Australia’s hard-right One Nation Party has been accused of seeking donations from US gun lobby group the National Rifle Association (NRA) ahead of the upcoming general election, an al-Jazeera investigation said.
Secret recordings aired by the Qatar-based broadcaster showed members of Pauline Hanson’s party seeking A$10 million to A$20 million (US$324,328 to US$648,656) in donations from the NRA, apparently in return for trying to loosen Australia’s tight gun laws.
An al-Jazeera investigator posed as a gun lobbyist to facilitate meetings between Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, Queensland party leader Steve Dickson and the NRA in Washington — meetings that were recorded.
In the footage, Ashby was shown as saying that he wanted political support, powerful NRA software — to aid voter targeting — and help with donations.
“If the NRA wants to rally their supporters within Australia, that’s one start,” Ashby said in one meeting ahead of the NRA sit-down.
“Two, I’d love to get my hands on their software — and three, if they can help us with donations, super,” Ashby said.
Ashby is heard saying that a A$10 million donation would allow the One Nation Party to win eight seats in the Australian Senate, parliament’s upper house, giving the party sufficient power to influence legislation.
However, following the Christchurch massacre any move to roll back Australia’s strict gun control legislation would likely encounter widespread opposition.
The One Nation Party has two seats in the outgoing Senate, one of them held by Hanson.
NRA official Lars Dalseide later offered the group advice on how to respond to mass shootings in a way that would avoid tighter gun restrictions.
The al-Jazeera report prompted calls for a probe into whether One Nation officials had breached rules against foreign interference in Australian elections.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday tweeted that the report about senior One Nation officials courting “foreign political donations from the US gun lobby to influence our elections & undermine our gun laws that keep us safe are deeply concerning.”
However, he refused to tell his supporters not to back the party in Australia’s ranked voting system.
Morrison’s Liberal Party is struggling in the polls and is eager not to alienate One Nation voters, or their own supporters on the right. The Liberals might still need to rely on second-preference votes to win marginal seats.
“There are many reasons not to vote for One Nation. It’s a long list. We’ve seen some of those on display in recent times. Today, we saw further evidence of that,” Morrison said, but added: “There are plenty of extreme views out there,” singling out the country’s Green Party.
Another video purported to show the Australians meeting with representatives of Koch Industries, a company run by conservative powerbroker and advocate mega-donor Charles Koch.
In that meeting, Dickson offers to change Australia’s “voting system” in return for cash.
In a statement to Australian media, Ashby claimed that al-Jazeera is a propaganda arm of the Qatari government.
He said that the party had reported al-Jazeera to the police to investigate whether the media group was working as an unregistered foreign agent.
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