Hanson Defends Cartoons of Wong Death
The One Nation leader says the viral animations will remain online despite warnings from police about rising threats to politicians.
By Nikolai Patterson ·
A 2022 cartoon depicts Foreign Minister Penny Wong slumped face-down on a desk, covered in blood with a knife protruding from her back.
The animation, from Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain series, shows Wong being killed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Another clip from Hanson’s Super Progressive Movie, released in February, shows Wong being beheaded by Albanese with an axe. In that scene, Hanson appears unharmed after the head drops to the floor. These visuals have drawn sharp criticism as federal police link heated rhetoric to a recent rise in violent threats against elected officials.
The scrutiny intensifies after an alleged attack on Indi MP Helen Haines last week. Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett urged politicians to use respectful and cautious language on Sunday. She connected overheated political discourse, including the Hanson cartoons, to the increase in threats. Labor accused Hanson of stoking division. Wong told Guardian Australia that One Nation was happy to keep depicting such violence. She argued that Australians deserve representatives working to improve their lives, not promote personal attacks.
Hanson defended the content over the weekend. She stated that the Please Explain cartoons have nothing to do with the tragic attack on Haines. She added that the cartoons will not be going anywhere. Hanson claimed that Liberal and Labor politicians want the cartoons censored because they dislike the scrutiny. She alleged that both parties’ dirt units were already back at work after the Haines incident.
Mark Nicholson, the creator of the cartoons, refused to apologize on Monday for another episode mocking Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie’s health conditions. The clip featured a depiction of Lambie saying she could not laugh because of her prolapsed vagina. Hanson later apologized for that specific cartoon. Nicholson, a candidate for One Nation in the upcoming Victorian state election, told the ABC he wanted to pick on people with public profiles. He said powerful people need a reality check and that being in the public realm opens one up to parody.
One Nation’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, defended the cartoons on Tuesday. He agreed with calls to lower the political temperature but said the animations had not contributed to a deterioration. He compared the style to Looney Tunes characters. Pickering noted that while the cartoons are not always in good taste, they serve as an expression of free speech. He said comedy engages the public in dialogue about issues that are otherwise ignored. He challenged critics to make their own cartoons from the other side of politics.
The Victorian state election is scheduled to be the next major political contest where Nicholson will run as a candidate.
