Secret tapes: The words that may bring down One Nation
One Nation has been engulfed in its biggest scandal yet as its key leaders were caught on film making questionable statements in a number of meetings. Here’s exactly what they said.
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The explosive views of One Nation’s senior leadership were secretly captured during a recent lobbying tour of the United States.
One Nation’s Queensland leader Steve Dickson and chief-of-staff James Ashby joined Rodger Muller, whom they thought was an Australian gun lobbyist. In fact, he was an undercover Al Jazeera reporter.
Over the weeks and months that followed, Muller was able to assemble a startling summary of One Nation’s beliefs, methods and objectives as Dickson and Ashby met US gun rights campaigners, key members of the National Rifle Association, and representatives of the politically outspoken billionaire Koch brothers.
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Here’s what the Al Jazeera tapes recorded the One Nation leaders as saying:
Dickson on guns:
“We’re looking to protect guns,” he is overheard telling one of the wealthy members of the elite US Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation: “We don’t have the Second Amendment in our country, and ah, we’re under attack by a bunch of lefties.”
Mr Dickson also said he wants to hire “one of those drug dealing mansions on the beach” and shoot “the shit out of everything in the water” with “machine guns and everything”.
“I’m going to be in one of those drug-dealing mansions on the beach. I’ll hire it for a month. You know the ones that are 25 rooms and the chef and everything,’ he says.
“We’ll drink and shoot the s**t of everything down the water. Machine guns and everything. That’s my dream.
“And we can protect ourselves, just in case.”
Later, he is heard bragging “I’ve actually got gun porn on my phone,” referring to images of weapons he likes.
Dickson on money:
“Everything is money. It’s the vehicle. I think we’ve already lit the fuse here for that vehicle to happen …” Dickson tells an NRA gathering.
“The bottom line where we are, we’ve got all the political grunt to make happen what we need to happen,” Dickson says. “It’s the cash, we don’t have the cash. We get the cash, we change the world.”
Dickson on the balance of power:
Talking to NRA lobbyists, Dickson detailed One Nation’s position: “We get the balance of power, very simply that means we have the testicles of the government in our hand at every given stage. Guns, in the scheme of things, will still be the be all and end all.”
It’s a blunt message he repeats to Muller on the sidelines: “The thing you need to understand about the balance of the power is the headlock and the 9mm to the back of the head ... That’s where it sits. Once you say we want something, we will get it. Without it, they don’t get any legislation through.”
“We need to take a piece of bread we know we can get,” he says. “Then we can take another piece of bread and end up with the whole loaf.”
Ashby on selling the idea of gun ownership:
After a meeting with NRA lobbying experts, Ashby told Dickson and Muller over a beer: “It’s like vegemite … You don’t put a f**king bundle of the sh**t on the toast. A light smear first. Get them used to the flavour.”
Part of the strategy, he said, would involve reframing gun ownership as a self defence issue.
“You need to soften people back up again. Part of it will be ‘lets start looking at women’s shooting range programs. Self defence programs’. Whatever those things might be. Start re-empowering women or vulnerable people ... It’s got to be saleable. You’ve got to be able to sell the message without minority groups …”
Dickson on donations:
Sitting in a Koch Industries meeting room, he tells former NRA employee and Koch Industries director of federal affairs Catherine Haggett: “What you can do to help us … it’s going to get down to money at the end of the day as James started to touch on.”
“We have the people, we’ve got the momentum. We’ve got Senator Pauline Hanson. She’s the most recognised person, not only in politics, but as a person in our country. So the ingredients are there. We just don’t have the petrol to start the engine. Whatever you can do would be fantastic.”
Dickson on One Nation’s plan:
When asking the Koch Industries representative for funding, Dickson made the following promise: “We can change the voting system in our country, the way people operate — if we’ve got the money to do it.”
Ashby on secrecy:
At a cafe gathering of the One Nation lobby group, Ashby tells how he’s had to be cautious with what he’s reported back to Senator Hanson: “We keep everything out of writing. I’ve just said, ‘meetings have gone well’. That’s all. yeah, we don’t … yeah, if something of that nature was to be said, it needs to be said in person.”
“I always keep a private email and I keep a work email,” he is on tape as saying. “Because work emails are never private. They can be subpoenaed like that. It’s something that you learn real fast. As Steve said, monitor everything that you write. Write it as though the whole world would read it.”
Dickson on foreign funding:
At the post meeting gathering, Dickson dismisses concerns about the source of gun lobbyist money being discovered. “The truth of the matter is that when you’re dealing with the Koch Brothers, they do this s**t all the time in countries all over the world. This ain’t the first time. It’s impossible to track where the money is coming from because it’s like spaghetti. It all goes there, there, here and bounces off this and up this … Boof, boof, boof like this and it ends up in your glass.”
Ashby on compassion:
Ashby tells Muller to be dismissive about the potential social cost of degraded gun control laws: “You cannot in life and especially in politics, you cannot take into account everybody’s emotions. Because there are some people who have got hyperactive emotions, and there are others that are like me, that don’t have any.”
Ashby on foreign funding:
Ashby, back in Australia and talking to Muller and Senator Hanson, also seems dismissive about the challenge of now outlawed foreign political funding, and expressed a desire to return to the United States: “After the federal election, we’re laughing. We’ll go.”
Pauline on Port Arthur:
“An MP said it would actually take a massacre in Tasmania to change the gun laws in Australia,” she told Mr Muller and Ashby in restaurant meeting back in Australia.
“Have you heard that? Have a look at it. It was said on the floor of parliament.”
Pauline responds to Ashby’s comments about the September 11 attacks “Those shots, they were precision shots … they didn’t muck around …” before returning to the subject of Port Arthur “I read a book on it, on Port Arthur. A lot of questions there.”
Pauline on her plan:
“I go on my gut feeling … It’s not going to be good for me in the first place. I have to actually take these baby steps. I have to actually get more people elected to parliament which I will after this next federal election … and then these are things that can be looked at,” Senator Hanson told Muller in a post trip meeting with Ashby.
“At the moment, they will use everything they possibly can because they see me as the biggest threat against them,” she says. “That’s why I didn’t go. Because I thought it’s not a politically smart move for me to do.”
Originally published as Secret tapes: The words that may bring down One Nation
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