Al-Jazeera journalist posing as gun campaigner films senior party
figures in Washington DC soliciting financial support to help One Nation
seize the balance of power
Senior One Nation
figures James Ashby and Steve Dickson have been caught seeking millions
of dollars of political donations from US gun rights group the National
Rifle Association in a bid to seize the balance of power and weaken
Australia’s gun laws.
The revelations are contained in an al-Jazeera investigation which used hidden cameras and a journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.
The footage captures Dickson, the party’s Queensland state leader and formerly a Liberal-National minister in Queensland, and Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, endorsing NRA counter-attack lines in the event of a gun massacre.
The investigation is likely to damage One Nation both because the
party was publicly supporting the proposed ban on foreign political
donations at the time and because weakening gun laws has become even
more politically toxic in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.The revelations are contained in an al-Jazeera investigation which used hidden cameras and a journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.
The footage captures Dickson, the party’s Queensland state leader and formerly a Liberal-National minister in Queensland, and Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, endorsing NRA counter-attack lines in the event of a gun massacre.
The trade minister, Simon Birmingham, has seized on the revelations to argue One Nation is a “risk to Australia’s national harmony” and the ban on foreign donations. The expose adds fuel to an internal Coalition brawl about preferencing One Nation at the upcoming federal election.
In the footage, Ashby suggests his aims in meeting the NRA are to ask the group “to rally their supporters within Australia”, adding “I’d love to get my hands on their software … [and] if they can help us with donations, super”.
In a meeting with Rodger Muller, who posed as a gun rights advocate from the fake lobby group Gun Rights Australia, Ashby suggested that $10m of funding would help the party “pick up eight Senate seats”.
Dickson suggested that with the balance of power One Nation will “have the testicles of the government in our hand at every given stage”.
“And guns, in the scheme of things, are still going to be the be-all and end-all,” he said.
Ashby and Dickson met with senior NRA officials to discuss funding, gun laws and communications strategy, including NRA media liaison Lars Dalseide who offered advice on what to say in response to mass shootings.
Dalseide suggested pro-gun politicians should “shame” opponents with lines such as “How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?” Dickson replied: “I love that.”
In response to the line “If your policy, isn’t good enough to stand on itself, how dare you use their deaths to push that forward”, Ashby commented “that’s very good, very strong”.
Muller also recorded a meeting between the One Nation staffers and representatives from Koch Industries, which funds various conservative causes in the US.
Before the meeting Muller asked the pair how much money they would seek. Dickson suggested $10m, a demand which Ashby promptly doubled to $20m.
There is no evidence One Nation was successful in its efforts to solicit funding from the NRA, Koch Industries or any of the other American groups the pair met on their trip.
In November the Australian parliament banned foreign political donations, laws that came into effect on 1 January.
In a Senate debate party leader Pauline Hanson said that “overseas money should not have an influence on our political scene” and foreign donations “should be totally stopped”.
Before meeting with the NRA and Koch Industries, Ashby expressed concern about the political consequences if contact with American pro-gun lobby groups became public.
“If it gets out, it’ll fucking rock the boat,” Ashby said. “This shit goes through my head every single minute of my day.”
Hanson did not go on the trip, explaining she had a “gut feeling” that “it is not going to be good for me”.
The party claimed al-Jazeera is “a state-owned propaganda arm of the Qatari government … not a legitimate media organisation”, accusing Muller of being a “foreign agent”.
The party said it had referred the matter to the Australian federal police, questioning whether it amounted to “foreign interference into Australian politics”.
“One Nation strongly supports the rights of lawful gun ownership within Australia and have clearly outlined our policy on our website. One Nation members have always complied with the law.”
Scott Morrison said the report that One Nation had “courted foreign political donations from the US gun lobby to influence our elections [and] undermine our gun laws” was “deeply concerning”.
He committed not to change Australia’s gun laws and praised the ban on foreign political donations but has so far not weighed in on whether the report will influence Coalition preferences at the May election.
Reports that senior One Nation officials courted foreign political donations from the US gun lobby to influence our elections & undermine our gun laws that keep us safe are deeply concerning.
Australia's gun laws are world’s best thanks to John Howard & we will not be changing them. Thankfully our Gov has also made laws to criminalise taking foreign political donations so foreign lobbyists cannot seek to influence our politics. It took a Coalition Gov to do both.
Birmingham told ABC Radio on Tuesday that Hanson must “front the cameras” to explain whether the party wants to weaken gun laws which is a “remarkable thing to even contemplate at this time of reflection on the tragedy in Christchurch”.
He said the investigation showed One Nation is “a risk to our national harmony and integrity” , the foreign donation ban and gun laws.
Birmingham, a senior Liberal moderate, has publicly suggested the party should put “extremists” last on its how-to-vote cards, applying pressure to Scott Morrison, who has refused to say whether One Nation is racist and to commit to put One Nation last.
Birmingham reiterated that call on Tuesday, noting One Nation are “extremists” when it comes to trade policy, a tag he also applied to the Greens, who he said are also extremists on tax policy.
The shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus said that One Nation’s “race baiting rhetoric wasn’t enough for Scott Morrison to put One Nation last [but] surely now, a line has been crossed”.
“Morrison’s government is hopelessly split over this important issue,” he said. Shockingly, up to 10 Liberal, National and LNP MPs have now supported preferencing One Nation above Labor.”
The Nationals deputy leader, Bridget McKenzie, told Radio National that potential for the NRA to influence Australian politics was “exactly why our government introduced foreign donation legislation – to ban this sort of foreign influence in our political system”.
But McKenzie held the line on preferences, explaining they will be determined by state branches with local input after nominations close. She backed her colleague MP Ken O’Dowd who wants the Greens put last, explaining they would “decimate” local industries.
The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said that One Nation was “craven … in their pursuit of power” and “willing to make us less safe by weakening our strong gun laws”.
“If the Liberal party has any regard for the safety of Australians they must commit to putting Pauline Hanson’s One Nation last on their ticket.”
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