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The Guardian
July 16,
2003
Summary: Brief article
about the defeat of ex-Australian Member of Parliament Pauline
Hanson, and her disintegrating One Nation party.
The Guardian
One
Nation leader in fraud case
By David Fickling
July 16,
2003 Pauline Hanson, the former leader of Australia's far-right One
Nation party, appeared in court yesterday charged with fraud in
connection with her all but defunct party. She pleaded not guilty to
charges of defrauding Queensland's electoral commission when One
Nation was registered. Ms Hanson, whose tirades against immigrants
and Aborigines made her an unmistakable figure in Australian
politics in the late 1990s, has been embroiled in legal problems
since she lost her parliamentary seat in 1998. Her party has since
been involved in a bitter split, and along with her co-accused, One
Nation director David Ettridge, her only support yesterday came from
20 protesters outside the court. Within months of her election to
the Canberra parliament in 1996 Ms Hanson was seen as a rising
force. Interest peaked when One Nation polled 8% of the national
vote in elections in 1998, in the same poll in which Ms Hanson lost
her seat. Despite the interest, the party soon imploded in
in-fighting. In April, Ms Hanson's political hopes were dashed when
she was denied a place in the New South Wales upper house. The
state's proportional representation system should have made a seat
for her a certainty, but she was beaten by a gun ownership lobby,
the Shooters party. |
