Category Archives: One Nation

Australia news live updates: One Nation dumps Brisbane candidate; Anthony Albanese and Jenny Morrison attend same Easter service; 26 Covid deaths

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Rebecca Lloyd reportedly ditched from One Nation because she refused to work with party leaders; airport staff shortages cause baggage issues; more aged care deaths in 2022 than first two pandemic years combined; campaign trail ‘truce’ for Easter weekend; NSW records 16 Covid deaths, Victoria records seven deaths; Queensland records two deaths; first election debate confirmed for 20 April. Follow all today’s news

NSW has recorded 16 Covid deaths and more than 15,000 cases.

Queues are so far moving faster than expected at major airports, after a week of huge delays. There were some concerns about another chaotic day at the airport on Good Friday. About 80,000 passengers were due to travel through Sydney airport alone.

Queues are moving well at Sydney airport even as hundreds of people fill the country’s busiest airport as they head out for Easter holidays.

Airports around the country will remain busy over the break and school holiday period.

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PM distances government from private member’s bill – as it happened

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Morrison says Warringah candidate Katherine Deves has ‘apologised’ over social media posts; nation records at least 39 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Adam Bandt, the Greens leader, will also be talking about the Greens’ tax and Medicare plans at the National Press Club today, as Sarah Martin reports:

The Fireproof protests continue in Sydney:

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George Christensen says he will stand as One Nation candidate at federal election

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Former LNP MP backtracks on retirement plans, saying he should have made the move to Pauline Hanson’s party ‘a long time ago’

The former federal Liberal National party MP George Christensen has defected to One Nation and will run for the rightwing party in the Senate, in what appears to be an attempt to boost Pauline Hanson’s re-election bid.

Christensen, who was the MP for the Queensland seat of Dawson, announced last year he was leaving politics to spend more time with his family.

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One Nation anti-vaccine mandate bill rejected despite support from five Coalition senators

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Scott Morrison plays down government division, saying Liberal and National parties are ‘not run as an autocracy’

One Nation’s anti-Covid vaccination mandate bill has been rejected in the Senate, despite five government senators crossing the floor to support it.

On Monday morning Liberals Gerard Rennick and Alex Antic, who have threatened to withhold support from government legislation, voted for the bill contradicting the Morrison government’s aged care vaccine mandate and state government public health orders.

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The Nationals’ victory in Upper Hunter byelection may owe more to Berejiklian and Hanson than John Barilaro | Anne Davies

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More Labor voters prefer the premier than Jodi McKay, while One Nation’s spirited campaign in the NSW seat doomed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers to electoral failure

New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro has proclaimed “the Nationals are back” and all but declared victory for Dave Layzell in the coalmining and rural seat of Upper Hunter – but he should probably be thanking One Nation.

For Labor too there will be some soul-searching and pressure on opposition leader, Jodi McKay, to consider her future. Speaking on Sunday afternoon, McKay said she was “devastated” that people did not vote for Labor and that the party was shocked that it had “failed to connect” with the voters of the Upper Hunter.

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‘Wake up and smell the coffee’: LNP members demand urgent talks after Queensland election disaster

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Liberal National party now only holds four seats in Brisbane – and struggled in regional areas

Queensland Liberal National party members have begun agitating for an urgent post-election state council meeting to bring to a head internecine conflicts between the party’s membership, its office bearers and its state leader.

As counting continues in a number of close seats, the LNP’s numbers are likely to go backwards in the next parliament. In her concession speech on election night, Deb Frecklington said she intended to remain as the state leader.

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Australia’s right is united by ‘up yours’ contrarianism and Mark Latham is its bellwether | Malcolm Knox

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Coronavirus didn’t kill the culture wars, it only sent them into a momentary recess

When Covid-19 hit, I’d been wondering for a long time what glued together the disparate positions of the religious right in Australia: for deregulation yet also massive taxpayer subsidy; for free enterprise yet also against the free movement of labour; for the equality of all freedoms as long as one, religion, is more equal than others; for “our children’s future” yet also against climate science.

During the coronavirus crisis, the patterns began to repeat: divergent positions coalescing under an intellectually amorphous but readily identifiable tribal banner. What unified that tribe was, for want of a better word, a contrarianism, what impolite adherents might call an “up yours” to political correctness.

