Pauline Hanson’s One Nation sought US National Rifle Association support for a social media campaign during the 2019 federal election campaign and millions in political funding from gun lobby & Koch Brothers

Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON) political party currently only has two members in the Australian Parliament and they sit in the Senate.

PHON wants to hold the balance of power in the Australian Parliament after the May 2019 federal election.

In order to gain the required seats in the House of Representatives, in September 2018 the party was secretly promising to subvert Australia's gun laws in an attempt to gain millions from the powerful US gun lobby to assist its federal election campaign.

https://youtu.be/QYyX7O02yOg

Al Jazeera, YouTube, 25 March 2019:

A three-year Al Jazeera investigation into the U.S. gun lobby has uncovered an effort by an Australian political party to seek millions of dollars in political funding while offering to soften strict, anti-gun laws in Australia.

Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit used concealed cameras to track ‘Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’, a right-wing, anti-immigration party, as representatives travelled to Washington, D.C. to hold meetings with the National Rifle Association and other lobby groups, as well as the energy giant Koch Industries.

One Nation’s Chief of Staff James Ashby was accompanied on the U.S. visit by Steve Dickson, the party’s leader in the Australian state of Queensland and a candidate in upcoming Australian elections. Ashby and Dickson were recorded seeking up to $US20 million for their election war chest while promising to soften laws, put in place following a massacre in Australia in 1996.

The strict Australian gun laws have often been condemned by the NRA.

Al Jazeera approached all the groups and individuals featured in this programme. 

https://youtu.be/_zIodf0o3T0

After meetings with the US gun lobby Ashby and Dickson met with a representative of the Koch Brothers. Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, are the billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries - one of the largest privately-held companies in the world - who are known to support far-right political parties, movements and policies.

Despite there being a federal legislated ban on foreign political donations since November 2018 the Al Jazeera video footage clearly shows that just weeks after this ban was put in place Pauline Hanson and One Nation were still considering seeking support from the US gun lobby and the Koch Brothers.

Having been publicly exposed One Nation now denies it had any intention of watering down national gun laws. 

However, it is clear from the Al Jazeera video that One Nation was promising to open doors for the National Rifle Association with the aim of assisting that exact purpose, because it believed that any significant increase in One Nation representation in the Australian Parliament after the next federal election meant it would have the government "by the balls". 

The video also reveals that it was canvassing the possibility of concealing any funding it might receive from the US gun lobby by arranging for the NRA to create and pay for a social media campaign for One Nation's benefit in the lead up to the May 2019 federal election, as well as using the Koch Brothers' network of companies to hide the source of any donations they might make. 

After initially pleading intoxicated bragging while in the US Pauline Hanson's Chief of Staff then had this to say.

"You're best buddies with Al Jazeera, ABC." and "You're a very rude man." James Ashby get aggro with the ABC. #qldpol #auspol pic.twitter.com/3SkB3JfiUk

— David Marler (@Qldaah) March 26, 2019

Prior to these revelations Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP Scott Morrison had refused to rule out the Liberal Party preferencing Pauline Hanson's One Nation ahead of The Greens and Labor at the federal election.

He partially walked back from this position and announced that the Coalition will be placing PHON below Labor on how-to-vote cards in all states and territories except Queensland. However he would not commit to putting PHON last.

So it is looking as though One Nation may possibly get a third member into the Senate.

WARNING TO QUEENSLAND VOTERS

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Queensland official and Senate candidate in 2019 Steve Dickson has a dream voters should be aware of:

“I’m going to be in one of those drug dealing mansions on the beach. I’ll hire it for a month. The ones that are 25 rooms and the chef and everything. We’ll drink and shoot the s**t [out] of everything down the water. Machine guns and everything. That’s my dream….And we can protect ourselves just in case” [Steve Dickson in How to Sell a Massacre Part 2, You Tube 27 March 2019]

Note:

According to The Guardian on 7 March 2018 Australian gun lobby groups spent more than $500,000 helping minor right wing parties, including One Nation, win seats in the Queensland state election in 2017.

According to ABC News on 27 March 2019 the Australian gun lobby has donated $1.7 million to political parties since 2011 and now per capita spends as much on political donations and campaigns as the US National Rifle Association (NRA).

