Pauline Hanson has been spotted with donor Gina Rinehart at a luxurious Italian hotel, while at home there are fresh calls for the resignation of one of her party’s most controversial senators.

Photos of the One Nation leader and the billionaire mining magnate by a pool at the Grand Hotel San Pietro in Taormina, Sicily, were published on Instagram this week and republished first in a story by the Australian Financial Review.

One of the shared images was emblazoned with the words “RED ALERT!!!!” and “She’s here with Gina!!!”, while others showed Hanson walking beside the pool and Rinehart swimming while wearing a cap.

The second season of TV streaming hit White Lotus was filmed at the Grand Hotel San Pietro. Its website describes it as a “beautifully restored” early-1900s villa that is now home to a 63-room boutique hotel.

Rinehart is in Taormina for an invite-only Dolce & Gabbana fashion show, according to the Financial Review.

Hanson has been in the UK meeting conservative leaders. While there, she recorded a podcast last week with far-right, anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson ­– the subject of Karl Stefanovic’s controversial podcast interview last month.

Pauline Hanson has recorded an interview with far-right figure Tommy Robinson.

The reason for the One Nation leader’s side trip to Italy is unknown, but Rinehart is one of her party’s major benefactors.

“Gina Rinehart is playing Hanson’s main donor and policy adviser and in that role she has summoned her to a meeting in her $2000-a-night luxury Italian hotel,” Greens Senator David Shoebridge told nine.com.au.

“This tells you all you need to know about the dynamics at play here.”

One Nation’s popularity has been falling in Australia recently, according to polls, and there have been fresh calls for the resignation of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts over his conspiracy theories and antisemitic comments.

Asked about historic statements by Roberts praising American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who spread the claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged by the US government as a pretence for stricter gun control, colleague Barnaby Joyce said on Thursday that the issue was black and white.

“Sandy Hook was an outrageous murder of innocent people. It was no false flag event. Neither was 9/11,” he told ABC Radio National, referencing another conspiracy theory pushed by Jones.

As One Nation’s rise in the polls sees them courting a more mainstream demographic, the party’s associations with figures such as Jones and Tommy Robinson have come under greater scrutiny.

Joyce was also asked about a social media post shared by Roberts in 2024 of a mural that repeated an antisemitic trope about Jews controlling global finance and politics.

“For too long people have been blind to the Uniparty with Liberal and Labor pushing the same globalist UN-WEF policies,” Roberts wrote in the caption.

However, Joyce declined to be drawn in.

“I’m not here to start carpeting Malcolm. I’m not going to do that. If you wish to have a discussion with him, I’m sure you can have him on your show,” he told ABC radio host Sally Sara.

Independent MP Allegra Spender said One Nation leader Pauline Hanson should demand Roberts’ resignation.

“It’s shameful that one of One Nation’s most senior MPs should endorse and share this notorious antisemitic slur,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Will Pauline Hanson or Barnaby Joyce ever hold him to account?”

Joyce defended Hanson’s meeting with Robinson, a man who has advocated for people to “make war” on Islam and has been convicted of assault on more than one occasion.

“I don’t support so much what Tommy Robinson does, but I think it’s incredibly important that we understand the social dynamic and how that came about,” Joyce said.

“Tommy Robinson only exists because of the fractious nature of England has arrived at, and to deny that is to deny the facts.

“There is a social change, a change in many areas towards a form of Islamisation of the communities, and this has brought real friction and real heat, and has brought about the rise of groups such as Tommy Robinson.”

­–with AAP