One Nation’s James Ashby and Steve Dickson claim NRA plot was ‘hatched after drinking for hours’
One Nation’s Mark Latham says the explosive Al Jazeera documentary which revealed his party was trying to source funds from a US gun-lobby group is spreading “poison through democracy”.
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One Nation’s Mark Latham says the explosive Al Jazeera documentary which revealed his party was trying to source funds from a US gun-lobby group is spreading “poison through democracy”.
The newly elected member said he is now wary of who he meets while in public life.
“It is poison for our democracy,” he told 2GB.
“Can I take a lobby group at face value? Can I treat people as I find them? Do I need to check if they are operatives for the ABC or Al Jazeera, or have I got to check for listening devices?
“The political bias is very clear — One Nation has been targeted. If they were interested in gun lobby money coming into Australian politics, why are they not looking into the Shooters Fishers Farmers party?
The Daily Telegraph contacted long-standing SFF NSW MP Rob Borsak who found the allegations laughable.
“That is ridiculous, we have never been associated with the NRA,” he said.
“In the late 90s, around 1997, we passed a resolution that the party would never be associated with the NRA.”
Mr Latham has also questioned the role the ABC played in the documentary.
“I assume the ABC had updates how the entrapment was going, the ABC has seemingly been party to the targeting to One Nation,” he said.
An ABC spokeswoman confirmed they were not involved in the making of the film in any way.
“The Al Jazeera documentary “How To Sell A Massacre” was commissioned and produced by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit. Al Jazeera approached the ABC about the documentary and we acquired the broadcast rights according to our usual procedures,” she said.
“The matters covered in the Al Jazeera program, including Australia’s gun control laws, are of national public interest. The ABC judged it was clearly in the public interest that Australians had the opportunity to see this material for themselves.
“The reaction of the Australian public to these revelations has supported that decision.”
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Yesterday, One Nation operatives claimed to have been drinking scotch for “three or four hours” when they hatched their shocking plan to solicit millions of dollars from the American gun lobby.
The secret recordings where Pauline Hanson’s inner circle push for weakening Australia’s gun regulations has caused Mr Latham to split from his federal colleagues and urge them to back our laws.
The revelations have also intensified pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to tell Coalition voters to put One Nation last at the ballot box in May or face internal mutiny.
An explosive Al Jazeera documentary recorded Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby and One Nation’s Queensland leader Steve Dickson meeting with the National Rifle Association in Washington DC in September as they asked for funding while saying they wanted to weaken Australia’s stringent gun laws.
The move has even drawn ridicule from the Shooters, Farmers and Fishers, with leader Robert Borsak saying that Australia’s regulations never have and never will look like those in America.
Mr Ashby on Tuesday admitted he and Mr Dickson were “on the sauce” when he said that $20 million in donations to One Nation from US pro-gun lobbyists would give them parliamentary influence in Australia.
“The conversations that have been recorded where there is a talk of $10 to $20 million, I will be the first to admit, we’d arrived in America … we’d had a few drinks and that’s where those discussions took place, not with any potential donors,” he said.
The pair admitted to being hoodwinked by reporter Rodger Muller posing as a campaigner for a fake lobby group called Gun Rights Australia, who set up and covertly recorded meetings between the Australians and the NRA.
During one of the meetings Mr Ashby and Mr Dickson discuss with NRA officials communications strategies for when people call for gun control after mass shootings.
“‘How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?’ Just shame them to the whole idea,” NRA media liaison Lars Dalseide said. Mr Dickson replied: “I love that.”
One Nation has referred the documentary to police and intelligence services, saying it is concerned about foreign interference in Australian politics.
“This is the stuff you see in James Bond magazines. I would never expect you would see this for real in the real world,” Mr Dickson said of the recording, claiming it was “skulduggery at its worst”.
Mr Latham said the actions of his federal colleagues did not “bear as a reflection of my thinking” — indicating cracks in party unity days after he was elected to the NSW upper house.
“I hope they do a U-turn here and start supporting what we’ve done in NSW, support the Howard gun laws, support abolition of any foreign donations and acknowledge what they’ve done in the US was perhaps quite a mistake,” he said.
Mr Morrison said it was “abhorrent” that “One Nation officials basically sought to sell Australia’s gun laws to the highest bidders”.
The Prime Minister again ruled out a preference deal with the right-wing party but when asked if this would prompt him to put One Nation below Labor on how-to-vote cards he said that would be up to the party’s state branches.
“Under our party’s structure, those decisions are made at the time of nominations closing. I said that last week, my position hasn’t changed,” he said. “There are many candidates who should go last. You won’t know all those names and all those individuals and all those parties, until nominations close.”
Australia's gun laws are world’s best thanks to John Howard & we will not be changing them. Thankfully our Gov has also made laws to criminalise taking foreign political donations so foreign lobbyists cannot seek to influence our politics. It took a Coalition Gov to do both.
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) March 25, 2019
But retiring cabinet minister Kelly O’Dwyer and former foreign minister Julie Bishop called for action.
“I can’t see any reason why One Nation wouldn’t be preferenced last,” Ms O’Dwyer said. Ms Bishop said “the question is whether you put One Nation below Labor and in my view that should happen”.
Labor leader Bill Shorten labelled it a test of Mr Morrison’s leadership, saying he “needs to make clear: not only does he like and defend our gun laws, but will he put One Nation last”.
Originally published as One Nation’s James Ashby and Steve Dickson claim NRA plot was ‘hatched after drinking for hours’
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