THE RINEHART-HANSON AXIS: REBUILDING THE RIGHT AFTER THE 2025 COLLAPSE

PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — The Gulfstream G700 taxied across the tarmac of West Palm Beach International with the quiet arrogance of absolute capital. Onboard was not a tech mogul or a Hollywood scion, but the architect of a new Australian order. As the stairs lowered in the humid Florida heat, Gina Rinehart stepped out, followed closely by a woman who, only months prior, had been dismissed as a relic of the nineties: Pauline Hanson.

This was October 2025, the “Jetgate” debut. While Canberra’s press gallery was busy picking through the rubble of the Liberal Party’s landslide defeat, the real power was migrating. This wasn’t just a holiday; it was a summit. Within days, the duo would be pictured at Mar-a-Lago’s “Great Gatsby” Halloween gala, seated at the right hand of the Trumpian court.

By the time they returned to Australian soil, the “Rinehart-Hanson Axis” had been forged. It is an alliance that has fundamentally rewired the Australian right, filling the vacuum left by the 2025 collapse with a potent cocktail of billionaire-funded populism and “America First” rhetoric.

The death of the modern Liberal Party didn’t happen in a boardroom; it happened in the outer-Brisbane seat of Dickson on the night of May 3, 2025. When Peter Dutton conceded his own seat, the “tough man” of the Right didn’t just lose a vote; he lost the glue that held a fracturing Coalition together.

The immediate aftermath was a civil war of attrition. Without a charismatic leader to bridge the gap between the “Teal-threatened” urban moderates and the hard-right regionalists, the Liberal-National Coalition finally buckled. In January 2026, the unthinkable happened: the “Great Divorce.” After eighty years of partnership, the National Party formally split from the Liberals, citing “irreconcilable differences” over climate targets and the Liberals’ perceived drift toward “inner-city wokeness.”

With the Liberals reduced to a rump in the suburbs and the Nationals adrift, a power vacuum emerged. It was exactly what Gina Rinehart had been waiting for.

For decades, Hancock Prospecting played the traditional game: split the donations, back the “stable” Liberal-National ticket, and lobby for deregulation. But the 2025 landslide changed the calculus. To Rinehart, the Liberal Party was no longer a viable vessel for her “drill, baby, drill” vision. It was too compromised, too fearful of the Teal movement, and too inept to stop the Labor-Greens juggernaut.

Rinehart’s pivot was clinical. She shifted her weight toward the “insurgent right”—organizations that didn’t just want to win elections, but wanted to change the culture. The first sign was the money. Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) filings released this week show a $900,000 infusion from Hancock Prospecting into ‘Advance’—the aggressive right-wing lobby group that has essentially become One Nation’s unofficial ground force.

By funding Advance, Rinehart bought a digital war machine capable of bypass-surgery on mainstream media. By backing Hanson, she bought a megaphone.

The alliance is more than ideological; it is logistical. “Jetgate” wasn’t a one-off. Throughout the summer of 2025-26, Rinehart’s private fleet became the “One Nation Express.”

When the Queensland floods hit in late 2025, it wasn’t the Prime Minister or the State Premier who arrived first in the remote townships—it was Hanson and her new high-profile recruit, Barnaby Joyce, stepping off a Rinehart-owned Gulfstream. Joyce’s defection to One Nation in December 2025 was the final nail in the Nationals’ coffin. The man who once led the party realized that in the new landscape, the “National” brand was a shackle. Under the One Nation banner, backed by Rinehart’s deep pockets, Joyce could be the uninhibited populist he always craved to be.

• Gina Rinehart: The financier and strategist. Provides the “Hard Power” (Private jets, six-figure donations, access to US GOP networks).

• Pauline Hanson: The “Frontman.” Provides the “Soft Power” (A 26% primary vote floor, unmatched populist appeal).

• Barnaby Joyce: The “Defector.” Legitimizes the movement for rural voters and provides tactical parliamentary experience.

• Advance (Lobby Group): The “Digital Infantry.” Funded by Rinehart to run aggressive anti-immigration and anti-Net Zero campaigns.

• Donald Trump / CPAC: The “Architectural Template.” Provides the rhetorical framing and “MAGA” playbook.

The rhetoric being spewed at One Nation rallies in early 2026 is indistinguishable from the CPAC Florida stage. During her October speech at Mar-a-Lago, Hanson didn’t just talk about Australian borders; she spoke of “globalist elites” and “energy sovereignty”—themes ripped directly from the Trumpian script.

The strategy is clear: transplant the US “culture war” into the Australian soil. It is working. By focusing on the “demand side” of the economic crisis—housing shortages and record immigration—Hanson has tapped into the same vein of resentment that fueled her 1996 maiden speech. But this time, she has the “Deep State” analysis of a billionaire backing her.

The “Trumpification” is most evident in the party’s use of social media, where Advance-produced clips of Joyce and Hanson are clocking millions of views, bypassing the “legacy media” entirely to reach a base that feels abandoned by the Canberra bubble.

As of February 2026, One Nation is polling at a historic 26%. In any other era, this would be dismissed as a “protest surge.” But this isn’t 1998. This isn’t a flash in the pan.

The Rinehart-Hanson Axis represents a permanent realignment of the Australian Right. The “broad church” of the Liberal Party is dead, replaced by a streamlined, billionaire-funded populist machine. Rinehart has realized that she doesn’t need a majority party to govern; she only needs a powerful, loyal minority that can hold the balance of power and dictate the national conversation.

The 2025 collapse wasn’t the end of the Right in Australia. It was the shedding of an old, useless skin. What has emerged is leaner, meaner, and flying at 45,000 feet on a private jet fueled by iron ore and ambition.

This video provides critical reporting on the "Jetgate" controversy and the burgeoning relationship between Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart that underpins the current political shift.