25th November 1999
A conspiracy theory, just an old man's whimsy or a stunning insight into how the people's party, One Nation, has been snatched by senior figures associated with the Liberal Party. You be the judge.
To understand the background we have to go back to late 1995 when Pauline Hanson stood as a Liberal Candidate for the seat of Oxley. Pauline was disendorsed after she wrote a letter which was deemed to be "racist" to the Queensland Times in January 1996. She won Oxley as an Independent and the rest is history.
In September 1996 Pauline gave her maiden speech to a near deserted Parliament. It was a speech which stunned Australians into action. The populist masses. That night, according to legend, David Oldfield extricated Pauline, sitting alone at a bar, from an unsavoury encounter with two other Liberal Party members. Oldfield and Hanson became good friends. According to Barbara Hazelton, Pauline Hanson's personal assistant at that time, Oldfield did a good job on denigrating John Pasquarelli that night.
Five days after Hanson's maiden speech Bruce Whiteside, founder of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement told his wife that he was going to call a public meeting. He set about writing a speech. Some 850 people crammed into a hall on the Gold Coast a month later on 28th October 1996 to hear this old man talk - giving birth to the Pauline Hanson Support Movement. Whiteside took all the financial and personal risk in doing this.
Whiteside, who is still number one on David Ettridge's official list of white ants (ie people that One Nation members are not allowed to speak to), was to be later denegrated by David Oldfield on 6PR as a "nutter". I have subsequently found Whiteside to be a totally coherent, well-spoken and very genuinely concerned individual. Those One Nation members who took the time to say hello to him outside the Supreme Court earlier this week would, I believe, share my views.
It was Whiteside's efforts which led to the formation of what he called "Pauline's Army" or the Pauline Hanson Support Movement. The movement exploded with thousands of people joining it and PHSM branches appearing all over the country. In the background we know that Pauline Hanson was having on going discussions with David Oldfield - John Pasquarelli was fired by Pauline resulting in an acrimonious court case over wrongful dismissal.
DO the brilliant Liberal party political staffer for Tony Abbott MP, "Mr X" as Ettridge called him at the time, was waiting in the wings to take over Pasquarelli's mantle. However he would only do this after the party was launched in April 1997.
DO introduced Pauline Hanson to marketing whiz David Ettridge in November 1996 - according to Ettridge. During this time Pauline Hanson was often seen in the company of a West Australian based Liberal powerbroker, Senator Crighton-Browne.
Now all the above are indisputable background facts.
Whiteside, who was relentlessly working for PHSM on a volunteer basis and trying to raise funds, claims he had a call from Liberal Party Victorian President John Elliott on 23rd December 1996 (4.35pm) from his office at 411 Collins Str, Melbourne in which he said: "The money will not be used to assist Hanson as such but to "clear the blockage in the Senate". You understand what I am saying? The decimation of the Australian Democrats."
Again we have got to be aware that if this conversation actually took place, and I have no reason to believe that it didn't, Elliot would have, under these circumstances been aware that Oldfield had now lined up with Hanson. The comment also implies that Oldfield's role in as a key political adviser had already been established by some form of agreement.
In January 1997 Whiteside resigned from the PHSM committee and Paul Trewartha took over. Within weeks Ettridge had met with PHSM and, under Trewartha, control of the PHSM was hurriedly handed over to Ettridge and Hanson with no input from the thousands of members.
Fia Cumming wrote an interesting piece in the Sun-Herald which looks at the early alleged Liberal party links in greater detail. Take this link to view this.
At this stage I should say that I started questioning what was going on in One Nation and what I had been told by the Manly head office after I read Justice Atkinson's ruling. I could not get an intelligent argument as to why One Nation had not presented a defence. That brought me into contact with Whiteside.
In a press release today Whiteside makes a stunning claim. He confirmed to me today that the comment was made by David Ettridge at his Miami home during a private conversation on the 5th February 1997. This was two months before the birth of One Nation in Ipswich. Here is the key extract of that statement in which he calls for a Royal Commission to be established.
Ettridge told him that only Hanson and those elected to Parliament would be in the political party, as such. Everyone else would be there for support only.
During the Queensland State election Terry Sharples, a One Nation state candidate, had a fall out with the party after he was disendorsed by David Oldfield the night before people went to the polls.
It is accepted that Liberal Party MP Tony Abbott, now a Minister, played an early pivotal role in funding Sharples' legal fees. Abbott's initial silence over Oldfield's desertion to One Nation is in great contrast to the hands-on action taken by him in this legal matter. One could hypothesize that the Liberal Party were stunned by the support for One Nation at the state election and realised that somehow their plans had gone dramatically wrong.
Oldfield's role at this stage is uncertain although it has to be said that his amazing performance in wooing the media during the Queensland State election was highly contrasted by his very low profile during the more important Federal election. He did not accompany Pauline Hanson during much of her campaign which was disastrous according to Margo Kingston in "Off the Rails" - October 1999. (In fact Oldfield left Pauline Hanson in the hands of Peter James, a man with a military background who ran a small business in Ipswich. James, a sincere and honest man, had no political nous.)
When Sharples refused to take the advice of the Liberal Party's legal eagles he was dumped by Abbott. Sharples is now attempting to take Abbott to court over information that I believe would implicate this Coalition Minister and the Liberal Party itself in interference in the direction of the original Pauline Hanson Support Movement and Pauline Hanson's One Nation (the political party).
Now I know that this is an extraordinary claim to make and I make it after careful consideration of all the facts before me. It is clear that Abbott has panicked about this move by Sharples and attempted to distance himself from any court hearing. One can only ask why... what does Abbott have to hide?
When Sharples took One Nation to the Supreme Court in August this year - and won - resulting in the deregistration of the party in Queensland Justice Atkinson gave the two Davids and Pauline the opportunity to table affidavits which would then allow them to be cross-examined by Sharples. This would have given us a better chance to defend the case and in the appeal being heard at present.
After initially tabling affidavits they withdrew them before they could be taken into the proceedings. This led to Justice Atkinson's findings that One Nation had been "fraudulently" established. The personal ramifications on Pauline Hanson are obvious.
Atkinson's findings are based on the premise that we were actually members of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Members Inc not Pauline Hanson's One Nation (political party). In other words we were fund raisers and never had a real political voice in the party. This is exactly how Ettridge allegedly told Whiteside the party would be established back in February 1997.
Last week David Oldfield distanced himself from the problems in Queensland saying that they had no bearing on him - clearly his intentions are for the leadership of the party should the case be lost and Pauline Hanson be charged with fraud.
If you consider the manner in how the undemocratic, expensive and flawed Pauline Hanson' One Nation (political party) constitution was drawn up and the structure under a limited company you can only come to one conclusion and that is that One Nation is not a people's party. It is a rigid, highly controlled political exercise which minimises the input from supporters - this attitude is exemplified by the manner in which the National Director, David Ettridge, conducts himself. If the Liberal party are indeed behind the two Davids now or during the early formation of the party the ramifications on John Howard and the Coalition government would be enormous.
There are a few questions that I would like to see answered:
Under the above circumstances consider carefully Bruce Whiteside's call for a Royal Commission or a Senate enquiry to be established with very wide terms of reference. Maybe then we can discover just what has happened and who is directing the people's party.