Taxpayers repaid Pauline Hanson’s loan to One Nation

‘I have known Pauline for two decades and I can tell you she doesn’t like using her own money,’ says former One Nation president and national treasurer Ian Nelson. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen.

The Australian

12:00AM January 7, 2017
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/taxpayers-repaid-pauline-hansons-loan-to-one-nation/news-story/82b2a4877a9edfcae024cee2746447a3

Jamie Walker

Associate Editor

Brisbane

@Jamie_WalkerOz

One Nation used taxpayer money to repay a $191,000 loan from Pauline Hanson for last year’s ­federal election campaign that has been at the centre of internal ­tensions.

The man who signed off on the deal, former One Nation president and national treasurer Ian Nelson, said he was surprised by Senator Hanson’s generosity as it was “out of character” for her.

Senator Hanson said Mr Nelso­n had falsely accused her of accepting cash from a donor in “brown paper bags” when she had gone into her own pocket to cover the party’s election costs.

“It’s a load of bloody crap,” she said. “And … if anyone, the (Australian Electoral Commission), the federal police, want to see evidence of where the money came from, I have no problem showing them … because it has come straight out of my bank account.”

The repayment and disclosure of the loan, made by Senator Hanson in nine tranches between April 7, 2015, and June 22 last year, contributed to an angry showdown that led to Mr Nelson’s resignation from One Nation and fractured their 20-year friendship.

“It was very unusual,” Mr Nelson said. “I have known Pauline for two decades and I can tell you she doesn’t like using her own money, or risking it. It was out of character, that’s for sure.”

Senator Hanson said: “I can’t believe you talk to that shithead ... I was glad to see the back end of him.”

Last August, Senator Hanson was repaid in full the $191,000 loan she had made to the party. It proved to be one of Mr Nelson’s last acts as national treasurer, befor­e he was ousted in a power struggle with the new guard led by her key adviser James Ashby.

The money was drawn down from a $1.62 million election refund from the Australian Electoral Commission, based on the vote at the double-dissolution election that propelled Senator Hanson and three other One Nation candidates into the upper house of federal parliament.

“I was one of the first people who said ‘we have to pay her back’,” Mr Nelson said.

Financial returns filed with the Electoral Commission of Queensland by Mr Nelson’s replacement, Senator Hanson’s brother-in-law Greg Smith, show she made the first loan to the party of $1000 on April 7, 2015.

This was followed on February 29 last year by a payment of $5000, then three each of $10,000 on March 21, April 28 and May 3. On May 31, three weeks after Mr Turnbull called the election, she kicked in $120,000 with two transfers; the remainedr of the $191,000 loan went in on June 17 and 22.

Mr Smith said the loan was “completely” legitimate, and all disclosure requirements were met.

Mr Nelson expressed concern about the timing of the payments by Senator Hanson, which he said were stepped up after Melbourne property developer Bill McNee stopped donating to One Nation.

“Bill’s a lovely bloke but he’s a very private man and I think he went to water after he realised the donations had to be fully disclosed. This … would have been in March or April last year, not long before the election was called,” Mr Nelson said. “There was a meeting of the (party) executive and I said: ‘Look, I am concerned about the money we’ve got.’

“Pauline said: ‘Well, I’m going to have to put the money in. I am going to have to finance the rest of the campaign.’ ”

The AEC said federal law dealt with the disclosure of information rather than “limitations on donations or loans between parties or entities”. Parties could do what they pleased with election refunds from the AEC.

Mr McNee said he no longer made political donations.