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Today show dumps Pauline Hanson for ‘divisive’ remarks about Melbourne public housing residents

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Channel Nine initially promoted One Nation leader’s comments describing people locked down due to coronavirus as ‘drug addicts’ who ‘cannot speak English’

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Channel Nine’s Today show has dropped One Nation leader Pauline Hanson as a “regular contributor”, after she described residents of public housing in Melbourne who are locked down due to Covid-19 as “drug addicts” who “cannot speak English”.

In a statement, the channel described her comments as “ill-informed and divisive”, and said “she will no longer be appearing on our program as a regular contributor”.

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‘Potentially dangerous’: One Nation’s tactics at family law inquiry concern women’s advocates

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Discredited themes, including that men’s aggression is caused by partners who seek to deny access to their kids, have drawn most of the attention this week

l The only authorised video stream of this week’s federal parliamentary hearings into Australia’s family law system was broadcast on Pauline Hanson’s Facebook page. The camera was operated by Hanson’s aide James Ashby, the stream captioned like an official broadcast but published with hundreds of unfiltered live comments from apparently aggrieved fathers, who called witnesses and MPs “man-hater” and “dirty snake”.

In the shadow of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children, expert witnesses have told the inquiry that reform to family law is increasingly urgent to better protect mostly women and children, primarily from men who perpetrate acts of coercive control and domestic violence.

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Jacqui Lambie wants deal on union-busting bill ‘as soon as possible’

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Crossbencher ‘hopes to think’ she is close to a deal with government on union penalty bill unexpectedly defeated last year

Senator Jacqui Lambie is looking to strike a deal with the government “as soon as possible” on the union penalty bill, while Labor struggles to contain a debate in its own ranks about union-backed superannuation funds.

Lambie is meeting the industrial relations minister, Christian Porter, on Tuesday to continue negotiations on the bill, which would lower the threshold for the deregistration of unions and disqualification of their officials.

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Labor condemns ‘disgraceful’ Westpac as Hartzer stands down – politics live

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Westpac chief executive’s resignation draws little sympathy on all sides of politics. All the day’s events, live

And here is another indication of where question time is headed:

Last week, a bank broke money laundering laws 23 million times.

But instead of going after them, the Liberals are going after unions – trying to take away their right to exist.

This Government hates working people. We'll fight them every step of the way. pic.twitter.com/9vMhFquk4W

A group of north Queensland dairy farmers are on their way to Canberra to express their frustrations at what is happening within their industry.

That’s at the same time the Nationals are trying to get ahead of Pauline Hanson, who may have come late to the issues, but certainly has been running full steam ahead since becoming aware of it.

David Littleproud, the drought minister, some time ago said he fixed the supermarket [milk price] problem. He said he thumped his chest, waved his fists at them, and demanded they put their milk prices up.

Well, we know that solution lasted about five minutes.

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Scott Morrison grilled on Coalition funding for new dam – politics live

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Anthony Albanese asks PM why he’s raising hopes on dam support. Plus Jacqui Lambie raises concerns over Turkish invasion. All the day’s events, live

Because it is only “radicals” who care about the climate, apparently.

#owningtheleft

Labor's declaration of a climate emergency is just a sop to the superglue protestors and radical greens. Labor remains desperate to receive the support of the radical activists despite what they've said since the election. Labor can't be trusted to fight for jobs.

Tony Burke jumps up to congratulate Tony Smith on the integrity award he received today (have a look a few posts down and check out Kenneth Hayne’s speech) and thanks him for some of the difficult decisions he took during the medevac debate (you may remember that Smith stuck to the parliament rules, and ensured the parliament had a vote, and also ordered the solicitor general advice Christian Porter was relying on to shut down the debate, be tabled – which revealed the advice was not iron-clad).

Scott Morrison then gets up to add his congratulations, and a few in Labor respond with “now you think about it” to which Morrison gets very upset and accuses Labor of politicising the moment.

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Repealing medevac would be ‘a wicked thing’, Centre Alliance says – politics live

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Rebekha Sharkie says if the government is successful in repealing the legislation it will cause ‘needless harm’

On the ensuring integrity bill, Rex Patrick says there are political elements to the bill it can’t support:

The aim was to deal with misconduct and there is no question that has been in the union movement.

