Since resuscitating relations with China from a low point a few years ago, the Australian Government has relied on an oft-repeated mantra to ‘cooperate where we can, disagree where we must’. SYDNEY — Since resuscitating relations with China from a low point a few years ago, the Australian government has relied on an oft-repeated mantra to “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must.”

Lately I’ve noticed a pattern in some threads here that feels less like organic discussion and more like repeated, coordinated talking points.

In particular, posts related to Taiwan tend to attract very similar arguments across different accounts often repeating phrasing and narratives that closely match official Chinese government positions on the issue. This includes framing Taiwan strictly through “One China” terminology, denying its de facto self-governance and relying on the same selective historical arguments with very little variation or genuine engagement with counterpoints.

It’s not just that people disagree disagreement is normal and healthy. It’s that the consistency and repetition of these specific narratives across multiple threads and users can give the impression of coordinated amplification rather than independent viewpoints.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying every user who expresses these views is part of anything coordinated or that any nationality as a whole should be generalised.

People can and do arrive at these opinions independently. But the pattern does raise questions about whether some of the discourse is being shaped or reinforced by repeated messaging aligned with PRC government talking points.

On Taiwan itself, there is also a tendency in these threads to flatten a complex situation into slogans rather than acknowledging both realities:

Taiwan functions as a self-governing democracy with its own elected government, military and institutions

Its international status remains disputed and diplomatically constrained

Both aspects can be discussed in good faith, but it becomes difficult when conversations are dominated by repeated narrative framing rather than open-ended discussion.

I’d be interested in hearing if others have noticed similar patterns or if this is just selection bias. And whether the sub should be more attentive to coordinated looking engagement in geopolitically sensitive threads.

Australia has spoken directly to Beijing officials about China's focus on maritime traffic near Taiwan.

Chinese state media reports have indicated Beijing is trying a new strategy in the area.

China said the activities were legitimate and called for its sovereignty to be respected.

Australia has raised concerns about Beijing's maritime activities near Taiwan directly with Chinese officials, as reports suggest a changing strategy in the region.

Streaks don't really matter that much and duolingo puts too much ephesus on it.

The person that has done half a course in 6 months doing duolingo 3 to 5 days per week has better language progression than the person with 2000 streak doing one lesson per day

I understand if a post is created about something new that's come to light but the constant low effort one nation spam whether it's pro or anti is basically pushing out all other topics on the sub.

Opinion

‘Fed up’ is becoming Australia’s most powerful political force

Pauline Hanson has become the agony aunt for aggrieved Australians. She tells people they have been ignored, she sees them and gives them permission to be angry.

Lidija IvanovskiFormer Labor adviser

Jun 19, 2026 – 5.00am

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As we hurtle through the AI revolution and live in the most complex geopolitical environment in modern times, conventional wisdom says people look to the incumbent government for safety – the political version of a weighted blanket.

Yet at the start of the week, a new poll showed the anti-establishment party, One Nation, continuing its rise in popularity with voters, and Pauline Hanson overtaking both the prime minister and opposition leader as Australia’s preferred PM.

During her National Press Club address on Wednesday, Pauline Hanson blended the legacy conservative topic of immigration and the inescapable issue of housing stress. Getty

Since late last year, the media and political folk, especially conservatives, have been tracking One Nation’s surge and trying to decipher whether the polling numbers would translate into real seats.

Well, a handful of South Australian seats in March, followed by victory over the Liberals in the Farrer byelection, have served as a fairly blunt dose of reality.

Understanding why One Nation is in the frame for even more seats does not require a Rhodes Scholarship.

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The world feels weird and insecure. People are tired and grumpy. The COVID-19 pandemic shattered our sense of security and eroded confidence in government. For many Australians, normal never really came back.

Solidifying that sense of insecurity was the Bondi terror attack – a moment that shattered the view that such violence doesn’t happen here.

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The war in Ukraine is now in its fourth year, and in February, the US and Israel went to war with Iran. At least that conflict might have ended with a peace deal signed this week.

Both conflicts had a direct impact on us through higher prices for fuel, fertiliser and energy. The Iran war in particular sparked a sense of horrible COVID deja vu, with various senior ministers sent on a tap-and-go tour of our region to lock in critical supplies.

Add to this the cost-of-living pressures that for many people feel like a gut punch every time they leave a supermarket, and you can start to see how Hanson has become the agony aunt for aggrieved Australians. She tells people they have been ignored, that she sees them and is on their side, and gives them a permission structure to be pissed off.

