Shows daily.
Delusion - power - law-defying feats - showgirls - rabid dogs - wild animals
- figure juggling - angry faces - hairy-chested men and women - and it's
coming to an electorate near you.
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 confidants. People
like the party's former senator-elect Heather Hill and political adviser
Ian Petersen. Both 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.
Both, along with the MPs, join the ever-growing legion of One Nation "white
ants", 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. There are many more. No other Australian
political leader has alienated so many lieutenants in so short a time.
This year is ending for One Nation the same way it began. Early this year,
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 favourite
ditty among One Nation's detractors.
One Nation shook the Australian body politic with its 24 per cent vote in
the Queensland election. Now, instead of having 13 MPs nationally, the party
is left with just two - Oldfield in the NSW Upper House and Senator Len Harris
from 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 continues into the role played
by Hanson and Ettridge in the registration.
One Nation is appealing that finding. At a phone hook-up eight days ago with
the five MPs, Ettridge and Oldfield agreed to the establishment of a new
party as an interim measure, pending the appeal, in case an early election
or a by-election was called.
But Ettridge, the party's national director, had smelled a rat. Suspecting
that the MPs' real intention was 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 had been registered as 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". Nonetheless, 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 former One Nation identities such as Tony Pitt, a right-wing
newspaper publisher who was at the press conference called by Feldman on
Monday to announce the move.
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.
A few days earlier, Harris had poured Hocking a glass of wine and told him
he was doing a great job.
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 $5 million
in One Nation funds. "I tried and tried to find out how where that money
went and they never provided me with financial documentation," Hill says.
"People always ask me at meetings where the $5 million has gone and I can't
tell them." 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 $3.2 million 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. "We don't have
to keep going out there and continually prove we are not the mafia."
Ettridge says another $1.2 million from NSW election funding paid into a
separate account has also been accounted for, while $500,000 in Queensland
election funding and membership fees have 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 ships.
But she declared from her American holiday retreat that she would have nothing
to do with One Nation Queensland. She refused to return the rebels' calls,
and did not consider the row sufficiently worrisome to come home earlier
than her scheduled return date of January 9.
Hanson 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 soon prowling
the corridors of Parliament House in Canberra.
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 also
is busily imploding, just weeks after its creation.
It says something about One Nation that its leaders are pouring scorn on
its former standard-bearers 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 controversies ranging from making lurid comments about
a female journalist to impersonating a Cabinet minister at a Brisbane jail
(which he denies) and manufacturing allegations about police misconduct.
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 5 per 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, presuming
the Beattie Government resists the temptation to go to an early election,
a by-election is held in the Ipswich seat of Bundamba, vacated this week
by the resignation of Tourism Minister Bob Gibbs. The by-election will be
held in February or March.
Bundamba is One Nation heartland. The party polled 34 per 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 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 white ant and expelled her. He was forced to back down when local members
expressed outraged, with the Ipswich branch resolving to ignore the expulsion
letter and gaining a sympathetic ear from Hanson.
Such is life in One Nation.
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