Hanson is sweating her five-star Euro summer more than she’s willing to let on

London: Pauline Hanson seems more anxious about her European holiday than she cares to admit. And she has just revealed an incredible sensitivity about the questions from the media about how she ended up at a luxury fashion show in Sicily.The One Nation leader has been making headlines with her trip to a Dolce & Gabbana show in Taormina and her stay at a five-star hotel with her friend and patron, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.Pauline Hanson attends the CPAC conference in London with her adviser, James Ashby (left).Luca MarinoShe was clearly bristling at all this attention over the past few days – and went to extraordinary lengths to dodge questions after she landed in London to speak at the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference.Hanson and her chief adviser, James Ashby, knew the reporters at CPAC would ask her questions she did not want to answer. So, they ran for cover. They stayed behind a VIP cordon guarded by security staff. They raced past reporters in the rare moments they were in a public space. Hanson did not take a single question.Most of the Australian media in London were at CPAC to see Hanson speak on Saturday morning and, if all went well, ask a few questions. There were at least a dozen reporters, from every major media outlet, including this one.Pauline Hanson speaks at CPAC GB in London, in a room with rows of empty seats.Luca MarinoABC reporters Elias Clure and Riley Stuart at least managed to get to Hanson when she walked past quickly at the Intercontinental Hotel at the O2 arena at Greenwich. They asked if she had paid for her time in Sicily. Her response? “I need to go inside.”Even when Hanson appeared in the audience to hear Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, she walked afterwards to the VIP area rather than going anywhere a journalist could approach. She did the same when she addressed the conference on Saturday morning. The VIP zone was her safe space.All this hiding became faintly ludicrous. For hours after her speech, knowing the journalists wanted to ask her questions, she stayed out of sight at the plush hotel. Ashby would emerge every so often to see if the coast was clear. Finally, he collected various bags from the concierge and made his way to a taxi at the front of the hotel – with Hanson nowhere in sight.The One Nation leader was clearly about to depart. The mystery was how. The cab drove off, with Ashby inside. A camera operator followed some of the way on foot. Minutes later, the cab turned up again, behind where it had started. It had done a full circuit of the hotel, using an access road that skirted the vast O2 arena.One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was spotted in Italy with mining magnate Gina Rinehart. Brisbane-based luxury jeweller Margot McKinney (left) and Pauline Hanson at the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda fashion show in Taormina, Sicily.@beatyesterday_artThe cab stopped. Ashby, on his mobile phone, leant forward to issue instructions to the driver. The cab moved off again, this time faster. It was not seen again. The taxi probably drove around to the access road, and Hanson probably left the hotel through a corridor to the O2 arena that led to the road and the taxi, which reversed and drove away.The wait took hours. The escape took time and effort. And it only happened because Hanson is so touchy about taking questions.Here are a few she needs to be asked. She says taxpayers will not be paying for her trip. So, who will? Was her trip funded by herself, Rinehart, or One Nation and its members? If she was a guest of Rinehart, will the value of this gift be disclosed? Did anyone else fund flights and hotel rooms? Voters will make up their own minds about One Nation’s relationships with its wealthy patrons.Here are a few more. Does Hanson support her Senate colleague, Malcolm Roberts, when he says he has “respect” for Russian President Vladimir Putin? Does she support Roberts when he shares a notorious antisemitic illustration?And a few others. How can Australia cut net migration to 130,000 a year – yes, a target many want – without tanking economic growth? What police work will be set aside so officers have time to enforce a burka ban?Some admire Hanson for the way she uses social media to bypass the mainstream and reach voters. Farage, speaking to this masthead at CPAC, said she was “very, very clever” on social media. CPAC was full of right-wing commentators talking about the decline of the mainstream media.But if the mainstream media doesn’t matter, why does Hanson seem so paranoid about it? Could it be because coverage of her luxury holiday was everywhere over the past week – in print, online, on television, on radio? And the story bounced around Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and the rest? The old and new media fed off each other.This inflicted real brand damage on Hanson and One Nation, and that seems to be all her own fault. It told voters that she didn’t really want to take on the establishment – she wanted to join it in first class.Hanson, enjoying her recent rise in the opinion polls, seems to have a growing sense of her personal destiny. She told the CPAC audience One Nation could be in government after the next election.But her address to the event did not draw a crowd. It was short and lacking in real power, even though she drew applause when she hit the usual conservative buttons (trans rights, net zero, white privilege, and so on). It was largely a repeat of her remarks at the dinner the previous evening, as if she could not find enough new things to say to fill two speaking slots.And her escape from the press seemed like the routine of a reclusive pop diva, not a serious politician. It was comic, but revealing.Tough politicians take questions. Weak ones run away.Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. 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