Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation
Thousands walked out of school in major cities to oppose One Nation policies and what they called racism
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Camera IconThousands of students skip school for rowdy Hanson protest Credit: Sandra Jackson
Photograph: PerthNow (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Students in at least eight cities walked out of school to protest against Pauline Hanson and One Nation on 13 August 2026.
- The largest gatherings were in Perth and Melbourne, where organisers said more than a thousand students assembled in each city.
- Pauline Hanson responded by saying schools should teach students "how to think, not what to think" and criticised the Labor Greens government.
- The National Union of Students helped organise the protests, which included chants and marches through city centres.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 7 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 8 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
70/100
Craft
85/100
Hype
25/100
8 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
Only 1 of the 7 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Students across Australia walked out of school on 13 August 2026 to protest against Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party. The largest gatherings were in Perth and Melbourne, where organisers said crowds filled public squares. Protesters carried signs and chanted slogans opposing racism and far-right policies.
The protests were organised by student groups, including the National Union of Students and Students for Palestine. In Perth, an organiser who identified herself as Leila told the crowd she was protesting against capitalism, war and Hanson. In Melbourne, students marched through city streets, blocking traffic. Similar protests took place in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Wollongong and Newcastle.
Pauline Hanson condemned the protests on social media before they began. She said students should instead protest the cost-of-living crisis and stagnant wages. "The Labor Greens government is selling out your future," she wrote. "Whether you know it or not, One Nation and I are fighting for you." Federal Education Minister Jason Clare and Victorian Premier Ben Carroll urged students not to skip school.
Where the reports disagree on crowd size in Sydney
WA Today and Brisbane Times reported that hundreds of students gathered at Sydney Town Hall. PerthNow and The Border Mail did not mention a Sydney protest. No other outlet provided a figure for Sydney.
What the coverage left out
None of the digests from the left-rated outlets mentioned the size of the Perth crowd. The right-rated digest from The West Australian did not include Hanson’s response to the protests or the planned second strike in September.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 6 times, most recently on 13 Aug 2026, 15:45, and will add the sides that appear.
How other outlets pictured it
Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.
High school and university students have rallied to oppose Pauline Hanson's One Nation policies. Photo: Jay Kogler/AAP PHOTOS
The Border Mail — embedded from source
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
4 rated outlets
- The left-rated reports led on the scale and coordination of the protests. The Border Mail described students in Melbourne chanting "no hate, no fear, Hanson is not welcome here" and quoted a 17-year-old student who said Hanson "promotes herself as a person who's there for the working class" but "she's not." The report also noted that a second student strike is planned for September.
- The Border Mail included comments from former Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam and highlighted the National Union of Students’ claim that Hanson had voted against better education policies. The digests from the Illawarra Mercury and Bendigo Advertiser focused on local protests, with the Mercury noting students chanted "go to hell" at One Nation supporters.
Centre
2 rated outlets
- PerthNow, one of the two centre-rated reports, led with the size of the Perth crowd and the language used by protesters. It quoted an organiser saying, "I am here because I hate capitalism, I am here because I hate war, and I am here because I f***ing hate Pauline Hanson." The report also included Hanson’s response, in which she said One Nation was fighting for students’ futures.
- The digest from WA Today reported that hundreds of students gathered at Sydney Town Hall but did not include details about other cities or Hanson’s response.
Right
1 rated outlet
- The West Australian’s digest repeated the PerthNow report almost verbatim, including the description of the protest as "rowdy" and the chant "for Pauline Hanson to go to hell." It did not include Hanson’s response or mention protests in other cities.
Read it at the source
8 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
4- 'Hanson not welcome': students skip class for protests (opens The Border Mail in a new tab)
The Border Mail — is The Border Mail biased? Our profile of this outlet
- 'We should be f---ing furious': Hanson protest at UOW turns confrontational (opens illawarramercury.com.au in a new tab)
illawarramercury.com.au — is illawarramercury.com.au biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Bendigo students walk out of class to protest against Pauline Hanson (opens The Bendigo Advertiser in a new tab)
The Bendigo Advertiser — is The Bendigo Advertiser biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Students gather for “Say no to Hanson” protest (opens Brisbane Times in a new tab)
Brisbane Times — is Brisbane Times biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
2Right
1Not rated
1Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation?
- Of the 7 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 57% are rated left, 29% are rated centre, 14% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 8. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 7 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation biased?
- Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation is one event reported by 8 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Students protest across Australia against Pauline Hanson and One Nation?
- 8 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- How many students protested against Pauline Hanson?
- Organisers said more than a thousand students gathered in Perth and about 1,300 in Melbourne. Smaller protests took place in at least six other cities, including Sydney, where hundreds were reported. The exact number of participants across Australia is unclear.
- What did Pauline Hanson say about the protests?
- Pauline Hanson condemned the protests on social media, saying students should protest the cost-of-living crisis instead. She also said schools should teach "how to think, not what to think" and claimed One Nation was fighting for students’ futures.
- Which cities saw student protests against One Nation?
- Protests took place in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Wollongong and Newcastle. The largest gatherings were in Perth and Melbourne, where organisers said more than a thousand students assembled in each city.
How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
