Warrant issued for Pauline Hanson's star witness

DOUBTS have emerged about the existence of the star witness in Pauline Hanson's appeal against her loss in the NSW upper house election.

DOUBTS have emerged about the existence of the star witness in Pauline Hanson's appeal against her loss in the NSW upper house election after the man failed to appear at a court hearing.

The NSW Supreme Court yesterday issued a warrant for the arrest and compulsory appearance in court of Michael Rattner, as Ms Hanson admitted she might have been the victim of a hoax.

Ms Hanson is mounting a court challenge over the count in her narrow defeat for an upper house seat in the March state election.

She received 98,043 first-preference votes and led her Coalition and Greens opponents in the race for the final two seats, but after preferences were distributed her total was insufficient.

After the election, Mr Rattner sent the Hanson team an email saying up to 1200 votes for her had been counted as blank ballots by "dodgy electoral staff"'.

Ms Hanson's team yesterday was unable to produce Mr Rattner or any other witness to attest to the authenticity of the email, which was allegedly sent between two senior NSW Electoral Commission employees admitting up to 1200 votes for Ms Hanson had been counted as blank ballots.

The Australian can reveal a Michael Rattner does not exist on any Australian electoral roll.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham - one of the people who stands to lose their upper house seat should Ms Hanson's appeal succeed - also cast doubt on the existence of Michael Rattner.

Mr Buckingham said outside court that he would pursue Ms Hanson for court costs if the case fell over. "We don't even know if this person exists, let alone if this email is actually a real email and not a fraud," he said.

When judge Peter McLellan asked yesterday whether Mr Rattner was in the courtroom, Ms Hanson's barrister, Peter Lowe, said: "Well, we do not know what he looks like."

Mr Lowe said Mr Rattner was a real person who could shed light on the authenticity of the email.

"He has a Facebook site. He has made postings on that website to Ms Hanson," Mr Lowe said.

The Australian has seen comments from Mr Rattner's Facebook page claiming that "Pauline was robbed".

Outside court, Ms Hanson accepted that her case may be premised on a hoax. "I've either been cheated out of a seat or this is a very elaborate hoax," she said.

Mr Rattner, or someone who claims to be Mr Rattner, has spoken to The Australian on several occasions since the election, and claims to be a Labor Party voter "merely trying to do the right thing".

He claims to be a builder from Sydney who is in Queensland helping family friends affected by the January floods.