Pauline Hanson Hits Back After Mark Latham Accuses One Nation Of Misappropriating Funds
Image: Image: Wikimedia Commons
Days after One Nation leader Pauline Hanson fired Mark Latham, the NSW MLC has accused the party of misappropriating funds.
Hanson in turn denied the allegations and dared Latham to repeat his statement outside Parliament, without the protection of Parliamentary privilege.
Lathan told NSW Parliament on Tuesday that he and fellow One Nation MLC had quit the party, following what he termed the “Queensland takeover of the One Nation New South Wales branch”.
“I cannot remain as a One Nation MP due to past attempts at defrauding New South Wales electoral funds and the appointment of a new State executive orchestrated to repeat those rorts,” Latham claimed. He informed Parliament that he had raised his concerns “about the integrity of New South Wales electoral funding paid to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in a letter to the Special Minister of State John Graham.
One Nation Accused Of Rorting Funds
In his letter, Latham alleged that in September 2021 he had to “threaten Queensland One Nation with going to the police in order to recover $102,000 in administration funds it had misappropriated.”
“A similar rort had been attempted by James Ashby (Hanson’s Chief of Staff) in the 2019 New South Wales election campaign. In both cases, I stepped in to stop the illegality. Now the New South Wales One Nation State executive has been recast by the rorting Queenslanders to get their hands on the administration funds again, especially with the appointment of Steve “Mav” Mavrigiannakis as party treasurer,” Latham claimed.
Latham insisted he and Roberts had resigned from the party as they found themselves “powerless”to stop the alleged rorts.
Latham accused Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Brisbane office of engaging in “in merchandise promotion and sales well beyond the normal practices of any other political party, a good deal of it for money laundering purposes in this cash economy political party.”
Hanson Dares Latham
Hanson in a statement said she completely rejected the allegations made by Latham. “I utterly reject the allegations made by these individuals under the protection of parliamentary privilege,” Senator Hanson.
“I’d invite them to repeat these statements outside of the parliament but they would never accept it, because then they would be forced to tell the truth,” Hanson said and defended her decision to sack Latham over the party’s poor performance in the state elections.
“Ultimately these men need to accept responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming literally anyone but themselves. Because they have not taken any responsibility for the poor performance of One Nation at the 2023 NSW state election, the party has been forced to appoint a new state executive to review the organisation and improve our performance in future elections.”
Hanson said Latham’s response was “entirely predictable – deflecting blame for their shortcomings onto others”.
Its very hard to work out who is worse – Latham or Hanson. A pox on all their houses.
I love it when the kiddies fight. But good grief, what will they be like when they grow up ?
Has Pauline ever asked herself why her organisation seems to regularly attract the likes of Mark Latham? No, that would involve a level of introspection beyond her capacity.