Pauline Hanson’s South Park inspired cartoon series for conservatives was adapted into a 90-minute feature film with the assistance of a crack team of Filipino animaters.
Amid revelations that One Nation is paying offshore virtual assistants to create Facebook pages for candidates, it’s now emerged the nation is also playing a starring role in creating the cartoon series Please Explain.
Despite criticising globalisation and the loss of jobs offshore, it turns out that One Nation has paid a Melbourne-based company to create the popular animated series that uses animaters from the Philippines.
Stepmates Studio has worked with animaters in the region for years as the Philippines emerges as a global animation powerhouse.
For example, on LinkedIn, a man who lists his location as Calabarzon, Philippines, claims to have been animating for Stepmates studios since February 2022, ahead of the first episode of the cartoon being released in May 2022.
Several other animaters list their employment as Stepmates on LinkedIn, with one providing a link to a demo reel that includes scenes from Please Explain.
Or, as it would be expressed in the Philippines, “Paki-paliwanag PO?”.
Another man states on Facebook that he was a storyboard artist for Stepmates.
In March 2026, the same man posted a photo of what appears to be a dinner of the Filipino crew who work on the Please Explain videos.
The caption refers to a “Sir Seb” and a “Sir Mark” – the two owners of Stepmates Studio – praising them as great bosses.
Both the cartoon and the feature-length movie, A Super Progressive Movie, are credited to Stepmates Studios, the Melbourne-based animation studio run by Mark Nicholson and Sebastian Peart.
Stepmates studio co-owner Mike Nicholson previously criticised the local film industry as bloated and revealed that he and fellow owner Mr Peart worked so hard on the film that they slept on the floor of their studio.
“[Australian film] has become this bloated bureaucracy producing crap. ‘Run and done’ filmmaking like The Castle isn’t being incentivised, even though all the camera and sound gear to do it has never been cheaper.”
Suicide bomber ‘joke’
But the series has sparked controversy, with episodes that depict a Middle Eastern character as a suicide bomber posing as a food delivery man who is trying to blow up the Prime Minister.
“People are saying, ‘Pauline – where are your cartoons? We want to see your cartoons,’” Ms Hanson said when the movie was launched on Australia Day.
“Well, the big surprise is, we’re actually putting out the movie.”
It’s the same cartoon series that triggered legal action after an episode titled The State of Queensland satirically depicted Robert Irwin alongside a reproduction of the iconic cartoon dog Bluey.
Lawyers representing Mr Irwin sent a letter to Stepmates Studios hours after the episode’s release, threatening to apply for an injunction and commence defamation proceedings if the cartoon was not removed.
One Nation paying virtual assistants in the Philippines
News.com.au confirmed with One Nation that the political party continues to use offshore workers to create Facebook sites for candidates.
However, all the of content and material uploaded is created in Australia.
“During the election cycles we have all the Facebook pages established by virtual assistant,’’ a One Nation spokesman said.
“They don’t control the Facebook pages. All of the content is created here. But when establishing 150 candidate pages all at once, we use a template that is populated by virtual assistants.
“Where possible we are going to use Australian companies but in this case when we need to create them on scale …
“I think they are just virtual assistants which means it is a combination of workers and AI as well.”
It’s not known how much One Nation is paying the virtual assistants.
What is known is the general going rate for an offshore VA in the region is anywhere from $4 to $8 an hour.
Some virtual assistants earn around $600 a month.
One Nation raises $4 million
Meanwhile, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has now raised more than $4 million from voters to run a “Fire the Liar” campaign against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Voters have strongly backed the crowd-funding campaign, which embraces tactics One Nation previously slammed as “disgusting”.
The fundraising grudge match kicked off after the leader of the ALP emailed members asking for cash to “stop One Nation” prompting Senator Hanson to blow up.
“Albo and his MP’s lie and cheat Aussies out of home ownership, a decent standard of living and a comfortable retirement. One Nation has proven we can win lower house seats – so it’s time to target Labor-held seats,” she wrote in a post to social media.
