One Nation has placed Australian sovereignty at the centre of its expanding political agenda, arguing that international treaties have been allowed to exert too much influence over domestic law and calling for Australian voters and Parliament to regain greater control over decisions ranging from free speech to climate policy.

In a new statement circulating as the party intensifies its campaign against both Labor and the Coalition, One Nation declared that the “Australian citizen must be sovereign” and accused successive governments of signing international agreements that had weakened the authority of Australia’s democratic institutions.

The party singled out two politically charged examples: section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and Australia’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement.

One Nation argues section 18C has been used to restrict political expression and says international obligations were relied on to justify the law. It also says the Paris Agreement has constrained Australian governments in setting climate and net-zero policy.

The sovereignty argument is becoming increasingly important to One Nation’s broader platform.

The party has already committed to withdrawing Australia from the Paris Agreement and has advocated pulling back from international organisations including the United Nations and World Health Organization where it believes membership conflicts with national interests.

But the way international agreements operate under Australian law is more complicated than the political argument suggests.

Australia’s constitutional system draws an important distinction between entering an international treaty and making domestic law.

The Commonwealth executive has the authority to enter treaties on Australia’s behalf. That does not ordinarily mean the terms of a treaty immediately become enforceable against Australian citizens.

As the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade explains, an international treaty generally has no direct effect in Australian domestic law unless its provisions are incorporated through legislation.

That means Parliament remains central.

If Australia accepts an international obligation requiring changes to domestic law, legislation will generally need to pass the House of Representatives and Senate before those rules become part of Australian statute law.

The treaty-making process also includes parliamentary scrutiny. Proposed treaty actions are generally tabled in Parliament and examined by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, although the formal constitutional power to enter treaties belongs to the executive rather than requiring a national referendum.

That distinction is particularly relevant to One Nation’s argument about section 18C.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, commonly known as ICERD, is unquestionably part of the history and constitutional foundation of Australia’s federal racial discrimination laws.

Australia ratified ICERD on September 30, 1975.

The convention requires participating countries to take measures against racial discrimination and racial hatred. Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975 was enacted to give domestic effect to significant parts of those obligations.

But section 18C itself did not appear in the original Act.

It was inserted two decades later by the Racial Hatred Act 1995 after an extensive Australian parliamentary process and considerable political debate over racial vilification and freedom of expression.

Section 18C makes certain public conduct unlawful when it is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

It is a civil provision rather than a standalone criminal offence.

Section 18D also provides important exemptions, including for artistic works and statements, publications or debates undertaken reasonably and in good faith for genuine academic, artistic, scientific or public-interest purposes. It also protects certain fair and accurate reports and fair comments on matters of public interest.

Whether the balance between those provisions adequately protects free political debate has been disputed for decades.

That argument is now directly connected to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s own legal battle.

In November 2024, the Federal Court found Hanson had breached section 18C over a 2022 social media post telling Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan”.

The court found the post was reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate Faruqi and relevant groups protected by the Act, and that it had been made because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

The court also rejected Hanson’s reliance on the section 18D fair-comment exemption.

Importantly for the wider sovereignty and free-speech debate, Hanson challenged the constitutional validity of the provisions on the basis that they burdened Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.

The Federal Court accepted that the law does burden some political communication, but held that the burden was constitutionally justified because the provisions pursue the legitimate objective of preventing racial hatred and discrimination and operate alongside the section 18D protections.

Hanson appealed.

On July 27 this year, the Full Court of the Federal Court unanimously dismissed her appeal, finding that none of her grounds had been established.

Hanson has since sought to take the dispute to the High Court, pursuing special leave to appeal and seeking a broader examination of section 18C and its constitutional foundations.

Until the High Court grants special leave and ultimately rules otherwise, section 18C remains valid Australian law.

The case nevertheless gives One Nation’s sovereignty campaign an immediate practical dimension.

The party is no longer debating section 18C only as an abstract policy issue. Its federal leader has personally been subject to a Federal Court judgment under the provision and is attempting to challenge that outcome at the country’s highest court.

The Paris Agreement raises a different set of legal questions.

