Paul Murray:
Two people that are more than happy because it’s No Sooks, No Lefties. With that particular message, the great Lee Hanson, hopefully on our way to the Senate with One Nation in Tasmania. Lovely to see you, mate. Daniel Wild. Fingers crossed, he too gets into the Federal Parliament one day because I want good people there.
All right. So Lee, take your pick. The story’s the same every day, the story’s the same every week, but I know you don’t take anything for granted. Poll drops in the Channel 9 newspapers and via their TV stations. Tonight, it yet again confirms in every poll now that One Nation is the number one political party in the country. They’ve got you, 29, 28 over Labour, the coalition down to 20. The preferred prime minister stakes has got your mom at 33%, Albanese at 29, undecided at 22. Taylor, of course, at 16. Pretty obvious here with less than 30% the prime minister is in a world of trouble, but we have quite a way to go between now and then.
So Lee, who knows? We’d all love to get in a time machine and find out what happens in two years time, but how do you make sure that you don’t just keep the momentum, you turn it into memberships, you get in behind things like Fire the Liar because it feels like One Nation is operating on 28 cylinders at the moment and finding new ways to get votes?
Lee Hanson:
We stay the course, Paul. And isn’t it phenomenal to see the validation of the hard work and the tenacity and the resilience of our leader, Pauline, after all these years. And people are realising that One Nation represents the everyday Australians and we’re here and we care about our country and we put Australia first. So yes, you can’t take it for granted. You have to stay the course. You have to translate it. We need to keep building our policies. And yes, Paul, we have plenty of policies.
Paul Murray:
Oh, I know you do.
Lee Hanson:
And we have plenty more coming to demonstrate to the public of exactly what we stand for. But the key difference in why we’re resonating so much is we’re authentic. We say what we mean and we mean what we say and people can see that. They can relate.
I went to the Melbourne fundraising event on Friday night and I said to Mum afterwards, I said, “I can’t get over how many people just want to hug you. Every person you meet just wants to hug you. They want to have this connection to you. They see you as part of them, an extension of them, that you’re representing them and giving them hope.” You tell me one other politician out there that would get as many hugs and kisses as Pauline Hanson. I can’t name many. That’s for sure.
Paul Murray:
Dare I say it right now, I know it’s Mom. I know it’s party leader, but it’s like I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen it from when it was, will we or won’t we make it to the Senate in 2016 at the back of Birdsville all the way through to the state elections. And again, I think we all know a Pauline somewhere at some point in time, and more people are wanting to put that at the front and centre of things.
Daniel, again, we’ve had a version of this conversation all the time because it is just relentless, the information. But let’s get back to my observation about Labor’s greatest vulnerability, and that is people with a mortgage. Now people with a mortgage, as I showed, at the end of ’24 when the Libs were in front, they were starting to move away because interest rates hadn’t changed. The change happened in February. It was able to bring them back. They saved their backside.
Same thing when it came to Generation X. We’re now seeing again as interest rates have basically gone back to where they were in the dark days of 2024 that unsurprisingly the prime minister, six out of 10 people not interested. 10 point drop in the number of people with a mortgage that are being paid off. So is this, yes, currently strength for One Nation, but surely, surely, surely, this is the opportunity for the coalition. That is the group of people who more than any one are the ones that are the ones willing to move.
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think that’s right. But what you’re seeing here, I think, Paul, is this is really Middle Australia. Yes, it’s about the mortgages and the economic situation. But if you are, say, 40 years old, 45 years old, you have seen before your eyes, your country go from one of the greatest countries that’s ever existed to where we are today. Now, yes, we’re still the greatest country on earth, but we have plummeted so much in just the space of a generation. And they have seen it with their own eyes, whether it’s the economic circumstances, whether it’s the degradation of our culture, the mass migration that has turned suburbs that these people grew up in to being completely unrecognisable.
Paul Murray:
100%.
Daniel Wild:
And when you’ve got children coming through, they now see that they’re not going to be able to afford a home. Going to university or going to TAFE is no longer enough to get a decent well-paid full-time job. And all of this has sort of happened while they’ve been out there busy attending to their responsibilities, having a job, paying the mortgage, raising the family, they stick their neck up for air. And the first time they did that was with the voice to parliament, right?
Paul Murray:
Yeah, good point.
Daniel Wild:
This was the first time this cohort got really fired up. And I reckon if you were to overlay those who volunteer their time and money for the No Campaign at the Voice to those who are doing the same for Fire The Liar, I reckon there’d be a pretty significant overlap between those two campaigns. So I reckon a lot of people are pretty fired up at the moment.
Paul Murray:
Well, and also similar to the no situation, as you saw Lee in Melbourne, the more rat bags that turn up to protest, I mean they’re doing you a favour, right? Because not only how extreme they are, how weird the left has become, how the particular people, they can’t help themselves going too far rather than just trying to be a form of resistance or opposition. It’s got to be the worst form of abuse, the most dehumanising, and excessive language targeting normal people going in and out, not even the high profile political figures that are in all of this.