On Wednesday, when she appeared at the National Press Club, she stuck to her lines and she wasn’t there to talk about the tax system. It was immigration and housing. A potent mix that blends the legacy conservative topic of immigration and adds the inescapable issue of housing stress, whether it’s rent or mortgage payments.

And that is why this moment is so dangerous. Not because voters are angry. Much of the anger is understandable. Life is difficult. The world is scary. Institutions have made mistakes. People do feel talked down to. They do feel managed rather than heard.

The danger is what happens when “being fed up” becomes the answer to everything.

Fed up is not a migration system. Not a housing plan. Not a national security strategy. Not an energy policy.

That is where the Coalition has been so catastrophically weak. After losing the election, the men inside the party gave Sussan Ley a Clayton’s chance at running the joint.

Her replacement, Angus Taylor, said the party needed to change or die. Under his watch, they appear to be doing the latter.

Taylor, Hanson, Barnaby Joyce, and now, the newly installed president of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, are all engaged in a patriotic tug-of-war in an attempt to scratch the “being fed up” itch.

Under Taylor’s bizarre and confusing immigration plan, he proposed to ship people off if they didn’t meet Australia’s values. He even had a brief attempt at offering an American-style ICE force, but then couldn’t confirm or deny whether it was a policy.

Barnaby Joyce is seeking a fresh act as One Nation’s economic oracle. Alex Ellinghausen

Cue the return of Abbott, the media grab guru, offering this last week: “Part of the problem, if I might put it in very simple terms, is that too many of our recent migrants, instead of joining team Australia, are simply living in hotel Australia and making the most of the facilities.”

He has seen his share of hotel desks, bleary mornings and late checkouts. He knows who cleans the rooms. They are not living in hotel Australia. They are cleaning the toilets of hotels in Australia. They are hardworking people making Australia work. They are cleaning city offices, working in aged care, doing the night shifts and paying tax.

They are not soaking in bathtubs waiting for the government to fund their lives like nepo kids.

Meanwhile, Joyce is also scrapping for the mic. Two stints as deputy prime minister, now a fresh act as One Nation’s economic oracle. What will he deliver that he didn’t when he had the chair, the car, the staff and the last title? He found the difference between millions and billions difficult in the past, so let’s see how this goes.

At a moment when we need leaders who can take the temperature down, we have this race to jack it up for a social media clip. Measured voices have less currency and the volume needs to be high for maximum impact.

The risk for Labor is sitting back and watching the implosion on the right, without clocking that this is actually a more profound shift in how people are registering their grievances.

People are asking for competence. They want borders that are controlled, migration that is planned, housing that is possible, and wages that keep pace with the cost of a shopping basket.

But it’s not just about the past; their worries are also about the future. Look at the anxiety over AI – it isn’t just a turbocharged version of Google. It is going to profoundly shift how we work, learn, manage national security and interact with each other.

Hanson knows people are worried that they are going to get hit by the AI bus. In her speech, she called it the greatest economic and technical change since the Industrial Revolution. That should worry Labor.

This is what makes One Nation 2.0 different. She is offering an updated operating model, a remedy for a stressed, rattled post-COVID society worried about whether Chinese parkour AI robots are about to destroy us.

The world is not getting simpler. The next decade will require serious solutions to complex problems. If the only answer we have is saying “I’m fed up”, we aren’t fixing any problems. We will simply be making them worse.

Hanson's whole press club strategy was "look how much they hate me" and it might actually work

Watched the highlights from Hanson's Press Club speech today and honestly the GetUp banner stunt in the middle of it basically wrote her speech for her. She just turns to camera and goes "is this another first?" and from that point on the whole thing is framed as her against the room.

Every bit of the speech backs into the same line: "Australians aren't buying this crap from the political establishment and its media supporters anymore." Then she goes after a Guardian journo over a question about her daughter's adviser job, says she wants to scrap SBS and turn the ABC into subscription-only, says Sky's good enough. It's not really a policy pitch at that point, it's "the media and the political class are against you and so am I."

That's the bit people miss about One Nation. Most of the actual policy (immigration caps, nuclear instead of renewables subsidies) is stuff you can argue with on the merits. But that's not really what's being sold. What's being sold is "they're laughing at you and I'm not." A protest group sneaking into the room to interrupt her is basically free production value for that pitch. Doesn't matter if the banner's point was fair, the optics are "activist disrupts the one politician willing to say what you're thinking."

I think people who only follow politics casually are going to remember the protest and the journalist stoush way more than anything about the housing or immigration numbers, and that's exactly the kind of thing that sticks with the people who already think Canberra's a circus.