I have seen the fairly significant sheet of judicial rulings against some of the unions and in some instances we have some very conservative, considered judicial officers stating things like this union is simply using the fines, treating the fines as the cost of business.

Rex Patrick is speaking to Patricia Karvelas on Afternoon Briefing and says while Centre Alliance supports the intent of the temporary exclusion order bill, it will abstain from voting for it, because it can’t support it in its current form.

Labor will be passing it, although it has raised its own concerns.

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Secret strip-club videos and lewd posts: Australia’s fallen election candidates

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Several candidates quit ahead of election after deluge of offensive behaviour exposed

In a whirlwind 48 hours, the Australian election has lost a host of its most controversial candidates.

From homophobic comments about sitting MPs to secret strip-club footage, to Facebook posts about naked centaurs, a deluge of racist, sexist and bizarre behaviour has claimed the careers of four candidates in only two days.

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Federal election 2019: Liberals ‘riddled with rightwing extremists’, Shorten says – politics live

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Opposition leader stresses Labor unity as Victorian Libs dump candidate over anti-Islam comments. All the day’s events, live

Not politics, but because we all need some light relief from time to time – Chris Kenny has quit twitter for about the third time.

It really, really is just the day for it.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a breaking story on another Victorian Liberal candidate facing the sack – this time for comments he made about his would-be party room colleague Tim Wilson because he had the temerity to be born gay.

The candidate’s comments came in response to a post by another commentator, Michael Taouk, who said he was not in the Liberal party, calling for the “Liberal grassroots” to “remove preselection from that notorious homosexual Tim Wilson”.

Mr Taouk wrote: “No true Christian can fight on the same side of that man.”

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‘Do what it takes’: Nationals leader defends preference deals with One Nation

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Michael McCormack raises eyebrows saying his party is ‘aligned with One Nation’ more than Labor or Greens

The Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, has unveiled a new statutory authority for water infrastructure in an effort to contain a bush boilover at the election – and has declared his party is happy to enter preference deals with One Nation because their policies align.

McCormack used a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday to unveil a new Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility-style body for dams, with the new body charged with using “the best available science” to examine how large-scale water diversion projects could be established to deliver reliable and cost-effective water to farmers and regional communities.

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One Nation’s Steve Dickson resigns over strip club footage

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Pauline Hanson calls Senate candidate’s behaviour in leaked al-Jazeera footage broadcast on Nine’s A Current Affair ‘unacceptable’

The One Nation Australian senate candidate Steve Dickson has resigned after footage emerged of him groping dancers and making disparaging comments about a woman in a Washington DC strip club.

Dickson said he was “deeply remorseful for my disrespectful comments towards women” and his wife was standing by him. “I found the footage difficult to watch as my words and actions under intoxication and in that environment, are not a true reflection of myself,” he said in a statement.

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One Nation and Port Arthur conspiracies: a long and dishonourable history

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Pauline Hanson publicly denies the 1996 massacre was a set-up, but the believers have consistently found a home in her party

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has been connected to supporters of the Port Arthur conspiracy theory since before the party was formed in 1997, despite repeated assurances from the Queensland senator that she had never believed the theory.

According to a Queensland political historian, it would take “a lot of good faith” to assume that Hanson has not been aware that those supporting the conspiracy theory had found safe harbour in One Nation over the past 20 years.

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Penny Wong warns racism and hate speech in parliament threaten democracy

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Labor senator says those who ‘see political or commercial advantage in heightening cynicism’ are diminishing civic life

Penny Wong will say that “racism is a threat to our democracy” in a speech taking aim at those who see “political or commercial advantage” in increased cynicism towards public institutions.

The Labor senator is set to warn that hate speech and extremist views in parliament and a “lack of unity in response to these” have harmed democracy, pointing the finger in part at the Coalition for its tardy response to condemn One Nation in the 45th parliament.

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Pauline Hanson suggests Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy

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One Nation leader tells al-Jazeera reporter there are ‘a lot of questions’ about 1996 attack

Pauline Hanson has implied that the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy, in comments recorded secretly by al-Jazeera.

Hidden camera footage, released by al-Jazeera as part of the undercover operation that revealed One Nation had sought a US$20m (A$28m) donation from the US gun lobby, showed the party’s leader saying she had “a lot of questions” about Port Arthur.

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