# Albo’s mum and “primitive” first Australians: has Pauline finally gone too far?

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 18 Sep 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/7faef132-0a35-4ee0-99ca-b4c90047d11d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

Migration is shaping up to be the next big battleground in federal politics as Labor desperately tries to wrestle back control of the narrative from One Nation. But does this week’s long-awaited plan leave the government stronger or weaker politically? And could going harder on Pauline Hanson hold the key to tackling One Nation? This week, the major parties gave it a try as some of Hanson’s nasty comments came back to bite her. Today, Contributing Editor at The New Daily, Amy Remeikis on immigration politics and whether some things are off limits, even for Pauline Hanson. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Contributing Editor at The New Daily, Amy Remeikis Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am. Migration is
[0:09] Speaker 1: shaping up to be the next big battleground in federal politics,
[0:12] Speaker 1: as Labor desperately tries to wrestle back control of the
[0:15] Speaker 1: narrative from One Nation. But does this week's long-awaited plan
[0:18] Speaker 1: leave the government stronger or weaker politically? And could going
[0:22] Speaker 1: harder on Pauline Hanson hold the key to tackling One Nation?
[0:27] Speaker 1: This week, the major parties gave it a try. as
[0:29] Speaker 1: some of Hansen's nasty comments came back to bite her. Today,
[0:33] Speaker 1: contributing editor at The New Daily, Amy Remekis, on immigration
[0:37] Speaker 1: politics and whether some things are off limits, even for
[0:41] Speaker 1: Pauline Hansen. It's Saturday, September 19. Amy, Labor finally delivered
[0:55] Speaker 1: its migration plan yesterday, on Thursday, six weeks after it
[0:59] Speaker 1: was originally scheduled. And in the same week, One Nation
[1:02] Speaker 1: delivered its migration policy. Do you think it'll be enough
[1:06] Speaker 1: to take some of the political pressure off around this
[1:09] Speaker 1: topic for the government?
[1:11] Speaker 2: It's really difficult to answer because we're really in existential
[1:14] Speaker 2: areas now. We're still kind of looking for the actual
[1:19] Speaker 2: issue that we're trying to solve here. And it really
[1:24] Speaker 2: is a political narrative. I mean, yes, of course there
[1:29] Speaker 2: is pressure on housing, but that is complicated because interest
[1:33] Speaker 2: rates are also one of the big reasons that we're
[1:36] Speaker 2: seeing pressure on rents and interest rates are being driven
[1:39] Speaker 2: by a supply issue inflation problem that Australia is currently
[1:45] Speaker 2: dealing with. So there's nothing that you can say cutting
[1:49] Speaker 2: migration right now is going to solve this massive issue
[1:53] Speaker 2: in Australia alone. It really is a vibe issue. That's
[1:59] Speaker 2: the predominant thing the government is trying to address. It's
[2:02] Speaker 2: trying to catch at smoke, and it has been building
[2:06] Speaker 2: all year. I think it will now become a race
[2:09] Speaker 2: to the bottom where you have the coalition saying, well,
[2:12] Speaker 2: we'll cut even more, and then you'll have One Nation saying, well,
[2:15] Speaker 2: why aren't you cutting as much as us? But none
[2:18] Speaker 2: of that matters. The facts do not matter in this debate.
[2:21] Speaker 2: It is all about how people react. And I think
[2:24] Speaker 2: anybody who has put any sort of toe into the
[2:27] Speaker 2: social media waters on this knows that because no matter
[2:31] Speaker 2: how many facts you reply to people with, they're just like, no, no, no,
[2:35] Speaker 2: we have a mass migration problem in Australia and we don't.
[2:40] Speaker 1: Do you think Labor needed to respond in this way
[2:43] Speaker 1: or does its response just give more power to One Nation,
[2:47] Speaker 1: which appear to be the ones setting the agenda right now?
[2:52] Speaker 2: From a purely political point of view, it's both because
[2:56] Speaker 2: the political climate became so volatile around this. A lot
[3:02] Speaker 2: of that due to media coverage where like every single masthead,
[3:07] Speaker 2: every single commercial broadcaster was dedicated to this in the mainstream.
