One Nation, six farcical explanations and no clearer understanding of its housing policy

When sent out to do a cleanup job, it usually helps to not make the mess even worse. It took One Nation six separate attempts over nearly 24 hours to clarify the basic details of their policy on foreign ownership of housing. Between Thursday night and Friday afternoon, the story turned from bizarre to farcical, with attempts to clarify the policy just making the situation murkier as Australians watched: a Barnaby Joyce interview; a quick do-over on Sky News on Thursday; a Pauline Hanson social media update on Friday morning; a Sean Bell interview, again on Sky, on Friday; and then a 2GB spot; before a written press release from Bell on Friday afternoon … which finally put some meat on the bones of the one-sentence policy on their website. They weren’t quite Jaymes Diaz levels of wilting under pressure, or Tony Abbott going non-verbal with Seven’s Mark Riley. But Joyce’s misstating of the policy, and Bell’s botched attempts at a cleanup, were a reminder that while Hanson’s party is leading in the polls, it has a long way to go before being recognised as a serious political outfit. One Nation is surging, without doubt. There’s a long way to the next election, but if one were held today, Hanson could all but wipe the Nationals off the electoral map and potentially open the kind of schism which could see our traditionally “two-party system” become a relic of the past. …