One Nation Quietly Erases Its ‘Australia’s Answer to Trump’ Manifesto Days After American Voters Deliver Brutal Midterm Verdict on the President
- A One Nation media release declaring the party the only Australian force that mirrors Donald Trump’s values has vanished from its website.
- Visitors searching for the pro-Trump page now land on an error screen featuring a cartoon of Scott Morrison and a joke that he may have broken the internet.
- Archived records show the page was still live on October 31, only days before Republicans were routed in the US midterms.
- The party insists the timing is coincidental and blames a sweeping website overhaul, but critics are asking whether the Trump brand has become toxic in Australia.
For almost two years it sat on Pauline Hanson’s website like a flag planted in the ground.
One Nation, it declared, was the party for any Australian who admired Donald Trump. Not one of several.
The only one.
Now that flag has been pulled down, and the timing could hardly be more awkward.
The statement, once proudly promoted as proof that Mr Trump’s brand of hardline nationalism had a home on Australian soil, has disappeared from the party’s online presence in the wake of a stinging rebuke for the US President from his own voters.
The release carried the blunt title ‘Want Trump’s action and style, then it’s One Nation you need’. It was published on January 23, 2025, barely days after Mr Trump was sworn in for his second term at the White House.
Anyone trying to reach it today is met with something very different.
An error page greets visitors with a cartoon caricature of former prime minister Scott Morrison, alongside a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that either ‘ScoMo’ had crashed the internet once more, or the page simply could not be located on the party’s freshly built site.
Exactly when the page vanished remains unclear.
But archived copies reveal it was still accessible on October 31, just days before Americans went to the polls on Tuesday and handed Democrats historic victories, giving them control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The wording of the deleted release left little to the imagination.
It conceded that Australian politics differed from the American scene, but argued that Mr Trump’s bold moves on national sovereignty, economic growth and what it called cultural integrity closely echoed One Nation’s own platform.
It went on to celebrate the President’s immigration crackdown as a defining achievement, singling out mass deportations, the push to end birthright citizenship and the power to halt refugee intakes deemed contrary to American interests.
The release also applauded Mr Trump for resisting what it labelled ‘globalist tendencies’, praising his opposition to renewable energy programs and to policies centred on culture, gender and inclusion.
Its closing pitch was the most striking of all: admirers of Mr Trump’s decisive, nationalist approach, it said, would find that One Nation was the sole Australian party reflecting those values.
A party spokesperson has rejected any suggestion the deletion was a reaction to the American result.
Instead, the spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au the party was in the middle of substantial changes to its website, which would continue over the coming weeks, and that numerous pages had recently been removed or revised as part of that process.
The disappearing act comes as Mr Trump’s political fortunes have taken a dramatic turn.
Back home, the war in Iran, relentless cost of living pressures and an aggressive approach to immigration enforcement have eroded his popularity, with many Republicans distancing themselves from him both before and after the midterm vote.
The swing marks a stark reversal from the triumphant mood of January 2025, when right-wing parties around the world, including in Australia, were eager to bask in the reflected glow of his return to power.
Australia has already had one painful lesson in the risks of importing Trump-style politics.
During the 2025 federal election campaign, the Coalition faced fierce criticism over policies seen as borrowing from the Trump playbook, and went on to suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of Labor.
One Nation, founded by Ms Hanson in 1997, has long built its identity on themes that overlap heavily with the Trump agenda, from tough immigration controls to scepticism of climate policy.
Analysis: What This Means for Australia
The quiet removal of a single web page might seem trivial. It is not.
It goes to the heart of a question every Australian political party now faces: how closely should it tie its fortunes to a foreign leader whose standing can collapse overnight?
Australia’s alliance with the United States underpins its national security, from intelligence sharing to the AUKUS submarine pact. But the US President’s personal brand and America as a strategic partner are two very different things, and voters increasingly appear to understand the distinction.
When a domestic party markets itself as a local franchise of a particular president, it effectively hands its reputation to events it cannot control.
A war in the Middle East, a spike in prices or scenes of mass immigration raids in American cities can all bleed into how Australians view that party.
There are social consequences too.
The deleted release endorsed policies such as stripping birthright citizenship and suspending refugee programs, ideas that would carry profound implications for multicultural communities if ever transplanted into Australian law.
The episode also highlights the growing scrutiny of digital footprints. Thanks to internet archives, political statements rarely disappear entirely, and parties can find their past positions resurfacing at the most inconvenient moments.
Political analysts say the Trump connection has always been a double-edged sword for minor parties. It can energise a loyal base, they argue, but it also risks alienating the middle-ground voters needed to convert protest support into seats.
Campaign strategists believe the midterm result will force conservative parties across the Western world to rethink how openly they embrace the President, with many likely to keep the policies but quietly drop the branding.
Observers of Australian politics note that One Nation has historically thrived by presenting itself as an authentic, home-grown voice, and suggest any perception that it is merely echoing Washington could undercut that appeal.
Others caution against reading too much into the timing, pointing out that website rebuilds routinely sweep away older material and that the party has given a plausible explanation.
Still, the optics are difficult to ignore.
A page boasting that One Nation was Australia’s Trump party survived nearly two years of controversy, only to slip offline in the very window when Mr Trump suffered his most humiliating electoral blow.
Whether the policies change remains to be seen. For now, at least, the tribute has been replaced by a cartoon of Scott Morrison and a punchline.
Voters wanting to scrutinise party positions can review official records and electoral information through the Australian Electoral Commission.