Topic: Pauline Hanson

Pauline Lee Hanson (nee Seccombe; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-immigration platform. In 2006, she was named by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians of all time.

Hanson was raised in Woolloongabba, an inner city suburb of Brisbane. Her grandfather was an immigrant from England in 1908. Her father owned a take-away fish and chip shop. Hanson left school at the age of fifteen after completing Year 10 and worked in a variety of unskilled clerical and service jobs. She accumulated several rental properties, becoming independently wealthy. She married twice and has four children. In her early political career, she was famous for having owned a fish and chips shop in Ipswich, a city near Brisbane.

Hanson was an independent local councillor in the City of Ipswich from 1994 until an early election due to administrative changes in 1995. Narrowly losing her seat, she joined the Liberal Party of Australia and was endorsed as the Liberal Party's candidate for the House of Representatives electorate of Oxley (based in Ipswich) for the March 1996 Federal election. At the time, Oxley was the safest Labor seat in Queensland.