Curious if others think this anti-establishment branding is actually working on people or if it's just preaching to a base that was already there.

Angus Taylor struggling to be heard as Pauline Hanson takes on Anthony Albanese

Angus Taylor is struggling to be heard. At a press conference on Wednesday, he received just one question from the lone journalist present.

Geoff Chambers

u/Chambersgc

3 min read

June 17, 2026 - 7:28PM

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce arrive at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP Image

Angus Taylor has become the ­invisible man as Pauline Hanson seizes the role of unofficial opposition leader and lays down the gauntlet to Anthony Albanese, the Greens, GetUp and whoever else gets in her way.

The One Nation leader on Wednesday used her first National Press Club address in Canberra to put a stake in the ground on the right-wing party’s policy manifesto, just under two years out from the 2028 election.

The 72-year-old committed to an exhaustive list of hardline economic and social policies that successive Liberal leaders teased but could never deliver for a conservative base that has lost faith in the Coalition.

It is obvious which of Hanson’s immigration and cultural policies will be weaponised by Labor and the Greens to stoke their grumpy bases and mount left-wing ­counter-offensives. But the biggest losers from One Nation’s conservative-based policy agenda is the Coalition.

There is deep anxiety inside Coalition ranks that Hanson has got the jump on them in terms of populist policies.

Liberal and Nationals MPs and supporters are split on whether to follow One Nation down a right-wing rabbit hole or carve out their policy path. The end result will be somewhere in the middle but is likely to end up replicating One Nation’s blueprint.

Hanson’s run of fortune continued on Wednesday when the increasingly irrelevant activist group GetUp and new recruit David Sharaz executed one of the dumbest own-goal protests in handing the Queensland senator an easy PR win.

There were no auto-cues or powerpoint slides for the grandmother, who donned her reading glasses and delivered a meandering Donald Trump-style speech that ran overtime by design.

Hanson’s vision for Australia included: ending the “transgender insurgency”; axing the SBS; slashing ABC funding and restricting the public broadcaster as a subscription service in the cities; cutting net overseas migration and stopping immigration from countries “immersed” in extremist Islam; making Australia monocultural; restoring English language; cancelling the “global warming and climate change hoax” and Welcome to Country ceremonies; implementing a one-flag policy; sacking the Human Rights and Sex Discrimination commissioners; building a nuclear reactor and coal-fired power stations; unlocking more gas; applying greater oversight over foreign aid to countries accepting Chinese money; and removing new Albanese government taxes announced in the May 12 budget.

Hanson’s speech did not deviate from the central thesis resonating with disgruntled voters that the “uni-party establishment” is not working for them.

There were no surprises in the One Nation leader’s rhetoric but one of her corruption critiques of Pacific leaders drew a response from PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, who was meeting Penny Wong in Adelaide.

“These false and defamatory statements will get her nowhere, believe me,” Tkatchenko said. “It’s uncalled for and totally irresponsible for her to say such a thing when she doesn’t know the truth.

“She has popular ideas, but maybe she’s another Trump rising out of the ashes or something like that. But everybody for their own. They have their own democratic right who they want to vote for.”

Albanese and Wong are seeking to frame Hanson as too dangerous to lead foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific and amid the rise of China. The Prime Minister is also channelling support from union leaders in describing Hanson as anti-worker.

While Taylor is trying his best, he is struggling to be heard. There is a handful of Liberal MPs led by Tim Wilson, Andrew Hastie and Garth Hamilton who are showing they are prepared to go head-to-head with One Nation. Speaking at a press conference in southern Sydney ahead of the ABS on Thursday releasing updated net overseas migration data, Taylor received one question from a sole journalist who asked him what he expected from Hanson’s address.

“Scrutiny matters, and, frankly, One Nation is yet to give this country a credible plan,” Taylor said. “Right now, I’m every day subjecting myself to the press, having press conferences like this, and answering those hard questions because they matter. But most importantly, laying out that credible plan for our country. A plan for lower taxes, for more aspiration, for an economy that grows and provides opportunity for hardworking Australians, for affordable and abundant energy, for housing ownership that is within reach for young Australians, for putting Australians first.”

Just four months into the job, Taylor is grappling with a rejuvenated Hanson who has mastered the art of opposition deflection and soundbites. When quizzed about One Nation policies and funding, it is easy for Hanson to shift focus back to the unpopular major parties.

