Pauline Hanson’s lieutenants offered to undermine gun laws to secure funding from Koch Industries

Pauline Hanson’s lieutenants offered to undermine Australia’s gun laws to secure secret funding from a US energy giant.

A video still from Al Jazeera’s report into One Nation. Picture: Al Jazeera

Pauline Hanson’s lieutenants offered to undermine Australia’s gun laws to secure secret funding from US energy giant Koch Industries, the company owned by one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors, likening any donation to “spaghetti … boof, boof, boof it ends up in your glass’’.

In the second part of Al Jazeera’s explosive documentary, One Nation Queensland leader Steve Dickson suggests that billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch had established a structure to pay political donations to avoid the money being traced.

“They do this all the time in countries all over the world,” Mr Dickson says, unaware he is being recorded. “This ain’t the first time. It’s impossible to track where the money is coming from because it’s like spaghetti … boof, boof, boof it ends up in your glass.”

The Australian is not suggesting Dickson’s statements about the billionaire brothers is accurate.

The scheme was laid out by Senator Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, and Mr Dickson in a meeting last September with Koch executive Catherine Haggett in Washington, covertly videoed as part of an expose of the Hanson party’s bid to woo cash from the American gun lobby.

In his pitch, Mr Dickson tells Ms Haggett: “We can change the voting system in our country, the way people operate, if we have got the money to do it. We have got the people, we have got the momentum, we have got Senator Pauline Hanson.

“She is the most recognised person not only in politics, but as a person in our country. So the ingredients are there. We just don’t have the petrol to put in the engine. Whatever you could do would be fantastic.”

Later, Mr Dickson tells the man who conducted the sting for Arab news TV network Al Jazeera, Rodger Muller — posing as the head of an non-existent Australian guns rights group — that One Nation would use US money to push the federal government to “supersede” state legislation that is key to the gun control regime set up after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre banning automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

A video still of One Nation chief of staff, James Ashby from the documentary. Picture: Al Jazeera

Part two of the Al Jazeera documentary How to Sell a Massacre, to air tonight on the ABC, details how the One Nation officials also approached the powerful National Rifle Association for money, as well as strategic advice on how to water down Australia’s tight gun laws.

Canvassing how any US donations could be funnelled to One Nation, Mr Dickson speculates that cash from the NRA would be red flagged if it were sent through Mr Muller’s sham Gun Rights Australia organisation. “The Electoral Commission will just come out at you going, ‘We are doing a full audit’,” Mr Dickson says, adding that it would “take five seconds” for the agency to discover the source of the money if it was from the NRA.

Mr Dickson and Mr Ashby travelled to Washington for meetings set up by Mr Muller, who had the US gun lobby equally fooled, before federal parliament passed legislation banning foreign political donations.

Senator Hanson is captured on tape explaining that she did not go because it wasn’t a “politically smart move”.

In part 2, Mr Ashby is filmed discussing how to sell a pro-gun message to Australians.

“It’s like Vegemite. You don’t put a f...ing bundle of the s... on your toast. A light smear at first, get them used to the flavour,” Mr Ashby says.

“Part of it will be let’s start at women’s shooting range programs, self-defence programs, whatever those things might be. Start re-empowering women or vulnerable people.”

The latest episode shows Mr Dickson comparing winning the balance of power in parliament to putting the government in a headlock and holding a gun to its head.

“The thing you need to understand about the balance of power is the headlock and the 9mm to the back of the head. That’s where it sits,” Mr Dickson says.

“Once you say, ‘We want something’, we will get it. Without it, they don’t get any legislation through.”

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is secretly filmed. Picture: Al Jazeera

Over dinner with Mr Muller in Yeppoon, Queensland, in January this year, the One Nation leader aired a conspiracy theory about the Port Arthur massacre by a lone gunman who killed 35 people, saying “there are a lot of questions there”.

She tells Mr Muller: “An MP said it would actually take a massacre in Tasmania to change the gun laws in Australia. Haven’t you heard of that?”

She continues: “Have a look at it … it was said on the floor of parliament … those shots, they were precision shots. Check the number out.”

Both Mr Ashby and Mr Dickson, a former LNP state MP and minister in Queensland who will run on One Nation’s senate ticket at the coming federal election, have said they left Washington empty-handed despite discussing their hopes of securing between $10m and $20m from the US gun lobby and Koch Industries.

After their meeting with NRA officials, Mr Dickson was videoed contemplating what One Nation could do with the cash. “If we get the balance of power, very simply that means we’d have the testicles of the government in our hands at any given stage,” he says.

“Guns in the scheme of things, are still the be all and end all. We will be able to dictate to make sure that we still have the freedom to be able to shoot.”