It may seem counter-intuitive, but Pauline Hanson and others in her far-right ilk may be among Australia’s most open politicians – at least when it comes to their agendas.

Hanson does not care about the everyday Australian. She cares about what benefits her. This has always been the case.

Her views, over 30 years, either in or around politics, have squarely focused on her experiences and the experiences of those around her. She does not care to learn the perspective of others – she assumes, as many in the far-right do, that her experience and view of the world is the only view of the world worth having.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Hanson has spent three decades telling people who she is – but the media tends to forget.

Hanson has been around for 30 years, but continues to act like this is her first day on the job. This is part of her appeal for her die-hard supporters, who love nothing more than a battler story. Hanson, who is now a millionaire, milks this for all its worth. She is still the fish-and-chip-shop-owning-single mother in the eyes of her supporters, despite the fact she holidays with billionaires.

As she told Seven’s Spotlight in an interview that aired on Sunday:

“We’re not perfect, for Christ’s sake. You know that’s what, you know, annoys me. It’s every day, it can be a learning experience that we’re going through as well. Yes, I don’t know everything. I’ll be the first one to admit it. Why am I here? Because I care about my country. I may do things differently. I’m not the polished politician. I’m not, you know, the regimented politician giving you straight answers like everyone. Half of them can’t even answer your question anyway. They don’t want to. But at least I’ll answer your questions. You may not like what I have to say, but whatever new job you go into, you learn. But you hit the ground running, and we’re going to hit the ground running.”

Hanson has been running for three decades. She has been running for so long that there is rarely a topic that she does not have some sort of historical controversy attached to. But she continues to act as if this is her first day on the job, and the media lets her.

In 2019, Hanson was appointed by Scott Morrison’s government as deputy chair into the government investigation into the family law courts. This was atrocious at the time. Hanson had been on the record multiple times in the past that she believed some women were inventing domestic violence claims in custody battles.

“There are people out there who are nothing but liars and who will use that in the court system,” she said in September 2019.

“I am hearing too many cases where parents are using domestic violence to stop the other parent from seeing their children; perjury is in our system but they are not charged with perjury.”

Her evidence? “From my own personal experience, seeing what happened with my son”.

Hanson’s  son Adam hit the news in 2016, when it was reported he had pleaded guilty in a Cairns magistrates’ court to breaching a domestic violence order. Three years later, Hanson used parliamentary privilege to accuse her former daughter-in-law of perjury.

Hanson has long been seen as a political hero for Men’s Rights Activists – I have seen first hand the cheers she receives from men who believe the family courts are against them, despite the lack of concrete evidence.

Violent men are emboldened by claims that women lie in the family court system. Women trapped in violent relationships are further discouraged from being able to leave, because of these baseless claims. Yet they persist, and are repeated by people like Hanson, who hold influential positions in our body politic.

Just last week, four women were murdered in Australia, allegedly by men they knew. Two were teenagers. Sherele Moody, who runs Australian Femicide Watch, has recorded the deaths of 37 women so far this year. Seventeen children, including a newborn, have died as a result of violence. Last year, a woman was killed in Australia every 11 days.

Australia has long had a problem with domestic violence and a head in the sand approach from politicians. Hanson has helped lead the “not all men” charge from the nation’s parliament.

In 2022, during the Senate’s acknowledgement of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Hanson again blamed women:

“The women in this chamber, the senators, have sons, husbands, brothers and uncles as well – people who are not domestic violence perpetrators. This is not what you should be pushing. Push right across the board and look at the problems that we have. If you look at our Family Court system, that’s where a lot of problems are happening, because men – and some women – are absolutely frustrated that they don’t have the opportunity to spend time with their children. They are denied that right. If you go to the guts of the problem, you will solve a lot of the problems. If you deal with the family law courts issues and then allow parents to see their children, you might stop half the problems that are going on. It is a very important issue.”

She wanted the Senate to acknowledge:

“But you need to address domestic violence and acknowledge that it is also women that are murdering men. It is women who are responsible for a lot of the problems as well.”

So her comments on Wednesday that domestic violence is “wrong, but it’s also a two-way street” haven’t come out of the blue. She has a documented history in this space. Just as she does when it comes to immigration, to aligning herself with people with known histories – Hanson blamed “gutter politics” for having to sack to convicted rapist Sean Black from her party, and her spotty attendance record for turning up to the Senate.

The thing that is honest about Hanson is that she doesn’t shy away from thinking she deserves special treatment. Everything is about her, and all her views are formed by what she thinks.

She won’t – as she told Seven, in a freudian slip, “give you the straight answer” – she’ll give you her answers and then convince people that it’s also their answers.

She gets away with this by consistently pretending she’s new to the job, instead of the truth – she is one of Australia’s most experienced and savvy politicians.

Her power is in weaponised incompetence – nothing is ever her fault, because she believes everything she says, until she doesn’t. She’ll repeat “I’m not backing away from this” as she backs away from it.

She’ll make a claim – that she supports mass deportation – and then let her lieutenants clean it up by claiming that’s not what she said. And she’ll jump on any criticism – like her other political half supposedly yelling at a dog – as proof the media is against her.

And in trying to prove how fair it is, the media lets her. Just as it lets her pretend she’s new to all of this, instead of the calculating, cunning and weathered political veteran she is. It is to this nation’s detriment that she continually gets to pretend this is her first day on the job.