Senator Rodney Culleton has contradicted Pauline Hanson’s office on whether One Nation will agree to a backpacker tax of 15% and says she will support tearing up the referral of his eligibility to the high court when she has the “full facts”.
The signs of One Nation discord come as Culleton presents his terms of reference for a banking royal commission to the prime minister and is preparing to do a deal with the government on the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
But a crossbench agreement on the ABCC was thrown into doubt on Friday when Nick Xenophon said he would not deal with any government legislation until the Murray Darling Basin plan was fixed.
On Thursday, One Nation joined Jacqui Lambie, Labor and the Greens to pass an amendment that the backpacker tax be lowered from the government’s preferred 19% to 10.5%.
As Guardian Australia first reported, a spokesman for Hanson had said One Nation would be prepared to accept a tax of 12-15% if the government rejected the 10.5% level, which it did in the lower house.
But on Friday, Culleton told a news conference he was “not at all” prepared to accept a tax higher than 10.5%. He said he wanted the tax to be “fair right across the board” and to encourage workers to undertake fruit-picking.
When told Hanson was prepared to go up to 15%, he said he was “not aware” of that and believed the position was to keep it at 10.5%. Asked about the difference of opinion, he said “it’s an opinion, it’s nothing final, until it’s a fact, we’re still discussing it”.
Culleton’s eligibility to sit in the Senate is subject to a high court challenge, and the One Nation senator said he would ask the Senate to revoke the referral that boosted the case.
When asked about Hanson’s decision to back the referral, Culleton said she had been misled and when she had the full facts “she would gladly support me”.
Asked about whether he had been approached by other political parties to join them and about speculation that he could form his own party, Culleton said: “I will run my term as a One Nation senator.”
He called the news conference to announce that he had given his terms of reference for a banking royal commission to Malcolm Turnbull.
He said “there will be a royal commission and we won’t give up until it happens”, although Turnbull has not offered support for it.
Culleton said the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, supported the idea and could tweak the terms of reference but looked favourably on them. Labor has committed to a royal commission and has not set out its precise terms of reference. Shorten has given Culleton comfort rather than explicit support.
Culleton said he was still considering the ABCC bill and would back it if amendments were made to support apprenticeships.
The government is aiming to pass the ABCC bill in the final sitting week, but its plans have been complicated by a warning on Friday from Xenophon, whose party holds three crucial Senate votes.
“We need to sort out this water mess before we sort out any other pieces of legislation this government is interested in,” he said.