And again, there’s a fatal flaw that Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party made in 2025, which was Follow the No, and that becomes the vote. Again, I think the aggravating factor there was the changes when it came to mortgage holders.
But again, when you’re at that event last week, Lee, I mean, it’s almost manner from heaven. The more protesters that turn up, the harder they think they are making life for One Nation. They are pushing people towards it because if you’ve got a choice of the people in that room or the people outside, nine out of 10 are going to identify with the people inside, right?
Lee Hanson:
100%. They’re actually forging more support for conservative politics in One Nation as a result of it. They’re standing there fighting their cause, but all they’re demonstrating is the extreme activism and complete disconnect on the left. And people, it highlights what exactly we’re trying to fight, what we need to stand up and rise up against. And the comments and the signs that you see by these individuals, I mean, what death to the nation, why isn’t this a hate crime? Why is there double standards? Why is it acceptable for them? But when you see people from conservative cyber politics, the average Australian out there protesting or trying to stand up for their future, they’re branded the far right, they’re branded. But they don’t use the hate. They don’t use the violence that we’re seeing from the left. And people have had enough.
And this is why exactly to your point, Fire the Liar, which has been a brilliant campaign, has absolutely surged because it shows just how outraged people are. And this is their way to put their hand up to have a voice and say, “Enough. We want the Labour government gone and we are going to do that.”
Paul Murray:
On its way just south right now, four million bucks, it’ll be that by the time we wake up in the morning. Look again, free advice and it’s worth what you pay for it. Could the people who make the cartoon make the ad for origin? It’ll stand there like the proverbial, right? I’d love to see it. It’d be so cool. I love that picture behind you. I’m pleased that you’ve stuck with the Beetroot colour there. No change when it came to the depiction of Barnaby. I love it.
All right. Now, Daniel, again, opportunity for the coalition here. I think tomorrow is when they need to start two weeks ram, ram, ram about the excise cut when it comes to fuel. June 30 is when it is going to disappear. That means up to 32 cents once you throw in GST, up it goes again. This is while the government is in a world of pain when it comes to the budget. To me, this is the clear air. This is the obvious target. Do you think that there’s a chance that this is what the message is for the next couple of weeks? Will they be able to get there?
Daniel Wild:
Well, I think it’s got to be the message. You’re bang on. I mean, this affects everybody in a big way. We know it goes right through the economy, the transport sector and everything else.
The other point here is not just about the fuel excise, but about the fact that the government hasn’t bothered to actually use this moment to fix its terrible policies. We now import, as you know, about 80% of our liquid fuels into this country. Now, that was just 20% two decades ago. And this hasn’t been an accident. This is an example of the deliberate and managed decline of Australia. There is nothing inevitable. There’s no reason why we have to shut down oil refineries other than we have chosen to, or our political leaders have chosen to. And you look at policies like net-zero, you look at the regulation, the red tape, the green tape, the environmental activism, the climate change misinformation that’s promulgated through schools that says, “If you drive a car, you’re a bad person because you’re going to cause sea levels to rise and you’re going to kill people.” I mean, all of that is still out there.
So this fuel excise, I think, is a microcosm of a much, much bigger problem we have in our society. The government’s done absolutely nothing about it. So yeah, I agree with you. The coalition needs to be hammering this for lease the next couple of weeks and probably a lot longer.
Paul Murray:
Yeah, this is the thing. The only reason it was cut in the first place was because of what the coalition and One Nation were able to do. Here’s the opportunity again to stand out on that for the next couple of weeks.
All right. I’ve got Matty John standing by in Washington who I’m sure he’s very excited that he’s up at 20 to 8:00 in the morning over there. We’ll have a chat to Matty in a couple of minutes time ahead of that UFC, which event that you’ll be able to see on main event. I can’t wait to talk to him about the experience at the White House.
But Lee Hanson and Daniel Wild, your bold predictions for the week ahead? Lee, what is definitely happening this week?
Lee Hanson:
Oh, look, I had to pitch this one for Dan. I’ve got [inaudible 00:10:18] say Dan. I’m going for Queensland to win this week.
Paul Murray:
Oh. Okay.
Lee Hanson:
I know my new South Wales colleagues, I might upset them a little bit in Senator Bell’s office, but I have to go for the Queensland win.
Paul Murray:
All right. Level the series at one all. We’ll see. Daniel?
Daniel Wild:
Well, I’ve got a boring politics one this week, which is I reckon the government’s going to start U-turning pretty hard on its budget and on migration policy. They’re worried about One Nation. They don’t know how to deal with it. You saw Tony Burke on this network this morning basically laying the groundwork saying they’ve stuffed up housing and immigration. Don’t be surprised if you see more rumblings around that because immigration is the top issue at the moment.
Paul Murray:
All right. Thanks guys. Do appreciate it.
This transcript with Daniel Wild talking on Paul Murray Live Sky News Australia from 14 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.
