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National
By Lillian Rangiah

One Nation's Pauline Hanson wins Queensland Senate seat, Amanda Stoker out

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)

Pauline Hanson has retained her Senate seat for another term, with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) officially declaring she finished fifth in Queensland's upper house race. 

Labor's Anthony Chisholm was expected to finish fifth, but was leapfrogged by Hanson, putting him in the sixth and final spot. 

It means Liberal National Party Senator Amanda Stoker has lost her seat.

The 68-year-old Senator Hanson has been elected for a second six-year term, after entering the Senate as a One Nation Candidate in 2016. 

Senator Stoker exits after being placed in the Senate by the LNP in 2018 when George Brandis resigned. 

Ms Hanson, who has previously represented the lower house seat of Oxley, west of Brisbane, garnered 191,156 first-preference votes.

As a party, One Nation polled just over half the amount required for a quota in Queensland.

Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Amanda Stoker at Senate Estimates on October 25, 2021. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

With Senator Stoker losing her seat, Queensland's traditional Senate split of three right and three left senators has been restored.

Senator Stoker, a former barrister and solicitor, first joined the Senate in 2018, where she became a vocal supporter of her government's Religious Discrimination Bill.

The mother-of-three served tenures as assistant minister for women, industrial relations and to the attorney-general while in office. 

While the AEC officially declared the Queensland winners on Friday, the ABC's election calculator had already called five of the six spots.

In a statement Pauline Hanson thanked supporters.

"I thank Queenslanders for entrusting me to continue to represent them in Canberra and I thank all those Australians who supported our party and lifted our national vote," she said.

"I congratulate Mr Albanese on Labor's win. I've said in the past he probably wouldn't make a good Prime Minister, however I sincerely hope he proves me wrong.

"Australians need representation which puts them and their country first more than ever," she said.

"The costs of living are skyrocketing. We have an energy crisis created by the major parties that One Nation has been warning about for many years.

"We're in the middle of a housing crisis. We have significant security challenges.

Labor's Murray Watt and Anthony Chisholm have been re-elected, along with the LNP's James McGrath and Matt Canavan.

The Greens' Penny Allman-Payne also won a seat.

There are six Senate seats up for grabs in each state at every federal election

The AEC's official declaration of the result on Friday confirms the United Australia Party's Clive Palmer failed to win a seat.

A 'step-backwards' for One Nation: Antony Green

Despite Senator Hanson's win, the ABC's chief election analyst Antony Green told ABC Radio Brisbane this election was a "step backwards" for One Nation.

"One Nation did not poll as well as I thought they would – only got 7 per cent, I thought they would do better," he said.

Although Senator Hanson claimed One Nation "lifted our national vote", Mr Green said it had "not been as successful as it was in the last election".

"While One Nation's vote increased in the House [of Representatives], they did stand three times as many candidates, which is why their vote went up in the seats they contested," he said.

Mr Green said preferences from parties who were not elected helped Senator Hanson get across the line and pull her up into the fifth spot.

"For her to finish in that position, she's done very well on preferences," he said. 

"Under the current Senate electoral system at the last two elections, Pauline Hanson will attract more preferences from excluded parties than anybody else on the ballot paper."

Mr Green said Labor's Senator Chisholm and the Greens' incoming Senator, Penny Allman-Payne also relied on preferences to win their seats.

The LNP's two successful candidates and Labor's Senator Watt were returned to the upper house on full quotas, which means they reached 14.3 per cent of the vote.

Editor's note (20/6): This story has been updated to include that Amanda Stoker has worked as both a solicitor and barrister.

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