One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has denied the party wants a return to the White Australia immigration policy, while backing mass deportations.

“We don’t support the White Australia policy. Let’s get that completely clear,” Joyce told Sunrise on Monday.

He said the end of the policy was a good thing, and initially brought no issues.

“But over time, we got a section of people who didn’t want to assimilate with Australia, didn’t work within the guardrails of Australia and therefore we started moving away from an Australian culture to having to encompass a whole range of views, some of which … are just not conducive to egalitarian, easygoing society.”

Joyce said “illegal immigrants” should be targeted, and that immigrants had contact with the system from “time to time”, such as when they went to the doctor.

“As it becomes apparent that they’re not supposed to be here … they’ll be put on a plane and sent back to where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

Joyce’s comments came as One Nation edged up again in the polls and leader Pauline Hanson doubled down on her criticism of multiculturalism and transgender rights.

Hanson is reportedly on her way back to Australia after several weeks in Europe. On her trip, she met far-right activist Tommy Robinson and visited Italy with billionaire donor Gina Rinehart.

Hanson also spoke at a conservative conference in London at the weekend, claiming Australia had been “flooded” with migrants and gone “completely woke” over transgender rights.

She told a sparse crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in London that they should not “apologise for being white – I am sick of hearing about white privilege”. She also railed against Australia’s immigration and environmental policies and telling the crowd the country had “gone woke”.

Hanson said an Australian court was “stupid” for ruling in favour of trans people in the case of Roxanne Tickle and the Giggle for Girls app. She referenced a similar British ruling that backed a Scottish women’s group that rejected claims for trans people to be defined as women.

“You got it right, and I’m glad you did,” Hanson said. “We don’t learn. We’re too stupid over there.

“There’s going to be so much psychological damage that’s going to be done to our future generations.”

In an interview on the Seven Network’s Spotlight on Sunday night, Hanson doubled down on her views on multiculturalism and her claims she was taking on the “establishment”, while also claiming negative migration issues in Australia began after the abolition of the White Australia policy.

Seven said the Spotlight interview was “months in the making” and had offered unprecedented access to Hanson. She was filmed recording her podcast with leader Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) and walking with him in Luton, north-west of London, which has a significant Muslim population.

“Why wouldn’t I talk to the man? Am I going to be judged by all those people — I shouldn’t be associating, talking to this man. That’s the problem with our society,” Hanson told the show.

“I’m not like the other politicians. I will say and do what I want to.

“I will talk to people to spend time and learn from them about what is happening.”

Pushed on whether she was “aligning” herself with Robinson, Hanson was defensive.

“I’m sorry, I’m not going to back away from this whatsoever,” she said.

“I met Tommy and I listened to what he is trying to tell me about what has happened to Britain.”

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused Hanson of talking down Australia.

“I find it astonishing that Pauline Hanson has travelled overseas in order to denigrate and talk down Australia,” he said in Darwin on Monday.

“When I’m overseas, I talk Australia up. Pauline Hanson has travelled overseas to engage in various activities with fringe people and to talk Australia down. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Hanson also courted controversy last week after she was photographed with mining magnate Rinehart at the luxury resort in Sicily where the hit drama series The White Lotus was filmed.

The latest Newspoll, published in The Australian on Sunday, shows One Nation’s primary vote rose one percentage point to 30 per cent to tie with Labor. There was also some good news for the Coalition, with its support up to 19 per cent, up from historic lows of 17 per cent.

The Newspoll also showed Labor dropping three points in the polls, from a primary vote of 33 per cent.

A rise in support for the Coalition follows consecutive falls in its primary vote.

The latest poll comes after support for One Nation dropped two points from a historic high of 31 per cent in June, following Senator Hanson’s first address at the National Press Club.

-with AAP