Video saga gave One Nation a fillip: Hanson

Pauline Hanson claims publicity after One Nation’s donation drive with a pro-gun lobby prompted a spike in party membership.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson meets Con Diakos of Berri during her regional South Australia tour. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Pauline Hanson claims the publicity generated by One Nation’s scandalous donation drive with the US pro-gun lobby prompted a spike in party membership.

The controversial senator yesterday launched her party’s election campaign in South Australia’s Riverland region, a day after Newspoll showed One Nation’s primary vote had fallen to 4 per cent, a two-point decline in the past fortnight and its worst result since 2016.

Senator Hanson shrugged off the Newspoll result, countering that support for her party had risen since the controversial Al Jazeera documentary aired last month.

“It’s helped us because people saw through it,” she said. “The media reporting on that was atrocious … this has happened to me constantly over the years.

“It (the documentary) wasn’t positive towards One Nation, but I want people to know the truth and it’s been blown completely out of proportion.”

Senator Hanson, out of the public eye for the past fortnight due to ill health, chose to kick off her party’s election campaign in the Riverland region as it was “fertile ground” for One Nation, which was seeking to capitalise on disillusionment with mainstream parties among regional voters.

“South Australia is doing it extremely tough,” she said. “Investment and population growth are low, people aren’t coming here, they’re leaving … the downturn in the state and regions is not being addressed.”

Campaigning alongside the party’s lead Senate candidate in SA, Jennifer Game, in the riverside town of Berri, 240km east of Adelaide, Senator Hanson said securing a Senate spot was One Nation’s primary focus in South Australia, but she did not rule out running “one or two” candidates in the state’s 10 lower house seats.

Ms Game, a former Australian Taxation Office official and policy adviser to Senator Hanson, said the mothballed desalination plant in Adelaide should operate and be powered by a federally funded coal-fired power plant.

Renmark residents Marty Kaesler and Kathryn Carruthers yesterday made the 20km trip from their home to Berri to show their support for the “amazing” Senator Hanson.

“We’re afraid of sharia law coming to Australia and women not being allowed to wear bikinis on beaches,” Ms Carruthers said.

“Pauline speaks for people like us and it’s great she’s come to the Riverland.”