pt 2.

In the 2001 Queensland state election, One Nation won three seats and 8.69% of the primary vote. The City-Country Alliance lost all of its seats and faded into irrelevance soon afterwards. In the same year, at the state election in Western Australia, One Nation won three seats in the state’s Legislative Council.

At the 2004 Queensland election, One Nation polled less than 5% of the vote and its sole elected representative, Rosa Lee Long, stood as an independent. One Nation attempted to defend its Queensland Senate seat at the 2004 federal election but lost it (effectively to the National Party). Len Harris’s Senate term expired on 30 June 2005.

In October 2000, Hanson expelled Oldfield from the party. Oldfield had been accused of abusing his authority, usurping power, and setting up alternative political parties under his control. His expulsion created even more instability. Oldfield engineered a split within the party, creating One Nation NSW, in 2001. Due to David Oldfield’s behind the scenes determination to undermine Pauline Hanson and gain control as leader of the party, Pauline finally resigned at a National Executive meeting in January 2002 that was manipulated and controlled by Oldfield’s minions and elected Pauline Hanson’s Western Australian members of Parliament John Fischer and Frank Hough. Oldfield overestimated his popularity with the membership. They never wanted him to lead the party.

One Nation became subject to a political campaign by Tony Abbott then a Minister of the Howard Government and later to become Prime Minister of Australia in 2010, who established a trust fund called “Australians for Honest Politics Trust” to help bankroll civil court cases against the Party (see Tony Abbott Action against the One Nation party). He was also accused of offering funds to One Nation dissident and former member, Terry Sharples in 1998 after the successful Queensland state election, and just prior to the 1998 federal election, to support his court battle against the party. Abbott conceded that the political threat One Nation posed to the Howard Government was “a very big factor” in his decision to pursue the legal attack, but he also claimed to be acting “in Australia’s national interest”.

Since the 1998 peak, internal divisions have plagued One Nation. Fraud charges brought about by Terry Sharples saw Hanson the Party Agent, forced to repay approximately A$502,000 of public funding won at the 1998 Queensland election, back to the ECQ, amid claims that the party was fraudulently registered. Hanson never personally received one cent of the funding, which initially went to repay candidates and election costs.

The charges alleged that the party didn’t have 500 members of the political party when registered in 1998 but were alleged to be 500 members of the Pauline Hanson’s Support Movement. After a lengthy criminal trial in 2003, Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge were found guilty and imprisoned for 3 years. On the 3rd appeal, their sentences were quashed. Hanson and Ettridge were released after serving 11 weeks in maximum security at the Wacol Women’s and Men’s Correctional Centre’s. Oldfield was never charged but was noted by his staff that he assisted police with their investigation. There was no love lost between Oldfield and Hanson.

The Electoral Commission of Queensland refused to reimbursed Hanson for the monies stating she had no claim under the Act. Pauline Hanson believes she has every right to be reimbursed the $502,000 she had to personally pay back to the Electoral Commission in light of the charges being quashed but has not pursued the matter due to legal costs. Also, Pauline Hanson has never received any compensation for her wrongful imprisonment and declares that she should never have been charged at all. It was a political witch-hunt to destroy Hanson and One Nation.

During its brief period of popularity, One Nation had a major impact on Australian politics. The primary effect at state and federal levels was to split the conservative vote and threaten the National Party’s support base. The appeal of its policies to the National Party’s constituency put great pressure on that party. The rapid rise of the party revealed a substantial minority of discontented voters dissatisfied with the major parties.

In the prologue to her autobiography Untamed and Unashamed, Hanson cites the Howard government’s adoption of her policies as an attempt to win back One Nation voters to the Liberal and National parties, stating “the very same policies I advocated back then … are being advocated today by the federal government”.  Pauline Hanson broke the chains of political correctness that was stifling political debate.  Other political parties have taken up a lot of her policies. In 2004 Andrew Bolt wrote an article ‘Hanson Ahead of Her Time’.

pt. 4

pt 5.

Yep no one can refute the history not even poor old obsessive bwian...