This week marks thirty years since Pauline Hanson first stood in the Australian parliament. A week not to celebrate, but to reckon with what three decades of her politics has cost all Australians.

Before her maiden speech, Hanson's divisive nature was already ingrained. As the Liberal candidate for the Queensland seat of Oxley, she wrote an inflammatory public letter about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and was consequently disendorsed, but won a safe Labor seat as an independent anyway.

Hanson wasted no time making clear what she stood for. On 10 September 1996, in the House of Representatives, she declared that Australia was "in danger of being swamped by Asians." In the same speech she attacked what she called "the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians," describing it as "a type of reverse racism applied to mainstream Australians," and called for the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) which, under Howard, later happened.

In 1998, she dismissed the Stolen Generations as "so-called stolen generations" and described Sorry Days as "aimed not at reconciliation but at remuneration," calling native title a "scam" and vowing to "abolish the nonsense and inequity that is native title." In the same speech she attacked the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as "a treacherous sellout of the Australian people" that would "result in the disintegration of our nation." Australia finally signed the UNDRIP in 2009.

Despite multiple failed attempts to re-enter politics, she did not return to parliament until 2016. When she did, she was as damning as ever. Hanson told the Senate "that speech was relevant then and it is still relevant today", and then repeated her 1996 line, "now we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own".

In 2020, Hanson referred to Closing the Gap as "complete rubbish" and "a joke," declaring that "the biggest problem facing Aboriginal Australians today is their own lack of commitment and responsibility to helping themselves." In the same speech she told the Senate: "We still have Aboriginal kids not going to school...Whose fault is that? Lazy parents. You can't blame the whites when it's your own negligence."

In 2022, at the opening of the 47th parliament, she walked out during the Acknowledgement of Country, interjecting to say she didn't and never would acknowledge Indigenous lands. Her office issued a statement declaring that "Senator Hanson does not accept that acknowledgement of country is any sort of indigenous Australian tradition." She also opposed the Aboriginal flag being raised in the Senate chamber. Three years later, at the opening of the new parliament in July 2025, she went further, leading One Nation senators in turning their backs during the Acknowledgement of Country entirely.

Outside parliament, Hanson's conduct has been no less calculated. In 2018, when nine year old Brisbane schoolgirl Harper Nielsen refused to stand for the national anthem in solidarity with Aboriginal Australians, Hanson took to social media to call her "brainwashed" and declare "I'd give her a kick up the backside," calling for her to be removed from her school.

In 2019, she travelled to Uluru to protest the closure of the climb, and when a group of young Indigenous women told her climbing the rock was disrespectful to their culture, Hanson argued: "I'm Indigenous, I was born here, I'm native to the land."

In 2022, she began campaigning against the Voice to Parliament, describing it as "Australian apartheid" and claiming it would give "a minority of Australians more political power than the majority based on their race." She was among the most prominent voices in the No campaign that defeated the referendum in October 2023.

Around the same time, she told Senator Mehreen Faruqi to 'pack your bags and p*** off back to Pakistan.' In July 2026, the Full Federal Court unanimously upheld a ruling that she had racially discriminated against Faruqi.

Thirty years - the only thing that has changed is who is standing beside her.

In November 2024, Hanson was flown by Gina Rinehart to a mining gala. A year later, Hanson flew to Mar-a-Lago on Rinehart's private jet, where both attended Donald Trump's Halloween party.

On Anzac Day weekend this year, Hanson stood on the lawns of Parliament House addressing a March for Australia rally, a movement with documented links to neo-Nazi organisations, demanding an end to 'mass immigration', the scrapping of hate speech laws and the removal of Aboriginal Departments.

People linked to March for Australia were being ejected from Anzac Day dawn services across the country. Responding to the heckling, Uncle Ray Minniecon asked: "What crime did we commit to attract this kind of racism and this kind of hate?"

It is a question that has gone unanswered for thirty years.

We do not need another thirty years.

Renae Isaacs-Guthridge is a Noongar and Yamatji Yorga with connections across Countries, including Wadandi Boodja. She is an Academic and currently completing a PhD titled Aboriginal student transition to university: A strengths-based approach.