Pauline Hanson has called for a “monocultural” Australia as a protest crashed her first address to the National Press Club.

The One Nation leader also promised to boost regulation of AI, scrap SBS and make the ABC a subscription service in major cities as part of her wide-ranging speech.

She vowed to introduce nuclear energy into the national grid under a One Nation government, while also labelling segments of Islam a “social cancer”.

But the speech was interrupted by a sign being lowered onto the stage that read: “I opposed a pay rise to workers”. Activist group Get Up later posted statement on social media claiming responsibility for the action.

 

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Attendants quickly tore down the banner and allowed Hanson to continue.

With One Nation rising in opinion polls to lead the major parties on primary votes, the firebrand senator said growing voter discontent with the status quo was behind the shift in the political landscape.

“Many people feel that they can’t indulge that essential Australian characteristic of speaking out and speaking up because the risk of speaking out is simply too great,” she said in the address.

“They feel demonised and condescended. They’re mad as hell about it.

“It’s as good an explanation as any for the earthquake that is changing the political landscape in Australia.

“After years of hoping for something different from the political class but getting nowhere, many Australians are looking elsewhere. I am a known quantity for these Australians.”

Anti-Hanson protesters made their voices heard outside the Press Club. Photo: AAP

The speech, which attracted dozens of protesters outside the building, was the first time in her 30-year career in federal politics she made an address to the Press Club.

Senator Hanson used the speech to label multiculturalism a failed policy.

“We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural,” she said.

“Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella. Do Australians feel that the nation is losing its identity along with its values? We all know the answer to that.”

The One Nation leader said her government would get rid of SBS, saying the internet had overtaken the need for it.

The ABC would still exist but only with taxpayer funds going to keep regional operations going.

“In the cities, which are already saturated with media outlets across the political spectrum, the ABC will only be a subscription service,” she said.

Hanson attacked journalist Sarah Martin when she asked the senator about her daughter, Lee Hanson.

“Taxpayers are paying more than $150,000 a year for your daughter, Lee Hanson, to seemingly campaign full-time in Tasmania, while employed as a political adviser for a New South Wales senator,” The Guardian reporter said.

“Did you have any role in in appointing her to that position?”

In response, Hanson launched a blistering personal attack on Martin, accusing her of being a “trashy journalist” obsessed with “trying to pull down myself, my party or Mrs Rinehart”.

“You will be banned,” she threatened, before stating that Lee Hanson got her job on her own merits.

The senator also clashed with SBS journalist Anna Henderson, who asked a question about abortion rights and queried One Nation’s plan to axe SBS when it was “providing Australian news in 60 languages… to help people integrate into Australia”.

Hanson arrived with One Nation colleague Barnaby Joyce. Photo: Mike Bowers

Dozens of demonstrators shouting “Pauline Hanson go to hell” gathered outside the Canberra venue before the speech.

As One Nation senators began arriving at the venue, about 40 protesters brandishing placards reading ”Canberra says no to Hanson”, ”reject racism” and ”One Nation serves the billionaires” began chanting.

”Black, Indigenous, Arab nation and white – unite, unite, unite to fight the right,” they yelled.

–AAP, with The New Daily