Hanson risks accusations she's using a security issue for political points

"Fellow Australians, if you are seeing me now, it means I have been murdered."

Pauline Hanson famously recorded these words in a 12-minute video message nearly 30 years ago, soon after she founded One Nation.

The video was meant to be released in the event of Hanson's assassination. When it inevitably leaked, Hanson blamed her political opponents for putting her in danger.

The then member for Oxley told parliament she was "disgusted with a lot of members in the house who have actually incited the violence of people in Australia against me".

The whole episode was condemned as a calculated, bizarre and macabre One Nation stunt, aimed at politically weaponising otherwise serious security threats.

Three decades on, not much has changed.

PM uses same words about other politicians

Hanson was this week directly blaming the prime minister for stirring up threats to her physical safety.

"He's put me in such a position by this violence and this talk that's coming out of him," Hanson told ABC radio in Perth. "What he's doing is putting me in a position of threats against me now that I have to have federal police protection whenever I'm out here, meeting people. It's a shame. He's caused this."

According to the senator, who often champions the right to free speech, Anthony Albanese overstepped the mark at the Queensland state Labor conference on Sunday.

"Across the world hard-right populists are on the march," the prime minister told the party faithful. "Peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest. We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history." 

Anyone who has listened to Albanese over the years would know these are some of his go-to sledges, regularly deployed against political opponents on all sides.

Peter Dutton's nuclear energy policy was "dangerous and dishonest". The Liberal party's approach to climate change was "dangerous" and "dishonest". And the Coalition's industrial relations plans were, you guessed it, "dangerous" and "dishonest".

The Greens, too, have been labelled by Albanese as "dangerous", "dishonest", and acting as a "radicalised, extreme fringe", during frequent debates over Israel and Gaza.

Hanson is hardly unique in copping this prime ministerial critique.

Nor is Albanese alone in dishing out this sort of spray.

Hamilton calls Hanson out

Angus Taylor this week took the opportunity to call the prime minister dangerous, divisive and dishonest.

Indeed, the One Nation leader herself regularly calls the prime minister a "liar" and earlier this year labelled him "the most divisive leader Australia has ever seen". 

To suggest this sort of well-worn political rhetoric is somehow the "cause" of violent threats was too much for some.

Liberal MP Garth Hamilton, for one, reckons Hanson has made a career of saying much worse. 

"I think there's a little bit of hypocrisy at play here in this constant game of 'I'm the victim'," he told the ABC's Afternoon Briefing, before listing a rap sheet of the party's more controversial remarks.

Like Andrew Hastie, Hamilton is one of the few Liberals unafraid to call Hanson out.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland took the argument a step further. She suggested the One Nation leader have a good look in the mirror if she's worried about the threats she's copping. 

"I would suggest that Senator Hanson should examine what her party and her ideology and her behaviour is doing," she told Radio National.

Hanson called it "victim blaming" and demanded an apology.

Rise in threats to MPs

Clearly any threat of physical violence towards any MP cannot be excused or justified and should simply be condemned.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett warned earlier this year of the worsening problem of "hatred and a willingness to mobilise to violence" against federal MPs, high office holders, faith and community leaders.

The AFP confirmed to this column the number of reported threats and offensive communications against MPs has risen by more than 10 per cent over the past year. It's only expected to get worse.

The trend is similar in other countries battling heightened political divisions and social media algorithms fuelling extreme views. Women in politics face the worst of it, including more sexualised threats.

Beyond the concerns for personal safety, the risk is how this increasingly menacing environment deters people from entering politics or engaging in public debates at all.

By speaking publicly about the threats she's facing and the fears she holds, Hanson has shone a light on a growing problem facing our democracy.

However, in trying to pin those threats on what was, by any standard, routine political rhetoric, the One Nation leader risks giving the impression she's using a serious security issue to score a political point.

Just as she was accused of doing nearly 30 years ago.

David Speers is national political lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.