Pauline Hanson has thrown her full support behind One Nation’s Victorian leader Warren Pickering, describing his admission of past drug use, drink-driving and failures as a young father as a story of “personal redemption” rather than a reason to remove him from the party’s state election campaign.
Hanson’s intervention came after an extraordinary Melbourne press conference on Tuesday in which the 43-year-old Pickering acknowledged using speed, ecstasy and marijuana when he was younger and admitted losing his driver’s licence three times for drink-driving.
He said he regretted the harm his behaviour had caused his family and asked voters to judge him not only by the mistakes he made decades ago but by what he had done with his life since.
In a lengthy statement posted to social media, Hanson embraced that argument.
She said Pickering had confronted his mistakes, changed the direction of his life and refused to remain defined by the worst decisions of his youth.
For Hanson, his willingness to accept responsibility, rebuild his family relationships and serve in the Australian Defence Force demonstrated character rather than disqualification from public office.
Hanson says Pickering should be judged on what came next
Hanson said Pickering was not presenting himself as blameless.
She acknowledged his admitted history of illicit drug use, drink-driving offences and shortcomings as a father, while arguing that genuine accountability should include recognising when a person has subsequently changed.
Her defence centres on a simple political proposition: voters should be entitled to consider a candidate’s past, but they should also consider the decades that followed it.
“Warren’s story shows a man who confronted his mistakes, changed the direction of his life and chose not to remain defined by the worst decisions of his youth,” Hanson wrote.
She pointed particularly to his military service, his relationship with his children and his willingness to front journalists and publicly discuss deeply personal parts of his past.
Whether voters regard those factors as evidence of rehabilitation will now become a significant test for One Nation as Victoria approaches its November state election.
Pickering admits drug use but continues to deny the most serious claims
The controversy began with allegations made by Pickering’s former long-term partner, Jo Scott, who spoke publicly about the couple’s troubled relationship and alleged illicit drug use many years ago.
Pickering’s press conference confirmed some elements of the broader story while firmly disputing others.
He admitted using speed, ecstasy and marijuana in his 20s.
He said he was not proud of that history and rejected any suggestion that he had always portrayed himself as someone without serious mistakes in his past.
But he continued to deny Scott’s allegation that he had been a user of ice, or crystal methamphetamine, and denied claims that he smoked ice in a home while children were present.
Those disputed allegations remain allegations. They have not been established by a court.
That distinction has become particularly important because some headlines surrounding the controversy have bundled Pickering’s admissions and Scott’s contested claims together as though he had accepted all of them.
He has not.
One Nation’s position shifted after his public admissions
The sequence of events has also created questions for Hanson and the party.
On Monday, before Pickering’s press conference, Hanson told reporters that allegations reported by The Australian had been put to him and denied.
“These are allegations that have been put to Warren Pickering and he’s denied those allegations,” Hanson said at the time.
A day later, Pickering publicly acknowledged that he had in fact used several illegal drugs when he was younger.
The difference can partly be explained by the distinction between the allegations he accepts and those he continues to reject, but it has nevertheless intensified scrutiny of how thoroughly One Nation examined his background before elevating him to the Victorian leadership.
Hanson has now moved away from a broad denial-based defence and towards an explicit redemption argument.
Her latest position is effectively that the admitted conduct happened, was wrong, caused harm and should be considered alongside the life Pickering built afterwards.
Military service is central to the redemption narrative
Pickering says the decisive turning point came when he joined the Australian Defence Force in 2013 at the age of 28.
He told reporters that he had stopped using illicit drugs before joining and said he disclosed his previous drug use during the ADF application process.
He later served as a combat engineer and rose to corporal before leaving the Army around 2018 and returning to Victoria.
Pickering has described that period as a course correction that gave him structure and purpose.
Hanson has adopted the same interpretation.
She said military service gave him the discipline and direction he had lacked earlier in life and helped establish a belief that supporting other people could give his life meaning.
Barnaby Joyce has also relied heavily on Pickering’s Defence background when defending him publicly, arguing that ADF recruitment involves character and suitability screening.
Military service does not prove or disprove allegations about a person’s earlier private life, and admission to the ADF should not be treated as a blanket character certificate.
But Pickering’s service is a documented part of the later life record Hanson is asking voters to consider.
His daughter and stepson stood beside him
Pickering did not face the cameras alone.
His adult daughter Jhett and stepson Johnny stood with him during the press conference and strongly defended the role he had played in their lives.