[3:13] Speaker 2: And that started from the beginning when we saw the
[3:15] Speaker 2: March for Australia, where we saw people saying, oh, we're
[3:19] Speaker 2: protesting against high migration, and then people just started going, oh, well, look, yeah, sure,
[3:26] Speaker 2: we know Nazis were involved in that march, but maybe
[3:29] Speaker 2: they have a point about migration, which is, you know,
[3:34] Speaker 2: like crazy. It's absolutely crazy what we allowed to kind
[3:38] Speaker 2: of take hold.
[3:40] Speaker 1: Reported straight up and down by commercial nightly news networks
[3:45] Speaker 1: that a rally against immigration, which had Nazis speaking at it,
[3:50] Speaker 1: In my view, if you have a rally that Nazis
[3:52] Speaker 1: speak at, that's a Nazi rally.
[3:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, whether or not you meant for the Nazis to come,
[3:56] Speaker 2: if you're at an event and Nazis turn up and
[3:59] Speaker 2: speak at your event, you're at a Nazi event. But
[4:03] Speaker 2: we allowed that in the political and media classes to
[4:07] Speaker 2: dominate this debate where we stopped talking about Nazis and
[4:11] Speaker 2: and started talking about what they wanted us to talk about,
[4:14] Speaker 2: which was migration, which was importing the same culture wars
[4:19] Speaker 2: that we saw in the United States and more recently
[4:22] Speaker 2: in the UK and Europe. Just that level of intense
[4:27] Speaker 2: focus on migration. But nobody could say what problem it
[4:31] Speaker 2: was that we were actually solving.
[4:35] Speaker 1: Let's talk about the coalition. They've been talking about migration
[4:37] Speaker 1: numbers being too high. And they're directly tying migration to
[4:42] Speaker 1: housing shortages and the cost of housing. But we still
[4:46] Speaker 1: don't have a policy from them. Are they having an
[4:50] Speaker 1: identity crisis now? They're not the toughest migration coppers in town?
[4:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. And this has always been really complicated
[4:57] Speaker 2: politically for the coalition because the coalition as the party
[5:02] Speaker 2: that previously most represented neoliberalism in Australia was in support
[5:08] Speaker 2: of temporary migration. It has been the coalition that has
[5:12] Speaker 2: created what we call this permanent temporary migration system. It's
[5:17] Speaker 2: the coalition that historically have signed free trade agreements that
[5:22] Speaker 2: include temporary workers. It's the coalition that has signed working
[5:27] Speaker 2: holiday agreements. One of the reasons why they have wanted
[5:31] Speaker 2: so much temporary migration is because it does help keep
[5:35] Speaker 2: domestic wages low. It does give business access to cheaper labor.
[5:41] Speaker 2: So the coalition doesn't want to upset the business community.
[5:45] Speaker 2: They don't want to upset the university sector. And again,
[5:49] Speaker 2: the coalition policy is to blame for why universities are
[5:52] Speaker 2: so reliant on international students as a revenue stream. But
[5:57] Speaker 2: they do want to own the debate and show that
[6:01] Speaker 2: they're being tough on migration. But they don't know how
[6:03] Speaker 2: to do it because there are not that many levers
[6:06] Speaker 2: that they can pull. So what they're going to do
[6:09] Speaker 2: is they're going to blame migrants for housing, even though
[6:12] Speaker 2: it's not true. And we saw that in the recent
[6:15] Speaker 2: ABS figures that showed one of the main reasons we're
[6:17] Speaker 2: seeing more pressure on the rental market is because we
[6:20] Speaker 2: don't want to live with as many people anymore as
[6:23] Speaker 2: we used to. There's now less Australians who are willing
[6:26] Speaker 2: to go into three or four person houses where we've
[6:29] Speaker 2: seen the number of per person dwellings drop. Big pressure
[6:33] Speaker 2: on the housing market for that. But instead of going, OK,
[6:36] Speaker 2: here's our housing policy. Here's what we're going to do
[6:39] Speaker 2: about migration. Here's how we're going to manage the economy.