According to The Sydney Morning Herald on 27 March 2019 the number of firearms in Australia is dramatically higher than before the Port Arthur massacre that killed 35 people, raising fears the gun lobby’s efforts to relax national restrictions are bearing fruit. Pre-Port Arthur in 1996 there were est. 3.2 million firearms in Australia, the post-Port Arthur gun buyback under theAustralian National Firearms Agreement saw that number reduced to est, 2.5 million but by 2017 firearms held in the private hands had risen to 3.6 million.

Gun ownership per capita has fallen reportedly since the Port Arthur massacre, with gun number increases since 1997 reflecting the fact that multiple guns are now being held by individuals. The highest numbers of gun owners appear to be in rural/regional northern and central NSW. Grafton and environs is an area with 7,930 registered guns, spread across the collections of 2,043 owners, with one individual owning 91 registered firearms according to The Daily Examiner on 12 April 2016.

Despite the rise in gun possession since 1997 the number of homicide incidents involving a firearm decreased by 57 percent between 1989-90 and 2013-14. Firearms were used in 13 percent of homicide incidents (n=32) in 2013-14. In 1989-90 it was 24 percent (n=75) of incidents, according to Crime Statistics Australia.

By 2016 the overall number of firearm deaths from all causes in Australia stood at 247 for that year which was a firearm death rate of 1 in 100,000 down from a rate of 3.4 deaths per 100,000 in 1990.

New gun amnesty period for unregistered firearms underway in NSW until 30 September 2018

In 2016 there were est. 872,662 registered and unregistered firearms in New South Wales.

Although that is a much lower number than the 1.09 million that were in the community in 1999, it still represents 11.42 firearms for every 100 people in the state.

The highest number of guns were in rural and regional NSW.

There were still  810,023 registered firearms in NSW as of March 2017.

Of which est. 7,829  were held by residents in the Grafton post code area along with 5,958 in Lismore, 3,916 in Kyogle, 1,378 in Ballina, 396 in Byron Bay, 376 in Tweed Heads, post code areas. 

That's an awful lot of guns in major towns in the Northern Rivers region.

Perhaps now is the time to consider whether gun ownership (or the number of guns owned) is strictly necessary for your business or leisure activities and, consider if this amnesty is a way to remove a handgun or rifle from your home.

NSW Police Public Site, 1 June 2018:

NSW FIREARM AMNESTY YOUR CHANCE TO SURRENDER OR REGISTER ILLEGAL GUNS

The NSW Police Force, with the support of the NSW Government, will conduct a state-wide Firearms Amnesty following the success of last year’s national campaign.

During the three-month period in 2017, NSW netted 24,831 firearms and 1898 firearm parts for destruction, sale or registration – more than any other state or territory – prompting another operation to reduce the number of unregistered and unwanted firearms in the community.

Anyone with an unregistered firearm or firearm-related item in their possession will have the chance to legally dispose, or register it, without penalty between 1 July and 30 September 2018.

Firearms and firearm-related items can be surrendered under amnesty arrangements at approved drop-off points, which include licensed firearm dealers, mobile stations, and police stations.

Under no circumstances should loaded firearms be taken into public places – including police stations.

Anyone with concerns about handling firearms or safely transporting them, can contact the NSW Police Force Firearms Registry on 1300 362 562 for assistance.

Results from the National Firearms Amnesty are available at www.homeaffairs.gov.au.

Anyone with information concerning gun crime in NSW should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. We don't need to know who you are; all we need is the information you have to hand. It may just help us get illegal guns of the street, and save lives in the process.

