Ever since Pauline Hanson first appeared on the national stage a quarter of a century ago, her detractors and the MSM have sought to portray her supporters as a hard core of ignorant, reactionary, racist rednecks.

After yesterday’s Queensland election, it appears a more than sizeable chunk have instead been good old fashioned protest voters, simply sticking it up the majors.

When a crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes, a crisis with significant on the ground implications, has come along, they’ve had their “this is serious” moment and gone back to one of the big boys; ironically, for those who attempt to portray One Nation as a conservative rather than populist party, mainly to Labor.

As virtually all our media workers received their school education over the past 40 years, basic mathematics is beyond most of them. One Nation is on 6.9 per cent of the vote in Queensland, down from just over 13.7 at the last election.

Innumerate journalists are reporting this as a swing of over six per cent. It isn’t. It’s a swing of over six percentage points, which effectively means a swing of nearly 50 per cent. Do the calculations yourself. One Nation’s 2017 result minus the swing against them. It’s 13.7 per cent minus 6.8 per cent, answer 6.9 per cent.

One Nation’s support has been effectively halved.

When the going gets tough, it appears, the votes get going