Did Hanson’s One Nation Party seek funding from the NRA and the Koch Brothers?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, March 27th, 2019 - 23 comments
Categories: Abuse of power, australian politics, corruption, democratic participation, International, us politics, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: , , , , , ,

So, yesterday Al Jazzera announced that the NRA met with representatives of Pauline Hanson’s odious One Nation Party and there were discussions about funding and how that might result in tougher Australian gun laws and less pressure on the Americans to change their gun laws to slow down the rate of mass shootings.

Here is the first tweet. Read the whole thread for the details.

Pretty incendiary allegation eh.  The NRA was prepared to fund a small racist party in Australia because it could then gain the balance of power in the senate and force the dilution of Australia’s reasonably tough gun laws.

How do you think that One Nation handled the allegations?

There were two defences.

First of all they acted all tough on it and referred Al-Jazeera to ASIO (same thing as the SIS). Obviously this was a completely untrue allegation made to improperly affect Australia’s political system.

https://twitter.com/RichAFerguson/status/1110290843338862592

Then it changed rather dramatically. It was all the fault of the demon drink.

https://twitter.com/koshrecords/status/1110471308846886912


Here is the detail as described by Michael McGowan in the Guardian:

Senior One Nation figures James Ashby and Steve Dickson claim they had been “on the sauce” drinking scotch for “three or four hours” when discussing seeking a $20m donation from the National Rifle Association to the far-right Australian party.

Ashby and Dickson faced the media on Tuesday after an al-Jazeera investigation revealed the two men had sought millions in donations from the NRA during a trip to the US last year, in a bid to seize the balance of power and weaken Australia’s gun laws.

Dickson said the party’s leader, Pauline Hanson, was “quite ill” and unable to appear publicly.

Instead, Dickson and Ashby faced questions about their interactions with a journalist, Rodger Muller, who used a hidden camera and posed as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.

Dickson was at times impassioned in defence of their actions, and at others appeared flustered. He apologised several times for sweating and, unsolicited, talked about visiting strip clubs in his youth.

“This … may be the last thing I ever say in politics, I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I want to keep doing this because I couldn’t believe that a person like me could be sucked in to the extent that I’ve been sucked in,” Dickson said.

“This is the stuff you see in James Bond magazines. I would never expect you would see this for real in the real world.”

The article confirms that they did meet with the NRA and had an arranged meeting with the Koch Brothers.

So if I understand the situation correctly they were not seeking between $10 and $20 million from ultra right wing US sources. They just talked about it and travelled to the US of A to have casual conversations with representatives of the NRA and the Koch Brothers.

Sounds legitimate.

The big worry is what is the NRA and associated right wing groupings planning for New Zealand? A lot of the push back on our desire to change our laws to outlaw military style semi automatic weapons is coming from the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope the SIS is investigating possible US sourced interference in our political system.

Vigorously.

23 comments on “Did Hanson’s One Nation Party seek funding from the NRA and the Koch Brothers? ”

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  1. aj 1
    27 March 2019 at 8:30 am

    ‘On the sauce” is the excuse?
    The NRA is a terrorist organisation.
    The comment “I love that” when they were discussing undermining the reaction to a gun massacre with faux concern for dead children as the strategy to shut people up is the most appalling thing to come out of that.
    A couple of twitter comments to the report that Hanson was ‘too ill’ to front the media ‘Yes because she’s 100% spewing’ and ‘Is that at deaths door ill or I don’t want to front the media ill’

    • marty mars 1.1
      27 March 2019 at 10:19 am

      + 1 yep – they are blood suckers. The weakest with the most death delivering sticks.

      As for Paul-ill-lean – yep she is very Ill cos of all her toxic thoughts about others.

  2. vto 2
    27 March 2019 at 8:35 am

    Wouldn’t the NRA and its cohorts have been against foreign interference in American elections?

    If so, why are they interfering in a foreign country’s elections?

    Nothing that comes out of the US has credibility anymore

    • RedLogix 2.1
      27 March 2019 at 8:44 am

      True enough on the hypocrisy, but then again the idea that in a globalised world countries and organisations don’t interfere with other countries political processes …. is rather quaint to say the least.

      • vto 2.1.1
        27 March 2019 at 9:33 am

        Yeah it is rather quaint… which is why the US screaming at the Russians for interference never had any cred either… Ukraine-US..?… Or in Venezuela the US isn’t even hiding its interference

        No credibility.

        However, I think the horse has well and truly bolted on all of that. The world is fracturing / being fractured and it aint gonna stop until heads have been cracked…. batten down I say. Don’t let family join any military.

    • Andre 2.2
      27 March 2019 at 8:51 am

      The NRA seem to have been quite cuddly with Russians for quite a while. So it doesn’t seem they have any aversion to international election fuckery, in any direction. Which makes sense if you look at the NRA as a gun manufacturers’ lobby and marketing group which has moved a long way away from its founding ideals looking after the interests of American hunting and farming gun users.