Contact Details

Firearms Registry Customer Service Line: 1300 362 562 (9.00am-4.00pm Monday to Friday - except Public Holidays)

General Email Address: firearmsenq@police.nsw.gov.au

Quotes of the Week

“We have the right to store a copy of your  [personal e-health] record and we are the only ones in the market to have this level 4 certification.”  [Romain Bonjean, co-founder Tyde, app developer registered portal operator with Australian Government Digital Health Agency & My Health Record, quoted in the Australian Financial Review on 6 April 2018]

“Life is short and shorter for smokers. Just legalise vaping.”  [Andrew Laming MP, Dissenting Report, submitted to Australian HoR Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, March 2018]

“When we kick their ass they all like to claim we’re drunk. I’ve been hanging out getting ready to ram a hot poker up David Hogg’s ass. Busy working; preparing.”  [St. Louis radio host Jamie Allman threatening anti-gun activist & highschool student David Hogg, as reported by Snopes, 9 April 2018]

“They promised us a grilling. We got PR.”  [UK journalist Carole Cadwalladr tweeting about US Senate hearing at which Facebook founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on 10 March 2018]

“I start to wonder if, in fact, how the developers mine money for Facebook has become a bit of a mystery to Zuck.”  [IT journalist Richard Chirgwin opining on Facebook founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter, 12 April 2018]

The American Resistance has many faces and these are just three of them (21)

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), media release, 20 March 2018:

Washington—A federal judge today granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) summary judgement in its landmark case against the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the second time the Court has ruled against the FEC for dismissing CREW’s complaint against a dark money group that spent millions in federal elections.

Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in September 2016 that the FEC acted “contrary to law” by dismissing a complaint against American Action Network (AAN), which spent millions on ads without revealing its donors, finding that the FEC’s analysis “blinks reality” and returning the case to the FEC to correct its error. Nevertheless, the three Republican commissioners once again blocked action against the organization, leading Judge Cooper today to correct the commissioners on their continued failure to follow the law.

This decision will have a major impact on disclosure by dark money groups, as the FEC can no longer ignore organizations’ spending on ads that air just before an election that try to hide their political purposes behind a sham “call” for viewers to contact their representatives about legislation.

“This decision marks a major victory not just for CREW but for believers in an open and transparent political process,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “We hope to see a major change in the way the FEC approaches investigations of nonprofit organizations engaged in politics.”

The case revolves around clearly political ads aired by AAN which the FEC decided were not meant to influence an election. The judge wrote in the first decision that “it blinks reality to conclude that many of the ads considered by the Commissioners in this case were not designed to influence the election or defeat of a particular candidate.” Yet the FEC still failed to act. The judge wrote in today’s decision, “The controlling Commissioners did not find that this ad (nor any others mentioning healthcare) had an election-related purpose…Seriously?”

“It’s a shame we have to keep taking the FEC to court to make it do its job,” Bookbinder said. “Unfortunately, they have given us no other choice. If they do not want to keep losing in court, they should start enforcing the law.”

Click here to read the decision

Australia Post-Port Arthur Massacre

Twenty years after the Port Arthur Massacre when a lone gunman killed 35 people and wounded 23 more…….

The Conversation, 27 April 2016:

The 1996 firearm laws were immediately followed by a buying spree, as banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were replaced with freshly imported single-shot firearms.

By 1999, civilian gun imports had dropped to a record low. And most gun dealers closed their doors.

In the years that followed, gun-buying climbed steadily to new heights. By 2015, the arms trade had broken all previous records. Last financial year Australia imported 104,000 firearms.

The million guns destroyed after Port Arthur have been replaced with 1,026,000 new ones. And the surge only shows upward momentum.

Twenty-one years after……

News.com.au, 12 October 2017:

THERE is a major “loophole” in Australia’s gun laws which allows for private arsenals with hundreds of guns and owners to “buy their first ... or 310th gun”.

Tighter restrictions on gun ownership — including a compulsory requirement to show “genuine reason” for owning each firearm — were introduced in 1996 following the Port Arthur massacre.

But the number of weapons that can be owned by an individual have since been weakened in various states and are not exclusively capped.

NSW Greens spokesman David Shoebridge said “a loophole in NSW’s gun laws allows private individuals to use the same reason to buy their 1st, 10th or 310th gun” and that Australia faces another mass shooting if the national approach to gun control isn’t tightened.

“A 20-year review of gun laws enacted after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 did not even look at capping the number of guns that can be owned by one individual,” he said.

“We are seeing private arsenals being built up in our major capital cities ...(and) suburbia.”