Australia joined the agreement under Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government.

The Turnbull government tabled the Paris Agreement in Parliament in August 2016 for scrutiny before Australia ratified it later that year.

The agreement is a legally binding international treaty and requires participating countries to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, setting out their climate ambitions.

But Paris does not operate as a foreign parliament legislating directly for Australia.

Australian governments decide the policies and domestic laws used to pursue national targets.

After taking office in 2022, the Albanese government legislated a target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050 through the Climate Change Act 2022.

Those targets therefore have a domestic legislative foundation passed by the Australian Parliament as well as forming part of Australia’s international climate commitments.

Labor went further in September 2025, announcing a new 2035 target of reducing emissions by between 62 and 70 per cent below 2005 levels.

That commitment was subsequently submitted as Australia’s updated NDC under the Paris Agreement.

One Nation opposes that direction.

Its policy platform calls for Australia to leave Paris, end net-zero policies and significantly restructure federal climate and energy policy.

The party argues international climate commitments have increased costs, distorted investment and limited Australia’s freedom to rely on coal, gas and other domestic energy resources.

The Albanese government takes the opposite position, arguing the targets are necessary both to respond to climate change and to provide certainty for investment as global markets move towards lower-emissions technology.

One Nation’s assertion that Australia has been legally “tied down” by Paris therefore contains an important element of truth but requires qualification.

Australia does have international legal obligations while it remains a party to the treaty.

But those obligations do not make withdrawal impossible.

Article 28 of the Paris Agreement expressly provides a withdrawal mechanism. A participating country may notify the treaty depositary of its decision to leave, with withdrawal taking effect one year after that notification.

The United States demonstrated that process again when its latest withdrawal became effective in January 2026.

A future Australian government could therefore pursue withdrawal if it chose to do so.

Leaving Paris would not, however, automatically repeal Australia’s domestic Climate Change Act or every federal and state policy associated with emissions reduction.

Those laws would need to be separately amended or repealed through Australia’s own constitutional and parliamentary processes.

That distinction goes to the heart of the sovereignty debate.

International agreements can influence Australian policy and, in some circumstances, provide constitutional support for Commonwealth legislation through the external affairs power.

They can also impose international obligations that Australian governments are expected to honour.

But international organisations do not ordinarily bypass Parliament and directly legislate for Australian citizens.

Australian legislation continues to be enacted by Australian parliaments, interpreted by Australian courts and constrained by the Australian Constitution.

The Commonwealth Parliament can also change laws it previously enacted, provided it acts within constitutional limits.

One Nation’s political objection is therefore broader than the proposition that foreign institutions literally control Australian legislation.

Its argument is that governments should be far more reluctant to accept international obligations in the first place, because those commitments can shape future legislation, regulation, judicial interpretation and policy choices.

Supporters of the existing system respond that treaties are an ordinary part of modern sovereign government.

Australia uses international agreements not only for human rights and climate policy but for defence, trade, aviation, taxation, extradition, maritime boundaries, telecommunications and countless other areas where countries need common rules.

Entering those agreements is itself an exercise of national sovereignty, they argue, because Australia chooses whether to participate and can often withdraw under the treaty’s own terms.

That disagreement is likely to become sharper as One Nation’s electoral influence grows.

The party has increasingly linked free speech, immigration, climate policy, the United Nations and international institutions under one overarching theme: decisions affecting Australians should be made as close as possible to Australian voters.

Its opponents will argue that withdrawing from international institutions could reduce Australia’s diplomatic influence and create economic or strategic costs without necessarily increasing Parliament’s practical freedom.

One Nation is betting that a growing number of voters see the issue differently.

For Hanson and her party, sovereignty is becoming more than a foreign-policy slogan. It is being used as the common thread connecting some of One Nation’s most important battles — from section 18C and freedom of political expression to Paris, net zero and Australia’s relationship with international organisations.

That makes the question increasingly relevant to the broader political contest: not whether Australia is legally a sovereign country — it is — but how much authority Australian governments should voluntarily exercise through international agreements, and how much freedom future parliaments should retain to change course.