Pauline Hanson remains as divisive a figure as when she first entered politics. Credit:Wolter Peeters "If you don't want to see them elected, deal with the concerns of their constituents. "It's simple. That's what we did." Mr Beattie's 1998 minority state government had to work with 11 One Nation MPs after the party gained 23 per cent of the Queensland vote. Ms Hanson was at the time the federal MP for Oxley, at Ipswich.

Now senator-elect Hanson casts her vote earlier in 2016. Credit:Robert Shakespeare "The community elected them and we treated them with respect and worked with them," Mr Beattie said after it was confirmed One Nation had won two Queensland Senate spots and four nationally in the 2016 election. "We didn't agree with their policies but we went out and dealt with the concerns of their constituents," he told Fairfax Media. Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie says Pauline Hanson deserves recognition for her determination. Credit:Tony Moore "And their constituents were worried about jobs, their futures, their kids."

Unemployment was a major issue in the early to mid-1990s and youth unemployment was in double figures in many regional Queensland cities and towns. "There was a lot of job insecurity at the time and that's what we did," Mr Beattie said. "We just treated them with respect and worked with them. "Whether I agreed with their policies, or not, was beside the point. "The fact is they're elected and once they have been elected they are legitimately representatives of democracy and you have to work with and you have to listen to them."

Mr Beattie said he could not give an example where One Nation used its numbers to influence legislation, "because we stuck pretty close to our program". But he said he began Labor's "community cabinets" in regional cities after the 1998 election. "The first community cabinet was held in a One Nation seat around Cairns; Mulgrave I think it was," he said. "We went into Mulgrave and we got all the local people to come and talk to us." Mr Beattie said the One Nation MPs of 1998 were "relatively inexperienced" and "went through their own internal traumas".

"But they are a different kettle of fish now," he said. "Pauline Hanson is not inexperienced. She has been around a long time." One Nation won 11 Queensland seats at Queensland's 1998 state poll, but infighting led to One Nation being de-registered in Queensland in 1999. At the 2001 state election all but three One Nation MPs lost their seats and all MPs standing for their splinter group, the City Country Alliance, lost their seats. "Their political inexperience I think partly led to their downfall," Mr Beattie said.

"But they are not going to go through the same thing again," he said. "Pauline Hanson has been around longer than me." Mr Beattie said he could not see One Nation senators falling away from the party like Clive Palmer's senators did in the previous federal parliament, or like One Nation's Queensland MPs did in 1999. In Queensland in 1998-99, One Nation's MPs split into the now disbanded City Country Alliance and One Nation. One Nation has held a Queensland senate previously, between 1998 and 2004, when Len Harris was given One Nation's senate spot that was originally won by respected Ipswich family resource worker Heather Hill.