Pauline Hanson clears up rumour about old photo

By MAX AITCHISON FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Published: 22:24 BST, 29 April 2025 | Updated: 23:25 BST, 29 April 2025

Pauline Hanson has shared a laugh with her daughter Lee –  who is standing as a One Nation candidate this election – while ‘clearing up a very funny rumour’.

Lee, 42, was long reticent about joining her mother in politics but says her run for a Senate seat in Tasmania has been ‘amazing’.

‘I’ve had a few quirky moments too,’ she added in a video they shared online.

‘I have been asked to do a photo shoot on a Ford panel van for some reason?’

Her mother, rocking back on her heels, says: ‘Oh, god, that’s like that one of me on the panel van!’

Staring into the camera, the One Nation founder adds: ‘Let me make it quite clear: not me, never has been, never was – it isn’t me’.

‘Okay? Get over it people.’

Readers can make up their own minds about the resemblance or otherwise.

Pauline Hanson says the woman in this photo is not her

In 2009, the Sunday Telegraph printed pictures of what it said was a young Pauline Hanson posing provocatively in a one-piece swimsuit – accessorised with high heels – while sitting on the front of a classic Ford panel van.

‘Pauline betrayed: the secret photos hidden for 30 years,’ the headline screamed.

Except it wasn’t her – something she had told the paper pre-publication.

The newspaper later admitted it had ‘learnt a valuable lesson’ and apologised for any ‘hurt and embarrassment’ it caused.

The hurt and embarrassment were clearly short-lived, judging by Hanson senior and junior were able to laugh about it as they entered the final days of their campaigns in Queensland and Tasmania respectively. 

The are aiming to make Australian political history as the first mother and daughter in history to have served together in the Senate.

Lee, a former real estate agent, human resources executive, and mother of two boys, is aiming to tap into the longstanding Tasmanian enthusiasm for minor party and independent candidates, which have seen Jacqui Lambie and Andrew Wilkie repeatedly re-elected.

Senator Pauline Hanson and her daughter Lee Hanson

Senator Hanson says her daughter’s decision to stand for office has been a long time coming, having wrestled for much of her life with growing up in her famous mother’s shadow.

‘It was actually only very recently that Lee came to me and said, “Mum, this is something I’m interested in doing”,’ the elder Hanson says.

‘For a long time, she resisted it and didn’t have any desire to follow me into politics at all – for years she wasn’t interested in that world at all.

‘I even spoke to her before the last election [in 2022], and she wasn’t ready, because she felt her two sons were too young, and she didn’t want to be away from the children.

‘Having seen everything I had been through – both the highs and the lows – she has always struggled with idea of political life.

‘She would always say, “Mum, I’m not you – I don’t know if I can do it.”

‘And I’d say, “Don’t underestimate yourself, honey. You’re not me. You’re not Pauline Hanson, but no one wants you to be – they want you to be your own person and find your own path in life”.

‘It just so happens that, in the end, that path has led her into politics after all.’

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Pauline Hanson clears up rumour about old photo

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