, regarding them as recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ continuing connection to country and an important act of respect.
That disagreement ensures any attempt to remove the practices from government institutions would become one of the most culturally contentious elements of a Hanson government.
Immigration would be another immediate target.
Hanson said Australia should dramatically reduce migration while becoming more selective about who is admitted.
“We can be selective in who we bring in — people who are going to help us build our nation with productivity, not drag us down and our welfare system,” she said.
One Nation has recently proposed reducing annual immigration to about 130,000 while retaining pathways for workers in occupations where Australia faces genuine skills shortages.
That approach differs from eliminating migration altogether.
Hanson’s argument is that Australia should use a smaller migration program focused more heavily on applicants capable of filling economically productive roles, while reducing categories she believes add pressure to housing, infrastructure and government services without producing sufficient economic benefit.
She has repeatedly linked high migration to the housing affordability crisis, rental shortages, congestion and pressure on public infrastructure.
Those arguments have become increasingly central to One Nation’s political rise as cost-of-living pressures have weakened support for the major parties.
But immigration statistics are often more complicated than the political debate suggests.
The permanent migration program is different from net overseas migration, which includes movements by international students, temporary workers and other visa holders, as well as Australians departing and returning.
Reducing one category therefore does not necessarily produce an equivalent reduction in overall population growth.
A government seeking a dramatic fall in net migration would potentially need to alter multiple visa programs rather than simply reduce the permanent migration ceiling.
There would also be economic consequences to manage.
Employers in construction, healthcare, aged care, agriculture, hospitality and other industries have argued that skilled migration remains necessary because domestic labour supply cannot meet all current requirements.
That creates the central trade-off behind Hanson’s policy.
A large reduction in migration could ease some pressure on housing and infrastructure growth, but cuts applied too broadly could also intensify labour shortages in industries essential to building homes and delivering health and care services.
Hanson’s answer is selectivity.
Rather than treating every migrant as economically equivalent, she argues visas should be concentrated on people whose skills Australia demonstrably requires.
That message has become more politically potent as Australians struggle with housing costs.
One Nation’s broader claim is that governments cannot sustainably increase the population faster than the country can provide housing, infrastructure and essential services.
Labor disputes much of Hanson’s framing and points to substantial reductions in net overseas migration from its post-pandemic peak while maintaining that skilled migration remains essential to the economy.
Immigration would therefore be one of the first major political battles facing any hypothetical One Nation government.
Hanson also nominated the National Disability Insurance Scheme for substantial reform.
She did not present a complete legislative blueprint during the interview, but made clear that she regards NDIS expenditure as part of a broader government spending problem requiring urgent action.
The NDIS is one of the Commonwealth’s largest and fastest-growing social programs and has been the subject of repeated efforts by successive governments to control costs while protecting services for Australians with significant and permanent disabilities.
That makes promises to “overhaul” the scheme politically straightforward but administratively difficult.
Any government attempting major savings would have to decide precisely where those savings came from.
Options could include tighter eligibility, restrictions on particular supports, stronger fraud controls, different pricing arrangements or shifting some services outside the NDIS and into mainstream state and federal systems.
Each approach would affect participants, families, providers and governments differently.
Hanson has long argued that government programs should be protected from fraud and excessive expenditure, and her latest comments put the NDIS squarely inside One Nation’s intended budget crackdown.
But a detailed first-100-days program would require considerably more specificity about which participants, supports or providers would be affected.
That distinction matters because the NDIS supports hundreds of thousands of Australians and changes to eligibility or funding can have immediate consequences for vulnerable people and their carers.
One Nation would also move rapidly against Australia’s Net Zero policy.
Hanson said abandoning Net Zero would be among the priorities of her government, continuing one of the party’s longest-running policy campaigns.
One Nation rejects the argument that Australia should restructure its energy system around achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and has consistently attacked subsidies and mandates supporting renewable energy.
Hanson instead advocates greater use of Australia’s domestic energy resources and argues that existing climate policy increases electricity prices while having limited influence on global emissions.
Scrapping Net Zero, however, would involve considerably more than announcing a change in political direction.
Australia’s emissions framework is embedded across Commonwealth legislation, regulations, investment programs and international commitments.
Businesses have also made long-term investments based on the existing policy environment.
A One Nation government would therefore have to determine which laws it wanted repealed, which programs would be abolished or changed and what alternative energy and emissions framework would replace them.
Some changes could potentially be made administratively.
Others would require legislation and Senate support.
That parliamentary arithmetic is important when considering any first-100-days promise.
Even if One Nation were to win enough House of Representatives seats to form government at a future election, that would not automatically give it control of the Senate.
A government without a Senate majority would need support from other parties or crossbench senators for legislation repealing or substantially changing existing laws.
That means the difference between announcing a policy and implementing it could be substantial.
The same problem applies to government spending.
Hanson blamed excessive Commonwealth expenditure for contributing to inflation and said a One Nation government would seek significant reductions.
Government spending can contribute to demand and inflationary pressure, particularly when an economy is operating near capacity, but inflation is affected by multiple domestic and international forces including wages, supply constraints, commodity prices, housing costs, monetary policy and global shocks.
The practical test for One Nation would therefore be identifying sufficiently large spending reductions without cutting services voters expect governments to provide.
