Tangled web of One Nation infighting reaches court

A sex scandal that plunged the One Nation party into bitter infighting has spilt into the Federal Court, with a former senator making two appearances on Thursday.

Former senator Brian Burston. Picture: AAP

A sex scandal that plunged the One Nation party into bitter infighting two years ago spilt out of Parliament House and into the Federal Court on Thursday, with former senator Brian Burston fighting two legal battles, one against his former party leader Pauline Hanson.

Mr Burston filed legal proceedings against Senator Hanson in June last year alleging she had sexually harassed him over two decades.

The former senator, who left One Nation to join Clive Palmer’s party in 2018 after the public falling out, has alleged Ms Hanson began the harassment in 1998 and once “rubbed her fingers up my spine” while onstage during the national anthem.

Mr Burston went public with the allegations after Senator Hanson told parliament an unnamed senator was facing “another serious sexual harassment investigation” into his conduct with a staffer.

Mr Burston said there was “no doubt” she had been referring to him and denied the allegations when asked by News Corp Australia in 2019, saying: “One of the reasons I left One Nation was because of the sexual harassment.”

He has also lodged defamation proceedings against Senator Hanson, according to reports, to which the One Nation leader lodged a counterclaim, arguing his suit against her was victimisation in response to allegations she made about his conduct.

Senator Hanson has vehemently denied the allegations against her of sexually harassing Mr Burston, saying she wouldn’t go near him with a “barge pole”.

It was in this period of heated legal retaliation that Mr Burston got into a fight with former One Nation staffer James Ashby in the halls of parliament, which was captured on video.

As hostilities peaked, Mr Burs­ton admitted to wiping his blood on Senator Hanson’s office door.

His claim against the senator was heard by the Federal Court on Thursday, where Senator Hanson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, asked that trial dates be organised around sitting days, which were yet to be released for next year. “A further wildcard is we don’t know when the election is going to be,” judge Robert Bromwich said. In response to Ms Chrysanthou saying it would likely be April, he quipped: “You’ve got better intel than me then.”

Hours earlier, Mr Burston had also appeared before the court in proceedings following claims of sexual harassment, sex discrimination and victimisation from former staffer Wendy Leach.

Ms Leach’s barrister, Paul Moorhouse told a Federal Court on Thursday morning it was possible the two cases might need to be combined as they dealt with the “same factual allegations of harassment by Mr Burston of Ms Leach which is the core of these proceedings”.

Senator Hanson has been reported to have filed a truth defence against Mr Burston’s defamation claims, arguing allegations about his conduct were essentially true.