One Nation, the party which burst onto the political scene 12 years ago, looks set to end its controversial run with a whimper.

The Electoral Commission is again threatening to de-register the party, arguing it does not have the minimum 500 members or a serving representative in Parliament.

Rosa Lee Long was the last standing One Nation MP but she lost her seat in Queensland's state election in March, and that put the entire party's future in doubt.

"The Electoral Commission, as we know, has always ... picked on One Nation," Ms Lee Long said.

"We are always being asked to show cause or prove this or prove that. Ever since we started out as a party, there has always been, I think, undue microscopic looking into the party, so to speak.

"[The commission has been] trying to de-register us and get rid of us for a long, long time. We first started out in about 1997. It is now 2009, so that is 12 years, isn't it?"

One Nation secretary Rod Evans insists the party has the numbers and a future.

"In fact, we submitted over 600 members' names. My understanding was that they would contact a selection," he said.

"In this case they contacted apparently 500 plus; 170 have responded, which means of course that the others whom we submitted either didn't bother to respond or omitted to do so within the time frame."

But even if One Nation survives this latest battle, Ms Lee Long says lots of grass roots members are giving up.

"People do get tired of fighting. There is no doubt about that," she said.

"We all seem to be going down the gurgler and that is just hard to watch, but generally speaking, in the end it is up to the people.

"We are the employers and the politicians are our employees, and if the employers keep putting these employees in those positions ... if they keep voting for that, well goodness gracious, it doesn't say much for the political intelligence of a lot of Australians."

Dirty tricks

As well as blaming the public for not voting for the anti-immigration, anti-economic liberalisation party, Ms Lee Long says dirty tricks by the major parties are to blame for One Nation's demise.

"They all come out from their various corners and attacked us and took us to court time after time after time, until the bit of money that we did get was all spent basically on court cases, and then they deregistered it," she said.

"It came from the federal perspective and then it came from the state perspective, when Pauline [Hanson] was thrown in jail, which was absolutely ridiculous in my opinion."

One Nation's fiery redhead founder, Pauline Hanson, was jailed for electoral fraud and then acquitted. But she is no longer a member of the party that experts believe is in its death throes.

Political commentator Scott Prasser says One Nation had a big high in 1998 but since then it has all been downhill for a number of reasons.

"Poor leadership I think was one thing. Lack of consistency of purpose - what exactly did One Nation stand for?" he said.

"I think it attracted a wide variety of different people with different interests and it was very hard to keep that together as a force."

Professor Prasser believes even if One Nation does survive this latest challenge, it will only last another couple of years.

"We are seeing the decline of another minor party just like the Democratic Labor Party ... the Australian Democrats of course still going but a pale shadow of their former selves," he said.

"It is very hard for minor parties to survive in the long term. They must have a very particular niche and I think the Greens have got that particular niche."