One Nation in crisis mode
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is in crisis mode after a dramatic eruption of a long-simmering feud between her and her longest serving senator Brian Burston, who she accused of stabbing her in the back and trying to defect to another party.
NSW
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PAULINE Hanson’s One Nation is in crisis mode after a dramatic eruption of a long-simmering feud between her and her longest serving senator Brian Burston, who she accused of stabbing her in the back and trying to defect to another party.
The revelation came after Mr Burston — the only remaining One Nation senator apart from Ms Hanson elected in 2016 — broke with his party to pledge his support for the Turnbull government’s $35.6 billion business tax cut plan.
Ms Hanson, in an emotional interview with Sky News, said it wasn’t “the first time Brian has stabbed me in the back, and that goes back a long time ago”.
“This hurts me, it hurts me deeply … it means so much to me what I’m trying to do and for him to turn around and do this to me, it’s hard,” she said.
Miranda Live: Pauline Hanson won’t change tax cut stance
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers leader Robert Borsak tonight confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that Mr Burston had approached the party’s state director Filip Despotoski earlier today requesting a meeting.
“The answer was thank you very much, but no thanks, we won’t be meeting, or words to that effect,” Mr Borsak, an MP in the NSW Parliament, said.
But Mr Burston disputed Ms Hanson’s account, and claimed she had been refusing to speak to him after he was dumped as the One Nation party whip last week following his refused to “backflip” and break a deal with the government over the business tax cuts.
“It was a little bit of a payback, it was a little bit of a punishment for not supporting her position in terms of those tax cuts,” Mr Burston said.
Two other One Nation senators elected in 2016 — Rod Culleton in Western Australia and Malcolm Roberts in Queensland — were both separately found to have been ineligible to sit in Parliament and have since been replaced.
Mr Roberts’ replacement, Fraser Anning, has since become an independent.
The Australian yesterday reported Mr Burston would support Treasurer Scott Morrison’s big business tax cut plan at odds with Ms Hanson, who changed her mind last week and said she would oppose it despite earlier striking a deal with the government.
But Mr Morrison still needs to find four more votes for the tax cut to pass the Senate, with other crossbenchers including Centre Alliance and Derryn Hinch looking unlikely to change their position after months of negotiation.