Pauline Hanson dumps Mark Latham as NSW One Nation leader in 'Queensland takeover'
Monday, 14 August 2023
Latham Rejects Queensland Control of NSW One Nation
On Wednesday 9 August, without consultation or due process, Senator Pauline Hanson used the National Executive powers of One Nation to take over our NSW branch.
She has installed her own new State Executive with people from Queensland and Tasmania who did not lift a finger to help us during the March election campaign.
Hanson's sole justification for this takeover is our upper house vote, which fell by 1% in March. Yet our 6% result was still 2% ahead of the NSW Senate result last year in a campaign Hanson herself headed.
In Queensland, Hanson’s Senate vote fell by 3% and she only just scrapped in for re-election. If she is worried about under-performance, her best solution is to buy a mirror.
In June, NSW One Nation conducted a thorough post-election review involving all our state candidates. Last month Senator Hanson was briefed on the review’s findings. Our NSW party was moving forward in a sensible, cooperative way but has now been turned upside down by the Queensland intervention.
Equally, the decision to try to abolish the position of NSW One Nation Parliamentary Leader is bizarre, mirroring something the Greens do in the NSW Parliament.
This is a matter, quite rightly, for me, Rod Roberts and Tania Mihailuk. I remain as the leader of our parliamentary team. Over the past 5 years we have built up into the largest One Nation parliamentary party in the country – so where’s the problem?
The Queensland takeover is not about performance. It is about money. As NSW One Nation Leader I have stood in the way of attempts to misuse our funds, especially the administration money contributed by NSW taxpayers through the Electoral Commission. I will continue to fight for the proper, ethical use of this money.
Mark Latham MLC