by DANIEL Y TENG – ONE Nation’s NSW State executive has been disbanded by federal leader Pauline Hanson.
Ms Hanson announced the surprise move in a letter to the leadership team citing the NSW branch’s failure to pick up any extra seats at the most recent election.
- The move will have no effect on Mr Latham’s position in the Parliament, where he will remain until 2031.
- Qld and Tas didn’t lift a finger to help NSW One Nation during the March election campaign.
- Hanson’s justification for the NSW takeover is One Nation’s upper house vote, which fell by one per cent in March.
The move leaves the Party in NSW without a State leader, despite having three upper house members in the Legislative Assembly – Mark Latham, Rod Roberts and Tania Mahailuk.
A replacement executive is currently in place and the position of State leader remains vacant, Senator Hanson’s office told AAP on August 14.
SACKED
“Nobody has been sacked from the Party as such,” a spokesperson said.
The State executive is responsible for the operations of the Party within its jurisdiction including campaigning, selecting candidates and donations.
Mr Latham has responded strongly to the move saying it was done “without consultation or due process”, accusing Ms Hanson and the national executive of taking over the branch.
“She has installed her own new State executive with people from Queensland and Tasmania who did not lift a finger to help us during the March election campaign,” he wrote on social media.
“Hanson’s sole justification for this takeover is our upper house vote, which fell by one per cent in March. Yet our six per cent result was still two per cent ahead of the NSW Senate result last year in a campaign Hanson herself headed,” he said.
“In Queensland, Hanson’s [federal] Senate vote fell by three per cent and she only just scrapped in for re-election. If she is worried about underperformance, her best solution is to buy a mirror.”
Mr Latham said the federal branch should not interfere in the processes of the NSW branch and also accused it of attempting to misuse funds – a claim Ms Hanson’s office has rejected.
TAKEOVER
“The Queensland takeover is not about performance. It is about money. As NSW’s One Nation Leader I have stood in the way of attempts to misuse our funds, especially the administration money contributed by NSW taxpayers through the Electoral Commission,” Mr Latham said.
I will continue to fight for the proper, ethical use of this money.
He also clarified he was “never” a member of the NSW State executive, but noted the body controlled the finances of the branch.
“I’ll have more to say on this money matter when the NSW Parliament sits next week,” he foreshadowed.
The move will have no effect on Mr Latham’s position in the Parliament, where he will remain until 2031.
It comes as Mr Latham prepares to contest a defamation charge from Independent NSW MP Alex Greenwich over a social media post describing a gratuitous sexual act – the post has since been deleted.
The action also encompasses additional comments in The Daily Telegraph newspaper where he accused Mr Greenwich of being a “disgusting human being who goes to schools to groom children to become homosexual”.
APOLOGISE
Mr Latham’s post was condemned across the political spectrum with Senator Hanson calling on the MP to apologise.
“I want you to know I don’t condone them [Mr Latham’s words] and neither do my MPs or Party associates,” she told supporters in March.
The former NSW leader’s lawyers will argue that Mr Greenwich’s reputation did not suffer serious harm.
Further, they will rely on the defence of “honest opinion”, according to court documents.PC
I think I speak for many NSW One Nation members when I say we’re disappointed to see Mark Latham kicked, especially while he’s fighting Greenwich.
I understand there are other variables at play, clash of personalities, whether his tweets are politically expedient, Pauline is the leader etc. etc. but, nevertheless, there are so few public figures willing to go into bat for conservative values, it’s such a shame to not stick together.
The left never abandon their own, which is why they always win. Alex Greenwich can do & say literally anything he likes, and he’ll never be ousted by his side of politics. The left-wing media are abolutely loving that Latham is out, which I think says it all.
Anyway, Pauline and ON principles will never lose my support, but neither will Latham. We can’t turn 90% allies into 10% enemies if we’re ever going to hit the brakes on insanity in this country.
The single reason why One Nation should not be taken seriously as a political party is Pauline Hanson. She is, to use the popular cliche, a control freak. Moreover, she is a flaky control freak.
Pauline is great with her policies, but she is a bit of a control freak. She also sacked one another member, Steve Dickson for touching a stripper at a strip club. Really? And then there was the time she told a convoy of truckers heading for Canberra that they’d proved their point, they could go home now. I never saw what Latham wrote that was so disgusting, but she should have just let it ride. After all what is worse – bad policies, lies and corruption or such discrepancies in behaviour of otherwise good operators?
Please explain?
lol
Hang on, she created the party out of thin air because she quickly identified that the LNP were conservative in-name-only, long before many useful idiots did, and has been under constant attack for – what – three decades since? I think I can cut her some slack for saying: “Bugger this, it’s my way or the highway as far as this brand goes.” I’m a huge Latham fan; I wrote to express my disappointment with this move to the party executive right away, but the idea that what she’s achieved isn’t “serious” is ludicrous. You start a party next week, let the MSM call you a racist bigot for 20 years, put you in gaol on trumped-up charges etc. We’ll see how many seats you win. She’s deserving of respect for even having a crack.