Pauline Hanson says One Nation victim of 'political attack' by al-Jazeera and ABC

Extract from The Guardian

One Nation

Hanson says she is standing by senior party officials James Ashby and Steve Dickson, who were secretly filmed trying to solicit millions from the NRA

Josephine Tovey

@Jo_Tovey

Thu 28 Mar 2019 17.45 AEDT First published on Thu 28 Mar 2019 16.31 AEDT

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is flanked by James Ashby (left) and Steve Dickson during a press conference in which she responded to an undercover investigation by al-Jazeera, in which Hanson appears to suggest the Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Pauline Hanson has claimed One Nation is the victim of selective editing, entrapment and a “political attack” by al-Jazeera in co-ordination with the ABC, in her first public appearance since an explosive secretly filmed documentary was revealed.
Flanked by her chief of staff James Ashby and Queensland state leader Steve Dickson, Hanson told a press conference in Brisbane she was standing by both men, who were filmed meeting with the US gun lobby and discussing millions of dollars of potential political donations in a bid to seize the balance of power in the Australian federal parliament.
The first part of the documentary aired on the ABC on Tuesday and the second half is due to air on Thursday night.

“This is a political attack by al-Jazeera in cooperation with the ABC. If the ABC had any ethical bone in their body, they would refuse to put this unfair and unbalanced story to air tonight,” Hanson said, before directly addressing the new chairwoman of the ABC.
“Ita Buttrose, you need to ask the question of your organisation as the chairwoman, is this the unethical behaviour you support or do you truly believe it should be aired before a full investigation by Asio and the federal police.”

In a lengthy preprepared speech, Hanson blamed one of the journalists involved, Rodger Muller, who posed as a gun campaigner, for setting up all the meetings with the US National Rifle Association and multinational energy giant Koch Industries.
“If it wasn’t for Rodger Muller and the Islamist al-Jazeera network, One Nation would never, never have had any association with the NRA, Koch industries or the congressional sportsmen’s dinner. They would never have gone to the United States,” she said.
Both al-Jazeera and the ABC have stood by the report and its content as being in the public interest.
Hanson did not take any questions from journalists during the press conference, walking out immediately after reading her preprepared remarks.
The second part of the documentary also shows Hanson appearing to question the veracity of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.
“An MP said it would actually take a massacre in Tasmania to change the gun laws in Australia,” Hanson was shown saying to Muller over dinner.
“Haven’t you heard that? Have a look at it. It was said on the floor of parliament. I’ve read a lot and I have read the book on it, Port Arthur. A lot of questions there.”
On Thursday Hanson said her comments had been “heavily edited” and did not “reflect how I feel about those tragedies that occurred in 1996”.
“There is no question in my mind, that Martin Bryant was the only person responsible for the murders of 35 innocent lives. My belief stands today that he should have faced the death penalty.”
Hanson’s original filmed comments caused deep distress to the families of Port Arthur victims on Thursday, according to the chief executive of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, which was named after two children, Alannah and Madeline Mikac, killed in the Tasmanian massacre.

“Walter Mikac said today it felt like a dagger going through his heart,” said Lesley Podesta.
“It’s just the most irresponsible, insensitive response that we’ve seen to a human tragedy.”
In the second part of the documentary, Dickson is filmed in a gun shop talking about the period after the Port Arthur massacre, when Australian gun owners were forced to hand over huge numbers of firearms as part of a mandatory buyback scheme.
“I lost all my guns,” Dickson says. “Terrible, that was a bad time for us ... it was like hell on earth.”
The documentary also sparked widespread outrage from politicians across the political spectrum this week and added to the pressure on prime minister Scott Morrison to preference One Nation last at the upcoming federal election. Morrison announced on Thursday that Liberals would place the party after Labor on their how-to-votes cards.
Hanson characterised One Nation as a victim of the media’s “hate and bias”, but in a long interlude, singled out some prominent Australian conservative hosts and other journalists for praise.

“I must congratulate Andrew Bolt for seeing through the spin and propaganda al- Jazeera and the ABC have aired,” she said.
“Alan Jones, who stood by me when I was imprisoned in 2003 and has, to this day, continued to give me a fair go. Paul Murray has always been there to offer me a platform, unlike so many others.”
Jones and his production company donated $10, 000 to One Nation in the lead-up to the New South Wales election, in which the party’s state leader Mark Latham secured a spot in the upper house.
The ABC stood by its decision to broadcast the documentary on Tuesday, saying in a statement it judged it was “clearly in the public interest that Australians had the opportunity to see this material for themselves.”

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Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the Qatari government, also stood by its reporting, saying their investigations are “conducted solely where wrongdoing or deception is brought to light and where the public interest is served”.
“The suggestion that our staff is involved in espionage is both unfounded and, quite frankly, farcical,” the international network said in a statement.
“We provided One Nation, Ms Hanson, Mr Dickson and Mr Ashby with an opportunity to comment on our evidence prior to broadcast but they declined to do so.”
In an interview earlier this week former al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who is also Unesco chair in journalism and communications at the University of Queensland, said the documentary “crossed an ethical line” by brokering meetings between One Nation and the gun lobby.
“Journalistic ethics require journalists to be open and transparent where possible and it’s understandable and acceptable to have undercover investigations,” Greste said.

“What concerns me is crossing the line into actually creating a story and not simply reporting it.”

On Thursday, Hanson said Ashby would retain his role as her chief of staff and Dickson would remain on One Nation’s Queensland Senate ticket for the upcoming election.