[6:43] Speaker 2: They're just trying to link the two and say, oh,
[6:46] Speaker 2: you know, keep this linked in your mind and we
[6:47] Speaker 2: will fix that. But people have moved beyond that part
[6:50] Speaker 2: of the debate. They're just angry now. And the coalition
[6:54] Speaker 2: is stoking that anger.
[6:58] Speaker 1: Still to come. is Pauline Hanson finally starting to face
[7:01] Speaker 1: the consequences for her words? Amy, One Nation had an
[7:13] Speaker 1: interesting strategy in dealing with the criticism around its migration policy,
[7:18] Speaker 1: dismissing economists who warned it would trigger a recession as irrelevant.
[7:22] Speaker 1: Are we at a time now where expert opinion, facts
[7:26] Speaker 1: and reality is becoming less valued?
[7:29] Speaker 2: Oh, we've been there for quite some time and you
[7:31] Speaker 2: can see that with the anti-vax movement and how that
[7:34] Speaker 2: has been feeding into far-right politics in Australia. You can
[7:38] Speaker 2: see that with the push, you know, to ban abortion
[7:42] Speaker 2: where there's so much misinformation and, frankly, lies being spread
[7:46] Speaker 2: about that. So it makes sense that the next step
[7:50] Speaker 2: is just to say, oh, hey, like we don't need
[7:52] Speaker 2: to get any information on this. We're just going to
[7:55] Speaker 2: do it and we're elected so that we can. I mean,
[7:57] Speaker 2: Barnaby Joyce... explained that they didn't need to get modelling done.
[8:03] Speaker 3: Have you modelled, have you put together figures on the
[8:05] Speaker 3: loss to people's retirement savings over time if they were
[8:09] Speaker 3: to use this facility?
[8:11] Speaker 1: Well, once more, that's how long is a piece of string, Sarah.
[8:13] Speaker 1: I mean, tell me which person you're referring to.
[8:16] Speaker 3: Well, let me give you an example.
[8:17] Speaker 2: And look, I'm not defending economists or modelling necessarily because
[8:21] Speaker 2: you can usually get modelling to say whatever it is
[8:24] Speaker 2: that you want to say it depending on what you're
[8:26] Speaker 2: inputting into it. But his excuse for why they had
[8:30] Speaker 2: not done any research or any modeling around that was
[8:33] Speaker 2: because he was not Jesus Christ.
[8:35] Speaker 3: Barnaby Joyce, if I may, obviously this is a policy
[8:37] Speaker 3: that your party has come up with.
[8:39] Speaker 1: So we would expect you as.
[8:42] Speaker 3: The Treasury spokesman for that party to be across.
[8:45] Speaker 1: The Treasury spokesman, not Jesus Christ.
[8:48] Speaker 3: I mean, you have to actually give me the details.
[8:50] Speaker 2: And then when he was, you know, asked about like, again, like,
[8:54] Speaker 2: you know, why are you not paying any attention to
[8:57] Speaker 2: what these people are saying? He was like, well, they're
[8:59] Speaker 2: not elected. I'm elected. So I'm not Jesus Christ, but
[9:03] Speaker 2: I am elected. So therefore, anything that I say, you know,
[9:07] Speaker 2: is the fact, is the will of the people. And
[9:09] Speaker 2: if it goes bad, well, that's what the people wanted
[9:12] Speaker 2: to happen. It's essentially what One Nation is saying right now.
[9:16] Speaker 4: Do you trust these economists, what they come out and say?
[9:18] Speaker 3: Because I don't.
[9:19] Speaker 4: I'm implementing the will of the people.
[9:22] Speaker 2: And so it's really hard for any other political party
[9:26] Speaker 2: to try to pierce that because One Nation just keeps saying, well,
[9:29] Speaker 2: we don't care what the experts say. We're speaking for you.
