Tony Burke says Pauline Hanson 'hates my part of Sydney' after 'hit list' threat

The Labor frontbencher criticised Hanson after One Nation revealed plans to target one of Australia's most multicultural seats.

The Western Sydney seat of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke (left) is on a "hit list" of electorates One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has pledged to target at the next election. Source: AAP / AAP

IN BRIEF

• At a rally on Wednesday, Pauline Hanson shared a "hit list" of Labor-held seats One Nation plans to target.
• In response, Tony Burke has drawn attention to comments Hanson made about Western Sydney in a February interview.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has hit back at Pauline Hanson after the One Nation leader shared a list of Labor-held electorates that her party will target at the next federal election, which included Burke's Western Sydney seat of Watson.

"She hates my part of Sydney, and she said so. And this is where I'm really conscious: people shouldn't pretend to be patriotic if they hate modern Australia," he said.

Burke said he loves Australia "for who we are, not for some fake idea of the nation that we've never been".

"One Nation always run in my part of Sydney, they'll run again. It's a democracy, everybody's welcome to run. But I have to say, as a message to people who want to demean their fellow Australians, we're a better country than that."

Burke's spray comes after Hanson shared on Wednesday a "hit list" of seats held by Labor frontbenchers her party plans to target at the next federal election. These included those of Burke, Chris Bowen, Clare O'Neil and Madeleine King.

Burke's seat of Watson is one of the most multicultural seats in Australia and includes the suburbs of Belmore, Greenacre, and Lakemba — the latter of which has a Muslim population of over 61 per cent.

In February, Hanson told ABC News Breakfast she'd felt unwelcome when visiting Lakemba.

"I've been there myself in Lakemba. You feel unwanted, you're not wanted to be there," she said.

In the same interview, Hanson said there were "certain" suburbs "people can't go into" and named Lakemba when asked to be more specific.

'Western Sydney here we come'

The rally in Western Australia on Wednesday — at which Hanson revealed her party's Labor-targeted "hit list" — was not the first time One Nation has indicated it has plans to target electorates in Western Sydney.

After the party's historic win in a May by-election in the regional NSW seat of Farrer, One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said: "Western Sydney here we come."

While a recent RedBridge/Accent poll suggested One Nation was now the most popular political party in the country — with a projected primary vote of 31 per cent to Labor's 28 — Hanson's party may not enjoy such levels of support in Western Sydney.

One Nation only received 3.2 per cent of the vote in Burke's seat of Watson in the 2025 federal election — a 2 per cent decrease from the 2022 election.

However, in Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen's more-outer-west Sydney seat of McMahon, One Nation polled somewhat higher, taking 8.73 per cent of the primary vote — a 3.69 per cent increase from 2022.

During her Wednesday speech, Hanson said Bowen's seat was the "first one on my list".

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