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Read related topics:Anthony AlbaneseGreensOne NationPauline Hanson

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GetUp just handed One Nation its best recruitment ad of the year

So GetUp snuck a member into Pauline Hanson's first National Press Club address today, got a banner unfurled mid-speech and then immediately put out a press release taking credit for it. NPC president Maurice Reilly's response was blunt: "we don't do stunts." GetUp's CEO basically admitted it was a gotcha, saying the occasion "deserved some honesty," so they provided it themselves.

This isn't going to land the way GetUp thinks it will. Most people watching that clip aren't going to come away thinking "wow, great point about wage policy." They're going to see a left-wing activist group sneaking a ticket-holder into a press club event to ambush a speaker, on a day when One Nation is already polling at levels it's never seen before.That's not a takedown, that's a gift.

GetUp has been fighting the "partisan front for Labor and the Greens" label since 2018, and stunts like this are exactly why the label sticks. Hanson gets to spend the next week on every commercial radio and Sky News slot painting herself as the woman the "inner-city activist class" is terrified of — and GetUp just did the work for her. Outrage-bait stunts make great fundraising emails for GetUp's own base, but they're terrible at persuading the median voter, who tends to find this kind of theatre try-hard regardless of which side does it.

If GetUp's actual goal is shrinking One Nation's support, they keep picking the one tactic guaranteed to do the opposite — handing a "they're laughing at you" narrative to a party whose entire pitch is "the establishment thinks you're a joke."

Anyone else think this kind of stunt is more likely to boost One Nation's vote than dent Hanson's standing?

GetUp just handed One Nation its best recruitment ad of the year

So GetUp snuck a member into Pauline Hanson's first National Press Club address today got a banner unfurled mid-speech and then immediately put out a press release taking credit for it. NPC president Maurice Reilly's response was blunt: "we don't do stunts." GetUp's CEO basically admitted it was a gotcha, saying the occasion "deserved some honesty," so they provided it themselves.

This isn't going to land the way GetUp thinks it will. Most people watching that clip aren't going to come away thinking "wow, great point about wage policy." They're going to see a left-wing activist group sneaking a ticket-holder into a press club event to ambush a speaker, on a day when One Nation is already polling at levels it's never seen before.That's not a takedown, that's a gift.

GetUp has been fighting the "partisan front for Labor and the Greens" label since 2018, and stunts like this are exactly why the label sticks. Hanson gets to spend the next week on every commercial radio and Sky News slot painting herself as the woman the "inner-city activist class" is terrified of — and GetUp just did the work for her. Outrage-bait stunts make great fundraising emails for GetUp's own base, but they're terrible at persuading the median voter, who tends to find this kind of theatre try-hard regardless of which side does it.

If GetUp's actual goal is shrinking One Nation's support, they keep picking the one tactic guaranteed to do the opposite — handing a "they're laughing at you" narrative to a party whose entire pitch is "the establishment thinks you're a joke."

Anyone else think this kind of stunt is more likely to boost One Nation's vote than dent Hanson's standing?

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Sydney Morning Herald

Pauline Hanson gets emotional during National Press Club speech

1 min read·Jun 17, 2026

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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson became emotional while talking about children going to school hungry and families going without meals in a speech to the National Press Club.

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Article from smh.com.au | Smry

James Mayger

Australia’s hard-right populist leader Pauline Hanson has called for a monocultural society, rejecting decades of multicultural policy and blaming the nation’s housing crisis on extremely high levels of immigration.

“At the center of this crisis is the utterly flawed policy of multiculturalism. We cannot be a multicultural society,”she told the National Press Club on Wednesday. “We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. Australians must live under the one cultural umbrella.”

Pauline Hanson at the National Press Club in Canberra on June 17. — Photographer: Rohan Thomson/Bloomberg

In her speech to the press club, the first time Hanson has spoken at the venue in a 30-year political career, she pledged to “slash” migration, including restricting entry of people “from places immersed in extremism like radical Islam.”

Read More: How a Populist Surge Is Changing Australia’s Political Landscape

Hanson and her One Nation party have surged in opinion polls over the past year, accelerating after the center-right coalition’s vote collapsed in May last year.

Meanwhile, Australians have been buffeted by resurgent inflation, higher interest rates and a surge in fuel costs due to the Iran war — helping One Nation in the polls while Hanson blamed those challenges on immigration and the cost of green energy in the speech

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor party has sought to mitigate the impact of some of these pressures with a temporary cut to fuel excise and sought tax reforms to ease a housing affordability crunch. He’s pointed to the rise of populism and “simplistic grievance based politics” as a reaction to an economy that isn’t working for people anymore.