THE MOCK notice being circulated from One Nation's head office in Sydney ridicules the party's five Queensland MPs and their supporters who formed the rebel One Nation Queensland party this week.
The fortunes of One Nation members can change in a flash. The "monkeys" and "clowns" referred to elsewhere in the notice include some in the party who, until a few days ago, were among Pauline Hanson's closest confidantes.
People such as the party's former senator-elect Heather Hill, political adviser Ian Petersen, and Internet webmaster Scott Balson. All three were by Hanson's side just 18 months ago as she beamed down from the Queensland Parliament's public gallery at her crop of newly elected 11 One Nation MPs.
All three, along with the MPs, join the legion of One Nation "whiteants", like others who have been close to Hanson but are now on the outer - her former private secretary, Barbara Hazelton; her biographer, Helen Dodd; her movement's founder, Bruce Whiteside.
This year is ending for One Nation the same way it began. Early in 1999, five of the Queensland MPs quit the party, citing concerns about lack of accountability and the unchecked power wielded by the leadership troika of Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge.
It happened again this week with the departure of five more in similar circumstances. The 11th MP, Charles Rappolt, quit soon after his election and has since committed suicide. Ten Green Bottles is a favorite ditty among One Nation's detractors.
One Nation shook the Australian body politic with its 24per cent vote in the Queensland election. Now, instead of having 13 MPs nationally, the party is left with just two - Oldfield in the New South Wales Upper House and Senator Len Harris in Queensland. Polls suggest voters are tiring of the One Nation circus.
The latest imbroglio began with a decision by the five remaining Queensland MPs to register a separate party because, they said, they were concerned about having been in limbo since the official party's deregistration in August. The Supreme Court found its registration was induced by fraud or misrepresentation. A police investigation into the role played by Hanson and Ettridge in the registration is continuing.
One Nation is appealing that finding. At a telephone hook-up eight days ago with the five MPs, Ettridge and Oldfield agreed to set up a new party as an interim measure, pending the appeal, in case an early election or byelection was called.
But Ettridge, the party's national director, suspected that the MPs intended to break away. He wrote to the Queensland Electoral Commissioner, Des O'Shea, the day before the hook-up, warning that the words One Nation were a trademark and that registration of another party using those words would face Federal Court action.
Ettridge also wrote to the MPs' Leader, Bill Feldman, warning of "dissidents who work tirelessly to drive the wedge between us". None the less, Feldman rejected Ettridge's compromise that an interim party be formed, but with Hanson as its registered officer. Before she left for holidays in the United States, Hanson had signed the necessary documentation in case such a move was needed. But Feldman insisted that Ian Petersen be the registered officer.
"It's obvious that all along, what they really wanted to do was to create another party," Ettridge says. He adds that the rebels have joined an "unholy alliance" including such former One Nation identities as Tony Pitt, an extremist right-wing newspaper publisher.
Heather Hill, a key figure behind the move, was sacked by Len Harris, who hired her as his senior adviser after Hill's election to the Senate was overturned by a High Court challenge. Harris had taken Hill's Senate place.
Harris also sacked his research officer, Brett Hocking, who was escorted by armed Federal Police from the Commonwealth parliamentary offices in Brisbane.
Hill, until recently a close friend of Hanson's, said she quit the party's national executive last month over Ettridge's refusal to account for $5million in One Nation funds. When she tried to find out, she claims, the "two Davids" threatened her with defamation proceedings.
Hill is considering legal action against her dismissal. In an unusual twist, she has been offered assistance by Sydney businessman Chuck Hong, who mounted the successful High Court challenge which cost her a political career.
Hill also revealed Hanson was being paid $80,000 a year as One Nation's national president - the only paid party president in Australia.
Ettridge says $3.2million in federal election funding paid into a trust account has been fully accounted for, but he won't release an Australian Electoral Commission report, which, he says, confirms this.
Ettridge says another $1.2million from NSW election funding paid into a separate account has also been accounted for, while $500,000 in Queensland election funding and membership fees has been paid to autonomous state branches. "We have done absolutely nothing wrong." (The $500,000 will have to be repaid if One Nation loses its Queensland court appeal.)
Ettridge says Hanson asked to be removed from One Nation's payroll two months ago.
It is clear that the rebels were attempting to wrest control of One Nation from Ettridge and Oldfield. They left open the presidency of their new party for Hanson, hoping to persuade her to disown the two Davids and jump ship. But she declared from her American holiday retreat that she would have nothing to do with One Nation Queensland.
Hanson, who returns on 9 January, is expected to take Hill's job as Harris's adviser. After her failure to be elected the MP for Blair, Hanson is likely to again be prowling the corridors of Parliament House.
The events this week mean there are now three One Nation-related political parties in Queensland. One of the former MPs, Jeff Knuth, has pinched the Nationals' old name for his Townsville-based Country Party. This party is also collapsing, just weeks after its creation.
It says something about One Nation that its leaders are now pouring scorn on its former standardbearers in the Queensland Parliament. Ettridge describes them as "very ordinary" and confesses they were "bunged" into Parliament.
Oldfield says they have always been an embarrassment and that the most embarrassing of all, Jack Paff, was a prime mover of the split. Paff has gained notoriety for peccadillos ranging from making lurid comments about a female journalist to impersonating a Cabinet minister at a Brisbane jail.
What now for One Nation's electoral prospects? It is easy to surmise that no party could survive the public blood-letting that has become the party's hallmark, especially when it involves the defection of 11 MPs.
But it is too early to write Hanson off. Oldfield was elected in NSW, and One Nation came close to winning a second Upper House spot, just weeks after the first batch of Queensland MPs quit in a blaze of adverse publicity.
Oldfield says the party will defy the polls - which indicate its vote nationally has slumped to about 5per cent - as it did in Queensland and at the federal election. "This is really just a speed bump and once these people have gone, they can't cause us any more trouble."
Whether his confidence is well-placed will be determined when - assuming the Beattie Government resists the temptation to go to an early election - a byelection is held in the Ipswich seat of Bundamba. That seat was vacated this week by the resignation of Tourism Minister Bob Gibbs. The byelection will be held in February or March.
Bundamba is One Nation heartland. The party polled 34per cent in the seat in the state election. Because One Nation is deregistered, its ability to field an official candidate may depend on whether the court upholds its appeal against the Supreme Court finding before the poll; if the appeal is rejected, the party will not have time to reregister but will stand a Hanson-backed independent.
The rebel MPs party will also field a candidate, possibly Hill, who narrowly failed to win a nearby state seat in the Queensland poll. What is left of the Hansonite vote will be split. To avoid a legal wrangle with One Nation, the rebels are expected to drop the words One Nation from their party's title.
The One Nation candidate in Bundamba is expected to be Colene Hughes, its candidate in the last federal election for Hanson's old seat of Oxley. The irony of this is not lost on observers. Earlier this year, Ettridge branded Hughes a whiteant and expelled her. He was forced to back down when local members expressed outrage, with the Ipswich branch resolving to ignore the expulsion letter and gaining a sympathetic ear from Hanson.
Such is life in One Nation.