Their presence gave Hanson’s redemption argument a powerful personal dimension.
Pickering acknowledged that his children did not have the childhood he wished he had been able to provide and said this remained one of his deepest regrets.
He described his earlier mistakes as actions that hurt both himself and people he loved.
His family members nevertheless argued that Pickering had been an important and supportive presence in their lives.
Hanson cited those relationships as evidence that he had worked over time to repair some of the damage caused during a difficult period.
The competing accounts within the former family remain highly personal and contested, however, and the support of some relatives does not by itself resolve every allegation raised by Scott.
What did ‘sexual deviance’ refer to?
Another sensational element of the controversy arose from a handwritten note attributed to Pickering containing the phrase “sexual deviance”.
The wording inevitably generated headlines, but One Nation national director James Ashby provided a substantially less sinister explanation at Tuesday’s press conference.
Ashby said the reference related to a period in which Pickering and his then-partner had opened their relationship to another person while Pickering was also exploring his own sexuality.
Pickering discussed having experienced shame around that part of his personal history.
Nothing publicly established from that explanation amounts to criminal sexual misconduct.
It is therefore misleading to use the phrase “sexual deviance” without explaining that it originated from Pickering’s own historical wording about a consensual relationship arrangement and personal sexuality, according to the account provided by One Nation.
Drink-driving record also confirmed
Pickering also confirmed a history of drink-driving.
He said he lost his licence at the ages of 18 and 20 and again roughly a decade later.
He characterised the matters as lower-level drink-driving offences but accepted they were mistakes.
He also said he had never been imprisoned.
The disclosures add to the argument being made by critics that voters are entitled to scrutinise a candidate’s entire record, particularly when that candidate is not simply standing for parliament but has been selected as the public face of a party’s state campaign.
Hanson’s response is not to dispute that proposition.
Instead, she argues that scrutiny should include evidence of rehabilitation rather than permanently defining an individual by misconduct committed in youth.
The controversy has become a test of One Nation’s vetting
The political problem for One Nation extends beyond Pickering personally.
The party has spent years trying to overcome a reputation for candidate-selection problems and internal instability.
Pickering was only elevated to the Victorian leadership in August and has become central to the party’s push to expand substantially at the November election.
The Australian’s reporting has therefore prompted questions over what Hanson and senior officials knew before appointing him.
One Nation says relevant people within the organisation were made aware of his history.
Pickering said he had ensured the appropriate people knew about his past and maintained that he had never attempted to construct a false image of a flawless personal history.
Critics argue that the need for an emergency-style press conference so soon after his elevation suggests the party should have anticipated the scrutiny more effectively.
The fact that ABC and Guardian Australia journalists were excluded from Tuesday’s event added another controversy, although James Ashby said the decision reflected the party’s existing media policy rather than a request from Pickering.
The Pakenham campaign raises the stakes
Pickering is running for the lower-house seat of Pakenham in the Victorian election on Saturday, 28 November.
The outer south-eastern Melbourne electorate has become a major target for One Nation, which believes mortgage stress, cost-of-living pressures and dissatisfaction with the major parties provide an opportunity to break into the Legislative Assembly.
Hanson has personally campaigned in the area with Pickering, underscoring his importance to the party’s Victorian strategy.
The controversy therefore arrives at a particularly sensitive moment.
If One Nation were polling only at fringe levels, a dispute over the background of one state candidate might have limited national importance.
Instead, the party is currently recording historically high federal support, has just won the Secret Harbour by-election in Western Australia and is attempting to convert that momentum into parliamentary representation elsewhere.
That makes the standard applied to its candidates increasingly important.
A party asking voters to regard it as a serious governing alternative can expect more scrutiny of the people it places in senior positions.
Redemption or a warning sign? Voters will decide
Hanson has now made her political calculation clear.
She is not abandoning Pickering because of conduct he admits occurred years before his political leadership.
She is instead making his past part of the case for him.
Her argument is that people who make serious mistakes, acknowledge them and fundamentally redirect their lives should not be permanently excluded from public service.
Critics will counter that redemption does not remove the need for rigorous vetting, complete disclosure or scrutiny of allegations that remain contested.
Both propositions can be true at the same time.
Pickering has admitted conduct that voters are entitled to consider. He also disputes some of the most serious claims made against him and points to years of military, family and community life as evidence that the man standing for parliament in 2026 is not the same person he was in his 20s.
Hanson has chosen to stake her party’s credibility on that distinction.
In less than three months, voters in Pakenham will decide whether they accept it.
