Doing a Bradbury

It’s fitting that we are on the verge of the Winter Olympics as I write this column. Why? Because we might be witnessing the political equivalent of ‘Doing a Bradbury’ – the great sporting moment that became a classic Aussie expression.

Just as quintessential Queensland battler Steven Bradbury won a Gold Medal as the ‘Last Man Standing’ (and has since produced a book and beer by the same name), so too another Queenslander seems poised to skate unscathed through the middle of an enormous pile of wreckage and emerge a winner.

It’s 30 years this year since Pauline Hanson burst on to the Australian political stage and, whether you like or loathe her, it’s hard to deny her tenacity.  Polls this week showed she has overtaken the crashed-and-fallen Liberal and National leaders as preferred Prime Minister, while her One Nation Party has moved ahead of the Coalition parties’ combined primary vote.

That’s doubly remarkable given Pauline Hanson is a Senator and not actually eligible to become Prime Minister.  And it’s a big ask for One Nation to sustain its momentum and ‘do a Bradbury’ at the election. 

Regardless of how this ends, it serves today as a very pointed reminder to the Coalition parties of that other classic Aussie expression – ‘disunity is death’.

I’m sorry to say that division and disunity seem to be recurring themes in our Inside Word this month, from the gun buyback and hate speech laws to the Beckhams. Everyone seems to have started 2026 at loggerheads.

But do persevere – there’s plenty of great insider analysis to help clients build a better Australia. The SAS Group is looking forward to working with you in 2026 to avoid the crashes and skilfully skate through the madness.