NSW Police figures for private firearm ownership obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show there are 31 private arsenals across Sydney with 73 to 305 guns each.

“Of the top 100 private arsenals with the most guns, 31 are in Sydney,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“These gun owners are not collectors or arms dealers but private individuals who have been allowed to amass private arsenals.

“It is inevitable that some of these private arsenals with end up in the hands of criminals.

“This really isn’t a question of mere politics it is a question of life and death.”

Almost 22 years later……

ABC News, 1 March 2018:

Thousands of automatic rifles, handguns and a rocket launcher are among the weapons handed in during last year's National Firearms Amnesty.

The final results, released today, show 57,324 firearms were handed in between July and September across Australia to be registered or destroyed.

Authorities received around 2,500 fully-automatic or semi-automatic guns that were previously unaccounted for, and 2,900 handguns.

The rocket launcher was handed in to a licensed firearms dealer in Queensland, who believes it was once recovered at a local tip.

New South Wales received the highest number of firearms at 24,831, followed by Queensland on 16,375. Victorians handed in 9,175 guns.

Almost a third of the weapons were destroyed, with the rest either registered and handed back, or passed on to a licensed dealer for resale.

Federal Minister for Law Enforcement Angus Taylor said the weapons were no longer on the "grey market", which refers to guns that are not registered and not in the hands of criminals.

"It's critical to get them off this grey market … so they don't end up in the black market," he said.

Despite the evidence before his eyes Home Affairs tsar Peter Dutton is apparently considering expanding the political power of the Australian gun lobby – à la U.S. National Rifle Association……

The Guardian, 15 March 2018:

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, is considering establishing a committee to allow gun importers to review proposed changes to firearm regulations for “appropriateness and intent”.

Following a meeting with a pro-gun lobbyist in February, Dutton is weighing up whether to establish a so-called “firearms advisory council”, which the gun lobby says would give it “a seat at the table” to advise the government on firearms policy.

Last month Dutton met with officials from Nioa, one of Australia’s largest gun dealers, and members of the shooting lobby to discuss the council.

Nioa is run by Robert Nioa, a major political donor to his father-in-law, the federal MP Bob Katter. He is also a director of the firearms industry lobbying group Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia, or Sifa.

Sifa’s other directors include the general manager of Winchester Australia, Clive Pugh and the managing director of Beretta Australia, Luca Scribani Rossi.

The group donated to Liberal and National MPs in the lead-up to the 2016 federal election and pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a campaign that helped minor rightwing parties gain votes in last year’s Queensland state election.

Held at Nioa’s company headquarters in Brisbane, the meeting was attended by Laura Patterson, Sifa’s communications and research officer, and Nioa official David Briggs. Robert Nioa was not at the meeting.

In a video posted by Sifa on social media, Patterson said the meeting was aimed at “formalising” the establishment of a “firearms advisory council”.

In the video, which included an image of the department’s logo, Patterson said the council would “establish a mechanism for expert government to industry consultation” and would allow Sifa to “review proposed regulatory changes for efficiency, appropriateness and intent”.

BACKGROUND

Australian Government, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017:

Rates of firearm-related injuries for both hospitalised cases and deaths fell between 1999–00 and 2005–06 from a starting rate of 2 cases per 100,000 population to 1.5 per 100,000 for hospitalised cases and 1 per 100,000 for deaths in 2013–14 (Figure 6).

Rates for hospitalised cases were relatively steady from 2005–06 onwards, while rates for deaths continued to fall:

* The fall in rates for hospitalised cases in the early part of the period was mainly attributable to a decline in unintentional cases, from 221 to 105, between 1999–00 and 2005–06.

* The fall in rates for deaths over the entire period was mainly attributable to a decline in intentional self-harm (suicide) cases, from 236 to 166, between 1999–00 and 2012–13.

The rate of firearm suicide by males was about 6 to 7 per 100,000 population annually for about 30 years, to the late 1980s.

The rate then declined to less than 1 per 100,000 by 2011 (Figure 7). A similar pattern was seen for females, although rates were much lower.

Guns are not a badge of power or masculinity - they are a weapon of mindless violence in the hands of idiots

https://youtu.be/WxwPcUh97oc