Just in case you thought that the week could not get any more insane for Pauline Hanson and her [checks notes] political party One Nation, her recent press conference was… look, it was interesting.
Specifically, the bit where she insisted that she has “never sought donations or political guidance from the NRMA.”
And in her defence, she’s right: as best as anyone has been able to ascertain, One Nation have not sought funds from the National Roads and Motorists’ Association.
.@PaulineHansonOz: Media across Australia have been blinded by their hate and bias towards One Nation and myself, and rushed to report on heavily edited footage … Comments aired have been taken completely out of context.
MORE: https://t.co/KrCm7ckuUx #newsday pic.twitter.com/T6iUEdHPJl
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) March 28, 2019
Her party members, including her chief of staff James Ashby and the leader of the Queensland branch of the party Steve Dickson, did however go to the US in the apparent hope of raising money from the NRA, as in the National Rifle Association – as depicted in the documentary How To Sell A Massacre.
According to Hanson, however, this doco is made from “heavily edited” footage and she has called for al-Jazeera to release the complete video. And since the second part which features Hanson herself is airing this evening, “There are [my] comments that have been aired in relation to Port Arthur which have obviously been heavily edited” she insisted.
And one assumes that unedited video will include the bit where Hanson says “only a complete idiot would believe that…” before explaining how the Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy.
Oh, she also wanted to make clear that Ashby and Dickson would be keeping their jobs, despite Ashby’s “stupid remarks” and referencing the several open investigations against him, including being banned from Parliament House over a fistfight with ex-One Nation senator Brian Burston.
.@PaulineHansonOz: I am here to inform you today that James Ashby will remain as my chief of staff, and Steve Dickson will remain on the Senate ticket in Queensland.
MORE: https://t.co/KrCm7ckuUx #newsday pic.twitter.com/iptjZ5zQgy
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) March 28, 2019
You might recall that Ashby and Dickson’s excuse yesterday was that they were “on the sauce” when they unwittingly spoke on camera about wanting to weaken Australia’s gun laws, but that bit seems to have been replaced with… conspiracy!
So who was at fault? Glad you asked!
First up, “the Islamist al-Jazeera network” and undercover reporter Rodger Muller, who did the documentary.
Also, predictably, the ABC who “paid taxpayer dollars to the Islamist Qatari government” to broadcast the documentary, who” don’t have an ethical bone in their body”. She also called out new chair Ita Buttrose to cancel tonight’s broadcast, which seems like the entire point of the press conference.
And also anyone who claims One Nation likes guns, since apparently the party advocate gun laws “stronger than the new laws put forward by the New Zealand Prime Minister Jucinna O’Hearn”.
After a while it turned into a stump speech, claiming there’s a deal with the LIberals and Labor and segueing neatly into complaining about the UN and refugees and immigration levels and all the usual Hanson bugbears, like a tired muso soulessly strumming through their greatest hits.
And then, after insisting that she was accountable to the people of Australia, she left without taking questions because… um, accountability?
And, to be fair, One Nation’s new best buds from the NRA did teach them that the only response to criticism is “offence, offence, offence”.