Hanson offers qualified apology for calling Indigenous Australians 'most primitive race'

Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation party, offered a conditional apology on Tuesday for describing Indigenous Australians as the "most primitive race on Earth," a characterization she made during a podcast interview in September 2025 that resurfaced this week. When asked about the remarks, Hanson told News24 she regretted the language if it had caused offense, though she framed the comment as unintentional. "That's not my intentions," she said. "That wasn't my intentions, to hurt people."

The podcast comments, first reported by News24 on Monday, showed Hanson objecting to children learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history. Her words drew swift condemnation from across the political spectrum—a rare moment of unity that Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy said spoke volumes about why a genuine apology mattered. McCarthy told the ABC that Hanson's language was "deeply hurtful" and "completely wrong," and that the comments "dehumanise First Nations people in Australia."

Hanson's qualified apology—structured as "if I offended people by using that term, yes, I will apologise for that"—came only hours after she had initially refused to apologize. When pressed about what she would say to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the NT Liberal senator whom she has previously supported, Hanson deflected by saying she had "always put my foot in my mouth" and acknowledged she was "not the most eloquent speaker in how I deliver something."

Nampijinpa Price responded sharply, rejecting Hanson's framing. "She did absolutely demonstrate wilful ignorance because there's a hell of a lot more to Australia's first people than simply what her remarks suggest," Price said. She emphasized that the problem was not merely word choice but Hanson's "tone and inflection throughout those remarks." Price also stressed that building a better Australia required working together rather than tearing people down on the basis of race.

Crossbench senators discussed the possibility of moving a censure motion against Hanson over the Indigenous comments, though some questioned what such a motion would accomplish. This would mark the third censure motion against Hanson in recent months. She had already been censured earlier in the year for what the Senate deemed "inflammatory and divisive" comments about Australian Muslims, and again in late 2025 for a burqa stunt.

The timing of the apology came amid a broader week of controversy for Hanson. She had also drawn criticism for remarks about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's mother, who lived in public housing for decades. During a brief press conference at Parliament House on Tuesday, Hanson walked back those comments as well, saying she had been referring to the housing commission system rather than making a personal attack. "If he's taken offence to it, well, I'm sorry for that," she said.

The pattern of qualified apologies and deflections—framing offensive language as a matter of poor communication rather than substance—has become familiar in Hanson's political career. Her acknowledgment that she is "not the most eloquent speaker" positioned the problem as one of delivery rather than the ideas themselves. Yet the breadth of the response, from government ministers to crossbench senators to Indigenous leaders, suggested that many saw the issue as something deeper than a slip of the tongue.