One Nation candidate Steve Dickson resigns over US strip club expose

Pauline Hanson accepts the resignation of her candidate Steve Dickson over his US strip club visit.

One Nation's Steve Dickson is captured talking to an exotic dancer in footage aired on A Current Affair. Pauline Hanson has accepted his resignation this morning.

A “shocked and disappointed” One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has accepted the resignation of senate candidate Steve Dickson over his actions at a Washington DC strip club.

“I have always spoken very highly of Steve Dickson, but the footage I saw last night cannot be ignored or condoned,” she told reporters outside her southeast Queensland home this morning. “Steve Dickson yesterday offered his resignation from all positions within the party which I have accepted.”

Mr Dickson offered to quit after footage emerged on Nine’s A Current Affair last night of him groping dancers and making disparaging comments about a woman in a Washington DC strip club.

“I would like to sincerely apologise for my behaviour,” Mr Dickson said in a statement released this morning. The statement added that his wife Debbie is standing by him and he is “deeply remorseful for my disrespectful comments towards women”.

“I found the footage difficult to watch as my words and actions under intoxication and in that environment, are not a true reflection of myself,” he said.

The recording was captured by an undercover journalist and was leaked to A Current Affair which broadcast the footage on Monday night. Al Jazeera has said in a statement overnight that it had not run the footage in its report and condemns the “unauthorised use of its material.”

The strip club footage comes a month after the Al Jazeera investigation released footage from a meeting between Mr Dickson, Senator Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby and the National Rifle Association in Washington, DC in September 2018.

Senator Hanson took a swing at Al Jazeera this morning. “Al Jazeera which is funded by the Islamist Qatari government have sat on this information for over seven months and conveniently gave the tapes to A Current Affair less than three weeks out from a federal election,” she said.

“I’m upset with this, Steve is a family man.”

Queensland Senator and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (left), is watched by Steve Dickson, during a press conference in March.

Senator Hanson said Mr Dickson’s actions are not the worst of politicians behaviour in a bizarre statement alluding to “pedophilia” of other politicians. “Don’t forget Kevin Rudd himself visited a strip club,” Senator Hanson said, reiterating that strip clubs are not illegal, “We can’t ignore what other members of parliament plus also candidates in other political parties... we’ve had corruption with other candidates, we’ve had pedophilia, we’ve had a lot worse than what I’m having to deal with now.”

Senator Hanson urged voters to look at her political record, rather than the startling revelations about members of her party courting the National Rifle Association in the US, and Mr Dickson’s strip club visit. “My job now is to continue to fight for the Australian people,” she said.

The footage, aired on ACA, showed Mr Dickson repeatedly placing money inside a dancer’s underwear and throwing cash in the air.

“I’ve done more Asian than I know what to do with,” Mr Dickson is recorded saying in the video. “I think white women f..k a whole lot better, they know what they’re doing. Asian chicks don’t.”

The recording also shows Mr Dickson groping a woman’s breasts and asking her to come home with him, as well as watching a woman as she dances on a pole. This isn’t the first time Mr Dickson, 56, has been secretly caught on camera.

Earlier this month, an undercover investigation by Al Jazeera showed Mr Dickson soliciting for donations from the US National Rifle Association and discussing how they would help wind back Australia’s gun laws.

Mr Dickson is the leader of the Queensland branch of One Nation and is currently in second spot on the party’s Queensland Senate ticket. He’s been described by Pauline Hanson as a “family man”.

ACA reporter Dan Nolan said two hours of footage was leaked to the show by Al Jazeera and much of it was too graphic to show.

“There is no one egging him on to do the things in that video,” Nolan said.

Additional reporting: Jessica Cortis