For all the confidence vested in laws, liberal democracy turns out to be uncannily like an honour system – it relies on good faith and mutual observance.

When somebody with power ignores the norms, the system’s defences can prove inadequate.

A rare sight: Pauline Hanson attending a Senate estimates hearing. Picture AAP

Just look at what Trump has done to rule-of-law America in little over a year. Criminal insurrectionists have been pardoned, illegal wars launched.

Gifts valuing hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed to the White House. Courts have been stacked. Departmental appointees have turned their coercive powers against minorities.

Presidential abuse has been normalised and the deaths of critics welcomed.

The national estate has been commandeered, cheapened beyond repair. The Oval Office, to quote Maureen Dowd, now resembles a “Vegas gift shop” and the White House lawns, a boxing ring.

Australians look upon this vulgarity with bemused detachment. Not in Australia, we kid ourselves, citing compulsory-preferential voting, an independent electoral commission, and a permanent, apolitical civil service.

Maybe.

But before we even get to populism, we should recall how Australians reacted half a century ago when a lawfully elected government was cut down mid-term by a paranoid, vainglorious vice-regal. At the snap general election a month later, voters sided with the constitutional overreach.

At the heart of self-sustaining liberal democracy lay something less sexy and headline-grabbing than free and fair elections – continuous accountability.

While America’s careen provides a sobering glimpse into what happens when honour and scrutiny are defanged, there was a development much closer to home in recent days and, frankly, most people – including media – only partially engaged with it.

Research by the Parliamentary Library revealed that senator Pauline Hanson had attended just 12 per cent of Senate estimates hearing days over her 10 years in the Senate.

Or to put it another way, she’s ducked almost nine out of every 10 days (all but 28 of 239 days) scheduled for grilling ministers and officials over the use of our taxes and administration of programs.

The revelation garnered headlines and brought condemnation from competitors such as the opposition’s defences spokesperson, senator James Paterson.

“She has been missing in action for 88 per cent of those hearings,” Paterson told Sky’s Laura Jayes.

“Senate estimates is the place where you can do some of your best work … it reflects very badly on her and her commitment to her job.”

Indeed. How many of the One Nation leader’s ordinary Australians would retain their jobs if they skipped 12 per cent of shifts, let alone approached her absentee rate of 88 per cent?

Paterson is the opposition’s most measured and articulate voice. But it was the Liberals’ leader-in-waiting, Andrew Hastie, who cleanly skewered the Queenslander’s manifest unsuitability for high office.

“She was absent last week – she was having birthday cake with a billionaire in Brisbane when she should have been asking questions of the government … she’s now talking about being prime minister. For that, you need drive, you need commitment, and you need energy, and I think the attendance record shows otherwise,” Hastie said.

Robust pushback from One Nation’s competitors is one thing, but for me, it was what Hanson’s shameless truancy revealed about accountability that is most damning.

If Hanson rates governmental accountability so lowly that even when she could use it to her advantage, she goes missing, imagine her contempt for being answerable herself were she PM.

As Hastie also noted, “past performance is a good indicator of future performance”.

That the divisive Hanson, to borrow Kitty Muggeridge’s delightful gibe at David Frost, has risen “without a trace”, is obvious.

She would be the first PM since federation to arrive having never delivered a major nation-unifying speech despite nearly three decades in and around politics. That may be about to change, but she has also never graced a cabinet, nor balanced a national budget, nor delivered a dam, or bridge, or hospital. She claims to love Australia but speaks only in apocalyptic terms.

Her chief of staff sounds a lot like Trump (whom Hanson and her billionaire backers admire) warning that whole government departments will be abolished and public servants will either get with the One Nation program or be sacked.

The risks of all this are epic. Her party’s nativist ban on foreign property ownership announced last week crashed during take-off when Barnaby Joyce could not explain its critical details. It was amateur hour.

Still, Australians drifting to One Nation may not know about such details nor care.

One Nation’s lead in recent polls suggests many are so disillusioned with mainstream governance that they’d happily kick the whole castle over.

For Albanese Labor, this is also a challenge. The customary advantage of incumbency is starting to feel like baggage.

A rough 12 months lay ahead with Labor’s swollen ranks vesting hopes in generous income tax cuts in next year’s budget and beyond.

Amid the desperation, some even see a consolation in One Nation getting up in Victoria in November, if only to lay bare how vastly ill-equipped it is for governing.

• Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times‘ political analyst and a professor at the ANU’s Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.

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