Riginslinger, it's not surprising you're confused about One Notion and Pauline Hanson. Foolestroupe (being a Queenslander) might be able to give this better but I'll try.

Pauline Hanson started her political career as a Liberal Party (read "Conservative") candidate for a seat (seats in lower house legislatures , at both state and commonwealth levels are given names and I think hers was "Blair", confusingly for you nonOz people) in Qld but became a liability during that 1996 election campaign when she proposed some rather racist views. She was disenfranchised by the Libs but was elected. At the following election she was voted out but had read the entrails and had gathered a lot of people to her ideas and formed One Notion as a party to campaign for election to the Senate. Her ideas are appealing to many with a simple view of how things ought to be done and who hanker for the days when Aborigines ("blacks" and "coons" were terms widely used in times past) knew their place (subservient and submissive) and whites were the only acceptable immigrants.

It helps to know that, for most Oz legislatures and certainly for the Commonwealth, Preferential voting is used for lower house seats and Proportional representation with a Preferential distribution of votes is used for the Senate. For the current election (where half the Senate is up for election; 6 seats for each State) a quota (required for a candidate's success) is 1/6th of the vote for that State. If it had been a Double Dissolution, the whole Senate (12 seats for each State) is up for election and a quota is 1/12th of the vote for that State.

It is rare for candidates from minor parties to get up for a seat in the lower house (even with distribution of preferences) so Pauline knew she couldn't win her seat back, but minor parties have more success in the Senate, especially if it's a Double DIssolution. The two major parties would normally get enough votes to claim the first four quotas for a State (two each) and the preferences get distributed, meaning the minor parties are in with a chance for at least one Senate seat in each State.

There was some scandal about whether One Notion was properly registered and another when electoral funds were not properly accounted for so, while One Notion might be a registered party in Queensland and score close to a quota we live in hope it doesn't. Although I'm south of the Qld border I noticed the Senate ballot paper for NSW had a couple of candidates registered as "Pauline", so I suspect this is a method her sympathisers are using to gain votes; they scored no guernsey from me.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Rowan