[9:32] Speaker 2: You are the experts. And that's a really heady message.
[9:38] Speaker 2: I don't think people will quite understand the impact of
[9:42] Speaker 2: those policies because until they're living it, which is what
[9:45] Speaker 2: we saw in the United States with Donald Trump. And
[9:48] Speaker 2: Pauline Hanson said something very similar to Donald Trump this week,
[9:52] Speaker 2: where she said, look, there might be some pain in
[9:54] Speaker 2: the short term, but then everything will be fine, which
[9:57] Speaker 2: is exactly what Donald Trump said about you know, the
[10:00] Speaker 2: tariffs and the economic changes that he was making. They're
[10:03] Speaker 2: borrowing from that MAGA playbook where you demonise the public service,
[10:09] Speaker 2: you demonise experts and you demonise anybody who speaks of
[10:14] Speaker 2: particular consequences for when those consequences are not ones that
[10:18] Speaker 2: you want and you just tell everybody that you're doing
[10:21] Speaker 2: what they want and that makes them the biggest experts.
[10:25] Speaker 1: Well, in a rare sign of political consequences for what
[10:29] Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson actually has to say, she wasn't able to
[10:31] Speaker 1: dismiss this week the pretty awful comments that had resurfaced
[10:36] Speaker 1: from a podcast she had done recently, firstly around Anthony
[10:40] Speaker 1: Albanese's mum.
[10:41] Speaker 4: Oh, my God. House Commission houses should not be there
[10:44] Speaker 4: for people to live in them for 30, 40. And
[10:46] Speaker 4: he said his mother lived in the same one. She
[10:49] Speaker 4: was born in for 65 years. Sorry, that's not on
[10:51] Speaker 4: to me. It should be a limited time. You've been
[10:54] Speaker 4: given a hand up. Moving on to the next ones
[10:56] Speaker 4: coming through.
[10:57] Speaker 1: And secondly, around Indigenous Australians.
[11:00] Speaker 2: Supposedly 60,000 years.
[11:03] Speaker 3: They'd never invented the wheel.
[11:04] Speaker 2: A few, you know, rock paintings. Sorry.
[11:07] Speaker 4: They're the most primitive race on earth. They've achieved nothing.
[11:12] Speaker 1: Talk us through her response.
[11:15] Speaker 2: So I found the whole thing interesting from a political
[11:19] Speaker 2: point of view because these were old comments that have resurfaced.
[11:23] Speaker 2: And the reason that they're resurfacing now is because Coalition
[11:27] Speaker 2: MP Andrew Hastie has essentially given permission for the major
[11:32] Speaker 2: parties to go hard against Pauline Hanson, which they have
[11:36] Speaker 2: not been doing. Andrew Hastie came out and said, nope,
[11:40] Speaker 2: this is war and this is why.
[11:42] Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards. And I'll
[11:46] Speaker 1: say it again, so there's no ambiguity, they are lying cowards.
[11:49] Speaker 2: And now the other players in this, you know, little
[11:52] Speaker 2: space have gone, oh, maybe there is something to gain
[11:55] Speaker 2: to be pushed back against Pauline Hanson. And that gave
[11:59] Speaker 2: Anthony Albanese the opportunity to hold a press conference where
[12:03] Speaker 2: I suppose if you were one of his political media spinners,
[12:06] Speaker 2: you would have considered that an absolute perfect press conference
[12:10] Speaker 2: that because Anthony Albanese got emotional, he connected it to
[12:14] Speaker 2: his mother and how you should never bring family into politics.
[12:17] Speaker 4: If Pauline Hanson wants to criticise me, then that's fine,
[12:22] Speaker 4: but my mother was way out of Pauline Hanson's league,
[12:26] Speaker 4: way out of it.
