Pauline Hanson: 'Australians didn't have a voice'

Senator-elect Pauline Hanson has insisted that her volatile political career has been worth the stress as it has given Australians a voice.

Reacting to last night's controversial SBS documentary, Pauline Hanson: Please Explain, the One Nation leader appeared on Sunrise to defend her career and views.

"That is why I have been so persistent over the years and I have never given up, from the first time I actually entered politics, local government and then onto federal politics in 1996.

"I saw what was happening, I felt that Australians don't have a voice and I thought 'no, I have a right to have an opinion and I have a right to have a voice'.

"I know I have six years in the senate to work for the people [now]."

In the documentary, Hanson said she has been consistently attacked by a hostile media throughout her political career.

Asked why she does interviews where she is likely to be attacked, Hanson replied, "Because it's important to allow the public the opportunity to listen to me, but what happened was a lot of the media had their own agenda."

"If you notice [during] the last election I didn't deal with the media very much, I've gone to social media.

"People now have direct contact with me and they can hear directly from my own mouth what I stand for, and that's very important.

"I'm sick of the mistruths, I'm sick of the sensationalising from the media and the beat-up constantly."

Not explaining much

Last night, Hanson also did a running commentary via a Facebook Live stream as she watched the documentary.

It was billed as giving “exclusive behind the scenes (director’s cut)” of her reaction to the controversial documentary.

However, Hanson spent much of the live stream watching the documentary in complete silence.

At the start of the live stream, Hanson did say she “hesitated” to do the SBS documentary, but had been “very impressed” with the promos for it.

Hanson told Sunrise that it was the first time she has ever done a Facebook Live stream.

"Around 550,000 people watched that [live stream] and it gave me the opportunity when things were coming up to tell people what I thought about it and give people the truth."

'We need to have a debate'

Hanson told Sunrise the day following the documentary's broadcast that while there are Muslims in Australia that want peace, there are radicals too.

"A lot of Muslims, they don't want the terrorism and they are in fear themselves," she said.

"We need to discuss this and we need to have a debate about it. There was a Muslim at the Q&A and he invited me to lunch or dinner.

"I have no problem sitting down and talking with anyone, I think we need to work together.

"If we do not address this problem [of the radicals], I'm in fear for the problems of our country," Hanson added.