Pauline Hanson Successfully Engaging Young Australian Voters With ‘Please Explain’ Cartoons

Senator and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson speaks in Sydney at CPAC Australia on Aug. 20, 2023. Wade Zhong/The Epoch Times

Australian Senator Pauline Hanson called for her side of politics to be honest with themselves on Sunday.

“As conservatives, we don’t typically do a very good job of engaging young voters,” she said to over 1,000 like-minded Australians attending the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in Sydney.

“I know it’s a criticism of our side of politics but unless we’re prepared to be honest with ourselves, we'll never overcome our opposition,” the Queensland senator and One Nation party leader—known for her “please explain” comments made infamous by the legacy media in the 90s—said.

“Our greatest problem is that the left do an exceptional job at engaging with young voters,” Ms. Hanson continued. “They do it through their members who are teachers, lecturers, trade reps, nurses, and other Union-led industries.”

She said there were also newer voices who the left side of politics have conditioned to predominately embody socialist approaches and ideas on social and economic issues: the LGBT movement, environmental groups, and Aboriginal bodies.

“Let’s face it, we’ve all been young, we’ve all been impressionable,” Ms. Hanson said. “Our young people are being hijacked by the left, making it difficult to bring them back [to conservative values] until they either start a business, have a family of their own, have to deal with bureaucracy, start buying assets of their own, or live in the real world away from the safety net of mum and dad.”

“The truth is, young men in that 18- to 20-year-old demographic spend roughly 528 minutes a week on social media. That’s almost nine hours a week on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Twitter or X, and being bombarded with so much leftist content.

“But even more surprising is the consumption of social media by young women. They’re on social media for 822 minutes a week. That’s almost 14 hours,” Ms. Hanson said.

“So if we’re not producing content that grabs the attention of young people, they fall deeper and deeper into the grip of the socialist left, who are posting emotional and factually incorrect videos. So this is where it’s important that we push back,” she said.

Communicating Conservative Values

One Nation, an independent right-wing populist party in Australia, is now seeing new success at getting liberal Australians to understand classical liberal and conservative values.

According to its website, One Nation “stands for Australia and Australian values” and defends “our constitution and stand[s] up against global agendas for the individual rights and fundamental freedoms of all Australians.”

Ms. Hanson said that her chief of staff, James Ashby, has been leading the charge with the hugely popular YouTube series “Please Explain.”

“The series is by far the boldest campaign strategy One Nation has ever had. And I say bold because the concept was either going to sink or swim and potentially have me de-platformed for some of the touchy subject matters that we cover,” the senator said.

The production is a series of viral cartoons that are both satirical and educational. It touches on subjects that both Labor and the Coalition typically are too afraid to discuss. Ms. Hanson even voices her own character.

One of her favourite episodes was about Labor’s relationship with China, titled “The Big Red Dragon.”

The series has been able to successfully engage the party’s 18 to 35 demographic and beyond to people of all ages with a “young at heart” sense of humour, Ms. Hanson said. On YouTube alone, the program has 72,700 subscribers.

It has also been well received by many of those on the other side of politics who can find her videos.

Ms. Hanson said it took four episodes for a few Melbourne-based leftists, who were being paid to work on the production of the series, to open their minds to the policy arguments of One Nation. She said that the episode was about the leftist proposals for an excise tax and death duties.

“They had no idea that The Greens promoted death duties and that many Labor MPs had spruiked the idea too,” she said. “Well, the idea of losing 50 percent of their family’s assets upon death made them wake up pretty quickly to what Labor and the Greens truly stand for. And I’m convinced that they can now see the value of this type of educational material.”

The popularity of the series has been reflected in the number of views reached by each episode. Ms. Hanson said that across all platforms where the cartoons can be viewed, one episode can reach in excess of 1 million views each week in Australia alone.

She said that the popularity and influence of the series have also had an impact on Parliament after one episode saw Labor respond to the concerns being voiced.

“I was quite pleased following our controversial NDIS episode; we forced a conversation out of Labor on the outrageous and unaccountable spending within the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Sadly, it’s expected to cost each and every other taxpayer around $90 billion year in 10 years,” she said.

“We’ve done episodes on Labor and some Coalition wets who defended the use of puberty blockers for kids under the age of 18 who are going through the confusing stage of adolescence,” she said.

Bucketloads of Support

Ms. Hanson said that since the series started, One Nation has received a lot of support from the public to keep it going.

“I’m extremely proud of the support the public has offered us ... you have no idea,” she said. “Last year, we sold 5,000 bottles of gin in six weeks to fund 25 episodes prior to the federal election.”

But after that, she said the public told her they need more cartoons. “I was pulled up at airports, on the planes. … You said, ‘We need the cartoons.’”

This motivated Ms. Hanson’s team to step up their fundraising efforts. “We’re funded by through the Facebook website, several stubby coolers, whenever we can to actually fundraise for this.”

And now, “We’ve actually auctioned off a series where people can actually fund [an episode] and put their storyline and be part of the series. You know, without the merchandise and the rum sales, we simply wouldn’t be able to do such a high-quality series produced here in Australia, which is great.”

“We do all have a role to do and speaking out about conservative values with our young voters,” she said, encouraging the audience to speak up for their values. “They’re our grandkids, our nieces, our nephews, and our sons or daughters; it’s about their future, and they must be involved and engaged in politics. And that’s what we must do.

“Keep an eye on them, especially for those in universities. They’re my main concern because they’re not taught critical thinking,” the senator added.

There have been other challenges faced during the successful production, Ms. Hanson said. That’s because while people say, “it’s having a laugh … it’s so true as well.”

“On top of all this, I’m very proud and passionate about my job. I love my country, I respect my fellow Australians, and I believe that you have to be upfront with what you say and what you do on the floor of Parliament, and I’ve always been that way,” she told the conference. “And maybe I’m a little bit rough around the edges, and maybe I say it probably a little bit too directly to what you want to hear—even my own kids say, ‘Mum, can you say it a little bit different?’ And I say fine, which politician do you want me to sound like?

“I’ve had my ups and downs, and, as you know, I’ve been in prison for my politics and combat. But it’s very important for you to know; that is the heart of our democracy. That’s where to have the responsibility to have your say and fight for the Australian people. So all those important issues, whether it be the dairy farmers, [those in] the family law courts, [those with] gender dysphoria—we have to stand up and fight for what we believe in and be true to ourselves,” Ms. Hanson said.

“You may not always agree with everything that I say, but it’s said with passion, and I do it for my country.”