“I’m not for sale, the party’s not for sale,“ One Nation leader Pauline Hanson told enthusiastic supporters as she helped launch the party’s new Wide Bay branch, covering a territory from Fraser Coast to parts of the South and North Burnett regions, Gympie and Noosa.
The “no sale” message was one she had delivered first hand to Clive Palmer in response to what she said amounted to a multi-million-dollar takeover offer.
“People are waking up. They’re crying out for change. They’re so sick of the major parties,“ Ms Hanson told about 40 One Nation members at Gympie’s Phoenix Hotel on 28 September.
She spoke of the party’s rocky road of mistakes, conflicts, “the undermining, the white-anting,“ since she founded it in 1997.
Candidates would be thoroughly vetted for potential scandal and disloyalty, as would staffers from here on, she said.
“I will not have factions. The Liberal Party has factions now. They’re finished.
“The ’Progressives’ should be in Labor or the Greens,“ she said.
“Australia is in a hell of a bloody mess.“
One Nation now had the infrastructure in place and the right people, particularly her Chief of Staff James Ashby, a former Gympie radio announcer.
“I’ve never known James to lie to me,“ she said, adding she had been betrayed too often.
“I’ve had too many people elected under the One Nation banner and then moved away.“
Ms Hanson had the previous day drawn 70 people to a fundraising “Pizza and Pauline“ event at Smittys Pizza in Hall Road, Gympie, where she helped prepare her special “Please Explain“ pizza.
“I can still get behind a counter,“ she said, referring to her former life running an Ipswich fish and chips shop.
