Pauline Hanson calls climate policy a hoax, fuels Australia’s climate debate

Australian MP Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation party, addressed the National Press Club on June 19, 2026, claiming that climate change is a “hoax” and describing net‑zero targets as a tool for creating a “socialist Australia” under total government control. She asserted that the government’s renewable‑energy programs are the “central source of national poverty” and alleged that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has received $200 billion of taxpayer money, while the party proposes scrapping the climate‑policy bureaucracy to save roughly $30 billion a year.

Hanson’s remarks revive rhetoric first popularised by former opposition leader Tony Abbott, who in 2009 dismissed climate change as “absolute crap”. The One Nation surge in polling has elevated these fringe views to the centre of Australian politics, threatening several Labor seats ahead of upcoming elections. While the Liberal‑National coalition continues to endorse climate action in principle, recent internal shifts have seen some members emphasise coal and nuclear power over renewables. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific consensus on human‑induced warming remains unchanged despite the party’s claims that temperature records are fabricated.