[12:27] Speaker 2: And then he was able to speak about his mother
[12:30] Speaker 2: in a place that obviously comes from the heart that
[12:33] Speaker 2: did engender a lot of sympathy for him. So then
[12:37] Speaker 2: when we get to the absolutely abhorrent and racist comments
[12:41] Speaker 2: that Pauline Hanson was making about Indigenous Australians, there was
[12:46] Speaker 2: already a foundation that Hanson says these things and then
[12:50] Speaker 2: refuses to take responsibility for it. She just got to
[12:53] Speaker 2: the point where it became so overwhelming that her usual,
[12:58] Speaker 2: I'm not going to apologise, I don't need to, they've
[13:00] Speaker 2: taken me out of context, wasn't good enough.
[13:03] Speaker 3: Use the word primitive.
[13:04] Speaker 4: Will you apologise for that? If I've offended people by
[13:07] Speaker 4: using that, yes, I will apologise for that. But I
[13:13] Speaker 4: will not back away from what needs to be discussed.
[13:16] Speaker 2: And that's very telling in this kind of climate where
[13:19] Speaker 2: she felt under enough pressure that she had to give
[13:23] Speaker 2: a qualified apology because Pauline Hanson does not apologise. It's
[13:27] Speaker 2: part of her brand.
[13:28] Speaker 1: Is that a new line in the sand now? Because
[13:30] Speaker 1: like you said, even a half apology is rare for Hanson.
[13:33] Speaker 1: Does that tell us that perhaps even she's recognised that
[13:37] Speaker 1: she's gone too far and that perhaps there is a
[13:39] Speaker 1: new political reality when it comes to holding Pauline Hanson
[13:43] Speaker 1: to account for what she says?
[13:45] Speaker 2: Look, I don't think she has realised that she has
[13:47] Speaker 2: anything to apologise for because Pauline Hanson has been saying
[13:50] Speaker 2: this stuff for 30 years and she doesn't care. What
[13:53] Speaker 2: was interesting was that her strategists felt that she had to.
[13:58] Speaker 2: The last time we saw this was when Pauline Hanson
[14:00] Speaker 2: did her National Press Club speech, and then we saw
[14:03] Speaker 2: support for Hanson drop when people started seeing more of
[14:06] Speaker 2: what she's actually like. I don't think it's a line
[14:10] Speaker 2: in the sand. Pauline Hanson will continue to say abhorrent things.
[14:14] Speaker 2: That is what Pauline Hanson does. It was a line
[14:17] Speaker 2: in the sand for the major political parties, though, and
[14:22] Speaker 2: it was for the first time since I've been covering
[14:25] Speaker 2: federal politics, that we saw four Indigenous senators from across
[14:29] Speaker 2: the political divide actually stand up in a united message
[14:34] Speaker 2: and say, this is abhorrent, this has gone too far.
[14:39] Speaker 2: And the way that Labor and the Coalition are viewing
[14:41] Speaker 2: this is that most of Hanson's support is what they're
[14:45] Speaker 2: terming soft support. That means that they can win back
[14:49] Speaker 2: a lot of those voters before the next federal elections.
[14:53] Speaker 2: The problem for them, though, is they've got the Victorian
[14:55] Speaker 2: election in November and then they have the New South
[14:58] Speaker 2: Wales election in March. And they've left it so late
[15:02] Speaker 2: to actually start doing national pushback that those results will
[15:07] Speaker 2: probably give Hansen a pretty big push and lead in
[15:11] Speaker 2: into a very serious election year. And until they actually
[15:15] Speaker 2: get their strategies embedded down Pauline Hanson's qualified apologies will
[15:20] Speaker 2: be forgotten because we'll be well into whatever next round
[15:25] Speaker 2: of culture war that they've sparked and people will not
[15:28] Speaker 2: remember what happened this week by the time that she's
[15:32] Speaker 2: giving a qualified apology for some other abhorrent comment that
[15:36] Speaker 2: she's said.
[15:38] Speaker 1: Well, this week in politics, Amy, has felt like 30
[15:41] Speaker 1: years by itself. Let's hope next week is a little
[15:44] Speaker 1: bit shorter. Thank you for coming on the show and
[15:46] Speaker 1: speaking with us again.
[15:47] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[16:03] Speaker 1: 7am is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's made
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