The Antony Loewenstein Podcast

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In this final episode of the One Nation Series, we break down the real reason Pauline Hanson and One Nation feel “everywhere” right now and why that perception doesn’t match the actual vote.
Journalist Amy Remeikis joins to unpack how media dynamics, not just voter sentiment, are amplifying far-right politics in Australia.

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Pauline Hanson is often framed as a political outsider. But what if her real impact wasn’t electoral success, it was shifting the boundaries of what mainstream politics could say and do?
In this episode, we trace how One Nation reshaped Australian political rhetoric from the late 1990s onward, and how both major parties absorbed elements of Hanson’s agenda. Rather than being pushed out of relevance, Hanson helped normalise positions on migration, national identity and security that later became standard across the political spectrum.
We look at how John Howard strategically captured One Nation voters, how the Tampa crisis marked a turning point in asylum policy, and why Hanson’s prosecution and imprisonment strengthened her political narrative instead of ending it. The episode also explores the role of commercial media in keeping her visible during her so-called “wilderness years,” and how that visibility helped enable her return to the Senate in 2016.

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In this episode, Antony Loewenstein speaks with political analyst Amy Remeikis about how Pauline Hanson’s rise in the late 1990s reshaped Australian politics — and why her success was not accidental.
They explore the economic anxiety following the early-1990s recession, the cultural shift under Paul Keating, and how John Howard’s message of stability and nostalgia created the conditions for Hanson’s breakthrough. Rather than emerging from nowhere, Hanson’s politics reflected ideas already circulating inside mainstream conservative rhetoric at the time.
The conversation also examines the media’s role in amplifying Hanson’s profile, elevating her claims alongside expert analysis, and helping normalize rhetoric that had previously been considered outside the political mainstream.

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Antony Loewenstein explores the arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith and the wider legacy of Australia’s war in Afghanistan, a conflict defined by civilian deaths, media silence, political lies, and almost no accountability. This episode asks what the West was really doing in Afghanistan, and why the crimes committed there are still being denied.

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In this episode of The Antony Loewenstein Podcast, Antony argues that Judaism is facing a profound moral crisis driven by the conflation of Jewish identity with Zionism and Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond. He reflects on Jewish history, including long traditions of anti‑nationalism, and explains why equating Jews with Zionism is both historically false and politically dangerous. Drawing on contemporary Jewish voices and movements, he calls for a moral reckoning and the building of a new, inclusive Jewish identity rooted in justice, solidarity, and universal human dignity.