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/01/nra-russia-investigations-gun-lobby

  3. Obtrectator 3
    27 March 2019 at 9:11 am

    NRA

    No
    Role in
    Australia (or Aotearoa)

    Bugger off and take your blood-money with you.

  4. Matiri 4
    27 March 2019 at 9:43 am

    NRA has been lobbying Judith Collins for quite some time, including very recently.

    Does she protest too much?
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111484260/judith-collins-tells-nra-to-bugger-off-over-new-zealand-gun-reform

    • Anne 4.1
      27 March 2019 at 9:58 am

      Does she protest too much?

      No. I think she is genuine – especially now she’s seen what guns in the hands of a madman can do.

      • Dukeofurl 4.1.1
        27 March 2019 at 1:14 pm

        Shes will ‘supporting things in principle ‘ and then will argue the details.

        Shes vehemently opposed to Kiwibuild , but lobbies The ministry on behalf of builders who want to get to build houses for kiwibuild.

      • woodart 4.1.2
        27 March 2019 at 4:12 pm

        for someone who craves headlines proving how tough she is, I find it hard to beleive she told nra to bugger off and didnt put out press release straight away. it seems out of character for her to NOT have used this apparent show of toughness for a public relations coup…..

        • Anne 4.1.2.1
          27 March 2019 at 4:23 pm

          I think it happened in the immediate aftermath of the shooting did it not? That is the time most people respond with emotion ‘sans’ other motivations. I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt at the least. We may not like her much but she’s not completely devoid of compassionate responses.

  5. Siobhan 5
    27 March 2019 at 10:09 am

    Does it matter?

    One Nation get 4.3% of the nation wide vote.

    If the leaders of Australia chose to listen to their mad agenda, even if it comes wrapped in a big fancy bow provided by the NRA, then that’s on their conscience.

    Its a shame we don’t give half as much attention to all the other ‘good causes’ the Koch Brothers fund.

    You know, the economic, equality and social well being Terrorists, who run rampant and unchecked around our shiny and new ‘Free Markets’ in our equally unchecked .’Global Economy’.

  6. Exkiwiforces 6
    27 March 2019 at 11:01 am

    The way that the wife and I saw it last night, was it appears to more of a fact finding mission be it a half ass one at that as two weeks later the Fed’s in both the upper and lower house’s ban all foreign donations/ funding.

    The whole thing to me was so comical, in light of was happening in Canberra at the time, that these two muppets would appear they couldn’t run a chook raffle down at local bowls club or a Peaks Crossing Pub (not far from where the Red Head has her house).

    P.S I haven’t got this mornings paper yet, might be a bit more on it in the Oz.

    • Dukeofurl 6.1
      27 March 2019 at 1:03 pm

      Foreign direct donations could easily be circumvented by using an Australian registered group as the front.
      We have the same in NZ – apparently these is a local kiwi business called the Inner Mongolian Horse breeders NZ Ltd which makes big political donations Totally a NZ company!

      All these sorts of things are only shams to fool the voters
      NRA could register an Australian entity in hours.

      Same process for some restricted companies like Qantas which have a ‘foreign’ ownership cap of 40% or something, they just park the shares in hedge funds who only have a plaque on the wall along with dozens like it in various North Sydney office blocks

      • Exkiwiforces 6.1.1
        27 March 2019 at 7:15 pm

        I think you are on the money there, as I think the new law IRT Foreign Donations has quite a few loop holes in, but mind when you a few Journalists sniffing around a place like old mate did with old Red Heads Party and they would be on to very quickly unlike the lazy sods in NZ.

  7. peterlepaysan 7
    27 March 2019 at 9:55 pm

    ONE NATION reps were drinking SCOTCH!

    NRA drink bourbon.

    Where was the Bundaberg rum?

    No wonder pauline fell ikk.

    • Exkiwiforces 7.1
      27 March 2019 at 10:10 pm

      Obviously you, haven’t seen the septics on sauce with a bottle of Bundy and it’s worst than them drinking Australian or NZ full strength beer or ciders.

      Mind you most of them wouldn’t know a real Bud or Pil’s if it bite them on the ass with that sheep piss that they call Beer.

  8. SHG 8
    28 March 2019 at 1:01 pm

    Al-Jazeera knows what it’s doing, so I am going to assume that it is sitting on three years of data and it’s going to drip-feed it out over weeks and months. What we’ve had in the past 24 hours might only be the tip of an iceberg.

  9. aj 9
    28 March 2019 at 1:57 pm

    She’s been recorded as suggesting Port Arthur is a conspiracy theory. She’s truly at the bottom of the cesspool now.

  10. tc 10
    28 March 2019 at 2:49 pm

    She never left the cesspool and Turnbulls political naivety let them back in the house.

    Queenslanders love to vote for a red neck as it plays to many of their ‘beliefs’.

    Mickeys being kind describing them as odious, they’re a collection of knuckle dragging sociopaths. Malcom Roberts is a classic climate denialist Luddite whom Brian Cox dissected on Oz national tv with ease.

  11. Jum 11
    28 March 2019 at 4:08 pm

    I shudder to think how many interfering political think tanks are being funded in NZ by koch bros.