Hanson to lose another vote as senator Burston defiant

One Nation is likely to lose another vote in Canberra after NSW senator Brian Burston threatened to serve as an independent.

One Nation has imploded and is likely to lose another vote in federal parliament after NSW senator Brian Burston threatened to serve as an independent if Pauline Hanson kicked him out of the party.

Senator Burston yesterday ­refused a written request from Senator Hanson that he stand down from the upper house to make way for a replacement after the One Nation leader said she had lost confidence in him.

He also refused to quit the party, challenging Senator Hanson to sack him and force him to sit as an independent following a bitter falling-out with his leader over the government’s $35.6 billion company tax cut package.

If Senator Burston sat as an ­independent it would reduce One Nation to two seats in the upper house — down from the four it won at the 2016 double-dissolution election — and diminish its influence as a balance-of-power party.

Senator Burston did not learn of the letter from Senator Hanson until it was read aloud to him on Sydney’s 2GB radio. He then ­accused her of a “massive dummy spit” and “immature and childish” behaviour. “I thought I joined One Nation as a democratic political party, not a dictatorship,” he told 2GB. “I’m very disappointed in that letter. However, I shall inform over the radio to Senator Hanson that I will not be vacating my Senate position. If she wants to ­remove me from One Nation she is entitled to cancel my membership and that will make me an ­independent. That’s her call.”

The letter from Senator Hanson, sent yesterday, asked Senator Burston to “please consider resigning from the Senate seat and handing it back to the party”.

“It would be the honourable thing to do as you would not be a senator but for your association with me,” it said. “I no longer have confidence in you as an officer of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. You have been removed as deputy registered officer in NSW and in the federal party.”

In another sign of the party’s woes, Senator Burtson is reported to be taking legal action against Senator Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, accusing him of ­revealing he was undergoing a “rectal examination” when the party was discussing the government’s company tax cuts policy. The Saturday Telegraph ­reports Senator Burston has sent a legal letter to Mr Ashby demanding compensation for leaking the information, which was discussed on Sky News. Mr Ashby reportedly denies being the source of the leak.

Senator Hanson used an interview on Sky News on Thursday night to accuse Senator Burston of stabbing her in the back after he defied her authority by declaring he would support the government’s corporate tax cut package.

She also accused him of trying to defect to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party in an emotional television interview during which she broke down.

While Senator Burston denied he tried to defect, he clarified that an intermediary had made overtures to the NSW state director of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, Filip Despotoski, without his knowledge.

Mr Despotoski told The Weekend Australian: “Technically, he (Senator Burston) didn’t speak to a member of our party or a party ­official. But he did speak to this ­intermediary to facilitate a meeting to talk to me, Robert Borsak and Robert Brown in Sydney next week, on Friday, June 8.”

Senator Burston has argued he was blindsided by Senator Hanson’s decision to withdraw support for the government’s company tax package and would stand by the deal because he had shaken hands on it with Finance Minister ­Mathias Cormann.

Asked on Sky News if he had texted One Nation senator Peter Georgiou yesterday with a quote of Senator Hanson’s in which she failed to mention him as a worthy supporter, Senator Cormann said: “I am not talking through the media about my private conversations.”

Former Labor leader Mark Latham also refused to deny that One Nation had approached him to run on its NSW Senate ticket, although a spokesman for Senator Hanson yesterday dismissed the idea.