By Andrew Brown in Canberra

The prime minister has used a key speech in Queensland to take aim at Pauline Hanson in her home state.

In an address to Queensland’s Labor conference on Sunday, Anthony Albanese warned “hard-right populists” were on the rise and a threat to democracy.

“(They are) peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest. We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history,” he told the conference.

“They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts, peddle misinformation and disinformation. Turn Australian against Australian.

“Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems.”

The comments come as One Nation has been rising in federal opinion polls to draw close with, or even overtake, Labor.

Senator Hanson’s party also claimed victory in a WA by-election on Saturday in what was previously considered a safe Labor seat.

Mr Albanese said the rise of One Nation had laid bare concerning policies.

“Their own division and disagreements are now showing through. They think Australians are lazy and overpaid, that people working from home are bludging,” he said.

“That domestic violence is sometimes a woman’s fault, that we should – somehow – become a monoculture.

“It’s obvious – One Nation are not on the side of working people.”

Mr Albanese pointed to One Nation’s previous success at the Queensland election in 1998 during the party’s first rise in prominence as a sign of things to come.

“Every time they achieve any success, it leads to chaos and division. Remember when they won 11 seats in Queensland in 1998? They lost all of them in record time,” he said.

“How on earth will they govern in coalition with the LNP? Because they can’t govern without the LNP, and the LNP can’t govern without them.”

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said ahead of the speech the prime minister was attempting to stereotype the party.

“We have these tropes, bromides and basically fallacious statements that are dribbled out,” he told News24.

“‘We’re racist,’ we’re not. ‘We’re homophobes,’ we’re not. ‘We don’t want to protect women in a domestic violence relationship,’ that’s crazy.”

Amid rising support in the electorate for One Nation, Mr Albanese said voters needed hope, rather than a list of grievances.

“The best way to defeat this coalition of chaos is to give Australians real hope of a better future, for their country and for their families and themselves,” he said.

“To be the party of progress and optimism and aspiration for everyone.”

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