“Today is not about Pauline Hanson,” Pauline Hanson told the crowd, as she took the microphone to chants of “Pauline! Pauline!”.
“We love you Pauline,” one man shouted.
The One Nation leader, speaking to supporters on Saturday night after the party’s vote rocketed to above 20% in the South Australian election, went on to have a crack at the premier, Peter Malinauskas, who has been at pains to point out that Hanson was a Queenslander.
“Guess what, mate,” she said. “I’m going to leave you some landmines.”
Said landmines – the party’s state leader, Carlos Quaremba, newly elected upper-house MP Cory Bernardi, and perhaps one or more lower-house MPs – could “explode”, she said.
At the election night party at the Kent Town Hotel, in inner suburban Adelaide, the mood was one of sheer jubilation. It was the sort of vibe you usually get if you’re hanging out with the mob set to form government.
People variously said it didn’t matter how many seats they won, this was just the beginning, or took the early vote surge to mean they were sweeping into power.
The orange-clad (predominantly white, predominantly older) crowd whooped and hollered every time a result flashed up on the television screen. Their revered leader, Hanson, and Bernardi popped in from a different room now and then to even more rapturous welcomes.
The anti-lockdown activist Monica Smit was there, as was George Mamalis, from the Australian branch of the late rightwing Christian activist Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point. They both got a shout-out from Quaremba.
Hanson came and went from a hangout away from the raucous function room to talk to Sky News, take endless selfies and scrawl her name on fans’ T-shirts.
One Nation supporter Kyle Watson got Hanson to sign his T-shirt, which sported an image of her in bathers – a present from a friend who knows how much he loves the Queensland firebrand.
One supporter, asked whether it was particular policies that won him over to One Nation, just said “I’m so excited”. Three times.
Another, Jan Ween, said: “She’s just gorgeous – and I’m a happy Jan.
“I like everything about her. She’s like my mum, my grandmother. I like her principles and her policies.”
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailAsked which policies, she said: “I like the fact she’s going to pull down immigration.”
Two polls in the week leading up to the election put One Nation ahead of the Liberals: YouGov at 22% to 19%, and Newspoll at 22% to 16%.
That primary vote seemed to have held up.
Bernardi – the controversial former Liberal senator who joined One Nation in February – said for a long time One Nation had been “dismissed as … a party of protest”.
Earlier, Hanson said on Instagram: “Whatever the result, you’ve put the major parties into a panic – and that’s a job well done.”
The party continued after Hanson left, the Flaming Sambucas getting people on the dancefloor with Abba’s Waterloo.
“I feel like I win, win or lose,” they sang.
Then they dedicated Elton John’s I’m Still Standing to Hanson.
“Don’t you know that I’m still standing better than I ever did?”