That task becomes harder as Commonwealth expenditure is concentrated in politically sensitive areas such as health, aged care, defence, pensions, disability support and payments to the states.
Hanson’s first-100-days pitch nevertheless indicates that fiscal restraint would be presented alongside immigration cuts and energy policy as part of a single economic argument.
One Nation’s proposition is that reducing population pressure, government expenditure and the costs it associates with Net Zero would improve household living standards.
That economic message is increasingly important to the party’s electoral strategy.
Hanson’s surge has occurred during a period of persistent household frustration over groceries, electricity, housing, insurance and mortgage repayments.
The party has attempted to connect those pressures with immigration and government policy, presenting itself as an alternative to both Labor and the Coalition.
The 100-day agenda is therefore more than a collection of familiar One Nation positions.
It is an attempt to show how those positions would be sequenced if Hanson acquired executive power.
That is a significant change in emphasis for a party that has spent most of its existence influencing political debate from the crossbench rather than preparing to administer Commonwealth departments.
One Nation has never formed a federal government.
For most of its history, the possibility was sufficiently remote that its policies could be assessed principally as pressure on the major parties.
Its recent rise in opinion polling has changed the political conversation.
Strong polling does not mean One Nation is close to forming government, particularly under Australia’s House of Representatives electoral system, where national primary support must translate into victories across individual electorates.
But Hanson is increasingly speaking as the leader of a prospective government rather than solely as a Senate insurgent.
A first-100-days agenda reinforces that transition.
It also exposes One Nation to a different level of scrutiny.
Voters considering a protest vote can focus on dissatisfaction with the incumbent parties.
Voters considering a party as a potential government need answers to more detailed questions: how much policies cost, which laws change, what happens to existing programs, how transition arrangements work and whether the numbers pass parliament.
The NDIS is an obvious example.
Calling for an overhaul identifies a political objective. Governing requires determining exactly which rules change and what happens to participants whose existing plans depend on them.
Net Zero poses the same challenge.
A government can abandon a target politically, but electricity generation, transmission investment, energy contracts and industrial projects cannot be instantly reorganised by declaration.
Immigration policy can be changed more quickly in some areas, but universities, employers, states and industries make investment decisions around anticipated population and workforce numbers.
Even Welcome to Country practices involve different layers of authority.
A Commonwealth government could control practices within its own departments and agencies far more directly than ceremonies conducted by state government schools or institutions under state jurisdiction.
That means Hanson’s reference to removing the practice from “schools” would encounter Australia’s federal division of responsibility, with state and territory governments operating most public schools.
A federal One Nation government could exert political and funding pressure, but it could not simply administer every Australian school from Canberra.
Those implementation questions do not make the promises meaningless.
They demonstrate the difference between a political platform and a governing program — precisely the distinction Hanson will face more often if One Nation continues polling as a major electoral force.
Her television appearance also returned to a deeply personal legal battle.
Hanson defended her right to express political opinions following litigation brought by Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi.
The dispute began with a 2022 social media post in which Hanson told Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan” after the Greens senator criticised the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II and British colonialism.
In November 2024, the Federal Court found Hanson’s post breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Hanson appealed.
On July 27, 2026, the Full Federal Court unanimously dismissed that appeal and upheld the original finding.
The court rejected Hanson’s challenge to the judgment, leaving the adverse racial discrimination finding in place.
Hanson has indicated she is not prepared to abandon the legal fight and has raised the prospect of seeking to take the matter further.
“I’m not going to drop it. I’m not walking away from this,” she said.
“I’ve always been a fighter, and it’s not about Pauline Hanson. It’s about the Australian people for us to have a voice.”
Hanson frames the dispute as a question of freedom of political expression.
Faruqi and her supporters frame it very differently, arguing that racial discrimination laws legitimately restrict conduct that crosses the line from political disagreement into unlawful racial abuse.
The courts have so far ruled against Hanson.
Any further challenge would therefore involve attempting to overturn a judgment that has now survived consideration by a Full Federal Court bench.
The dispute fits naturally into Hanson’s wider political pitch because she presents cultural institutions, immigration, Indigenous recognition and speech regulation as parts of the same argument about national identity and political freedom.
Her critics see that agenda as exclusionary and argue it risks intensifying divisions in a multicultural country.
Her supporters see a politician willing to challenge conventions that Labor and the Coalition have been reluctant to confront.
That divide has defined Hanson’s career since she first entered federal parliament three decades ago.
What is different in 2026 is the scale of the audience listening to her.
One Nation is enjoying levels of polling support far beyond those traditionally associated with the party, while dissatisfaction with Labor and the Coalition has fragmented the electorate.
That makes questions about what Hanson would actually do with power increasingly relevant.
Her answer begins with a dramatic first 100 days: fewer migrants, a reworked NDIS, lower government spending, no Net Zero agenda and an end to Commonwealth institutional support for Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country practices.
Whether all of those changes could actually be delivered in 100 days would depend on election results, Senate numbers, legislation and the constitutional division of power between Canberra and the states.
But Hanson is now making the political objective unmistakable.
One Nation no longer wants Australians merely to use the party to protest against the government.
It wants them to imagine what a Hanson government would do once it walked into office.
