‘Smokescreen’: Labor hits out at One Nation fundraising
One Nation’s public fundraising campaign is a “smokescreen” for money from billionaire donors, a Labor official says.
The party, led by Pauline Hanson, claims to have raised more than $3 million from nearly 50,000 donors for its anti-Labour “sack the liar” campaign.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and others in the Labor Party cast doubt on the legitimacy of the fundraising campaign, prompting Senator Hanson to share an “independent audit” document written by a software engineer on his social media page.
Former federal treasurer Wayne Swan has described One Nation as the “party of billionaires”, highlighting its links to Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, who gifted Senator Hanson a $1 million plane in April.
“When it comes to big money in this country, it all goes to One Nation,” Labour’s national chairman told Nine’s Today on Friday.
“This whole debate is a smokescreen that ignores the fact that they are actually run by the top end of the city, and they deliver policies aimed at the top and suppress wages for the rest.”
Mr Swan said Labor was all for disclosure and the ALP’s fundraising efforts would not raise $2 million, as the right-wing party most recently claimed.
“I very much doubt whether One Nation can raise $2 million as well,” he said.
On Thursday Mr Albanese questioned what evidence there was that One Nation had actually raised funds.
“What evidence is there? This is an example of the slogans being put forward, not the content,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Sydney.
One Nation senator Sean Bell said Mr Albanese denied the allegation.
“We were pretty excited when he said it was absolutely real, knowing that tens of thousands of people up and down the country who donated were looking at their receipts and going,” he told Sky News.
“The people who are donating are real and they are angry, they are angry at a bad prime minister because they have seen their living standards collapse.”
Consistent polls show increasing support for One Nation, which is now the party with the highest number of primary votes.
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