One Nation candidate named as maker of Hanson AI cartoons

journalismOct 26, 202622574

ABC identified Mark Nicholson, co-founder of Melbourne creative agency Stepmates Studios and a One Nation candidate for Victoria's upper house, as the creator of the party's Please Explain cartoons. Nicholson told the ABC's 7.30 program the videos are satire and that his job is "to pick on people who are in the public realm," and he declined to apologise to Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie. The most recent episode mocked Lambie's disclosure of a vaginal prolapse in the Senate with a cartoon line saying "I cant laugh because of my prolapsed vagina," which prompted widespread outrage and was subsequently taken down. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson initially defended the cartoon before saying she had not seen it and later apologising that it "wasn't as tastefully done as it could've been." Lambie told 7.30 Hanson had not offered her a personal apology and said Nicholson was not fit for Victorian parliament, calling the cartoons "disgraceful" and accusing the party of heightening community division. Stepmates Studios employs a team of 25 people; when 7.30 visited the office only Nicholson and co-founder Seb Peart agreed to be on camera.

stranger

@strangerous.bsky.social

“How do you tastefully satirise someone’s vaginal prolapse? You don’t”💥 Monique Ryan rips shreds off Pauline Hanson for attacking her rivals with violent & misogynistic cartoons. Says it’s time media stop ‘giving a public voice’ to someone who spreads so much negative trash.💯

4324h ago

Yung En Chee38

Thank you Dr Monique Ryan—couldn't agree more that it's well past time for the media to stop giving Pauline Hanson so much attention & space to amplify her harmful views It's time she's marginalised for being an unrelentingly negative force in politics & public discourse for over 30 years

Kelanoa 😷18

Yes, media have been derelict in their duty to call her out. Instead they act as her mouthpiece. #PaulineHanson #auspol

Krissie 15

We need more Monique's and Jackie Lambie's and zero Paulines . .

Jessica D. M. 🇺🇦 🇦🇺 🇨🇦 🇵🇦 🇬🇱 🪃 🟧11

Thing is Murdoch media keep doing it. In the USA and here. We need laws to end this crap

attributionbias.bsky.social6

Bit pointless telling Patricia Karvelas the media shouldn’t give harmful voices a platform.

Rudy Terwilliger 🐺 🥷 🍉6

Monique Ryan would make a great PM.

Quoting this

Loony Left Media 🚨#TaxTheGas + CancelAUKUS16

If PHONy ever get into government they will remove ABC funding. Which part of that doesn’t the ABC get? As Mon Ryan rightly points out, our media needs to stop platforming PHONy - which ABC 730 are doing this very second by interviewing their video creator Can’t make this stuff up

Antfarmer14

Monique is spot on here. Bravo

Greg Jericho

@grogsgamut.bsky.social

This Mark Nicholson bloke seems like a complete prick www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10...

561h ago

Lizzy Schofield1

& what’s disturbing is people will vote for him. I despair the damage LNP/ON will unleash here in Victoria.

Kaz Cooke

@kazcooke.bsky.social

Peculiar man behind Hanson's repulsive & rudimentary AI cartoons is a One Nation candidate for Victorian Senate: he says he employs 25 people to make them (ba ha ha). Quite unfathomably, he claims he's a satirist. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10...

362h ago

Wear ≥Filip Filipovich Preobrazhensky 2 respirator Do Not Follow3

Satirist? I think you misspelt odious scroat ...

Sue Cartwright1

The staff list of his company on LinkedIn.

Catherine Hainstock 🐨🦫1

A satirist? 🤔 hmm, if it walks like a d*ck, and talks like a d*ck…🤔

Quoting this

tippsu.bsky.social4

He’s a crass creep churning out unfunny shite. But that’s just my opinion.

•Marns🌿🍉🐸2

Mark Nicholson is some kind of sociopath and shouldn’t be considered to be representing anyone. Prize cuntortionist.

bystander1.bsky.social

@bystander1.bsky.social

"One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has rejected any link between the party’s controversial cartoons and increasing security threats against politicians."

39h ago

Byron Stol

@byronstol.bsky.social

Mark Nicholson on #abc730 demonstrating what an utter vile POS he is as a One Nation candidate in the Victorian state election. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10...

62h ago

Bethany Williams

@bethanyincbr.bsky.social

While no one has directly said Pauline Hanson and her very low attempts at “satire” are directly responsible for the attack on Helen Haines, Pauline believes she’s feeling personally attacked. That suggests to me she knows all too well that her “satirical” cartoons go too far.

65h ago

Koolbardi (AKA Garth H)

@labrooy61.bsky.social

Hanson continues to deny that there is anything wrong with cartoons that depict violence as a way to combat political rivals. We have seen Albo being run over by a bus and an SUV along with Dan Andrews, we have seen Penny Wong be beheaded. What is wrong with the woman?

6Yesterday

Antfarmer

@antfarmer.bsky.social

Surely no one with a brain will accept that Pauline Hanson didn’t know the content of her putrid cartoons. Give us a break. 🙄 #insiders

8Yesterday

Jessica D. M. 🇺🇦 🇦🇺 🇨🇦 🇵🇦 🇬🇱 🪃 🟧

@jessicaperthwa.bsky.social

#Auspol A leader doesn't support behaviour that may be seen to encourage violence. Hanson can say who cartoons are not serious , however if any member of the public did cartoons about Hanson being run over we rightly would be condemned. If anything happened to Hanson we would share blame

513h ago

Always a Difficult Earth Girl🐬🐨🐋🦘🦈

@scuttlebutter1.bsky.social

God, is she stupid?! Depictions of mowing colleagues down with buses because they've scrutinised her language, behaviour &/or politics is NOT scrutiny in return. “Liberal & Labor politicians want our cartoons censored because they don’t like the scrutiny” she posted to X. And this one (2/2)

211h ago

Craig Hill

@craighill.bsky.social

Pauline Hanson is defending One Nation’s cartoons amid criticism of recurring vehicle-violence imagery involving Lidia Thorpe, Anthony Albanese, Daniel Andrews, Robert Irwin & Bluey. This commentary examines the controversy, & Hanson’s rejection of calls to withdraw the videos. youtu.be/EWhFGCRVeE0

37h ago

Rosco The Grouch

@roscothegrouch.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... Here's Pauline throwing around words like Censorship without understanding what it means. She maybe needs also to learn what decency means.

413h ago

Steve Moskal

@samoskal.bsky.social

One maga hate cult Nation defends violent hate cartoons. Also: "The federal police chief also raised the alarm on Australia’s relatively high volume of drug consumption, telling users: “You are fuelling not just an organised crime environment,but it’s a national security threat".." #biorisks #auspol

115h ago

ArchedEyebrow

@archedeyebrow.bsky.social

...and Pauline Hanson is denying her many cartoons showing politicians being run down by motor vehicles had anything to do with a politician allegedly being run down by a motor vehicle.

25h ago

Michael Bell

@xtrackka.bsky.social

This guy claimed at his campaign launch to be a former criminal lawyer. Only he has never been admitted to practise law in Australia. In the USA, you’d only last one Zacharia (5 days, or half a Scaramucci) in a political role if you lied about being a lawyer. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10...

12h ago

1 source

abc.net.au'Get a reality check': Cartoon maker refuses to apologise to Jacqui Lambie

One Nation candidate named as maker of Hanson AI cartoonsjournalism

One Nation candidate named as maker of Hanson AI cartoons

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