One Nation has sought to play down internal rumblings shadowing the early stages of its Queensland election campaign, including claims a key party figure is profiting from printing expenses and “double standards” in scrutiny of candidates’ social media.
Former party treasurer Ian Nelson has accused Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, of “intimidating” candidates into using his printing businesses for a $3,500 state election campaign package, raising fears they’ll be disendorsed if they don’t.
Meanwhile, Andy Semple, who withdrew the day after his selection as a candidate over party complaints about his Twitter feed, has questioned whether One Nation applied “double standards” to Facebook posts by another candidate, Shan Ju Lin.
Lin has called for a worldwide ban on Islam, which she said was “dictatorship and evil”, and posted a mocking picture of Barack Obama in make-up and jewellery, declaring that same-sex marriage was the highlight of his achievements as US president.
One Nation’s state and national secretary, Jim Savage, rejected Nelson’s claims candidates were being pressured to have their campaign material printed at Ashby’s businesses, Coastal Signs & Printing and Black Bull.
The party last week emailed candidates saying it “will be providing a campaign ‘package’ for your use” costing $3,500 but did not state where the printing would be done. The work will be worth at least $126,000.
Nelson told the Australian Financial Review: “Ashby needs to stay right away from the candidates because he’s intimidating them, he’s insisting that they buy his product, which is much dearer than anything else, when these candidates should be able to buy their own from the local constituency ... In other words if you don’t do it this way, well you know what, you’re not going to get endorsed. I’ve heard it from the mouths of the candidates.”
Savage told Guardian Australia he knew of no basis to Nelson’s claims about Ashby, who he found to be “very professional, very good to our candidates, no one’s had any issues”.
“I am in the hot seat 24 hours a day and I have not had one single issue raised,” he said. “I think people have to be aware that when people leave parties, they may have axes to grind, I don’t know.”
Savage said there had been no decision about which printer would gain the work but that “we will have our material printed by the cheapest contractor we can find”.
Asked if the party would advise candidates if Ashby’s businesses undertook the work, Savage said: “Of course we’ll tell them.” But he said “James Ashby happens to be the chief of staff of Senator Hanson, he has not got time to go running around printing people’s corflutes”.
“We haven’t done any of our corflutes or posters yet so for somebody to say that any particular company’s doing it before we’ve even decided it is absolute bullshit,” he said. “I don’t even know for Christ’s sake, and I’m the campaign manager.”
Ashby told the AFR Nelson’s claims were “massively wrong” and candidates were “more than welcome to go and find a cheaper signwriter”.
But he did not rule out being the supplier for the Queensland election material. He said: “I created the brand for One Nation. Yes, I’m protective of our brand just as any business operator is.”
Queensland electoral commission records show One Nation paid Ashby’s companies $17,200 for printing and advertising in the first half of 2016.
Semple said he saw no more potential for offense in his post joking about the acronym LGBT than Lin’s mocking of Obama for supporting same sex marriage. “Apparently my freedom of speech is not worth as much as hers,” he said.
Asked about this by Guardian Australia, Savage said, “You don’t find c-u-n-t unacceptable?” Savage said another of Semple’s posts referring to that word were a concern to the party along with the LGBT joke. It is understood both Hanson and Ashby raised concerns about the latter tweet. However, Semple said Savage had asked him to delete the LGBT joke only and raised no other post with him.
He said his Twitter references to the word “cunt” were via the phrase, Charlie Uniform November Tangos, such as when he called the ABC “a bunch of Charlie Uniform November Tangos” for its treatment of gay marriage opponent and former tennis great Margaret Court last month.
Savage there was “no comparison whatsoever” between posts by Semple and Lin, with the latter saying “nothing that’s offensive or crude and that’s what it’s all about”.
Since news of his withdrawal as One Nation’s candidate for Currumbin, Semple said he had received a threatening phone message that he would report to police on Wednesday.
Lin, believed to be the first ethnic Asian candidate in One Nation’s history, told ABC on Wednesday she was not offended by Hanson’s 1996 remark that Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Asians”. She said One Nation would win the votes of “good Asians” who feared the rising influence of the communist Chinese state on Australian politics.
Savage said the focus on Lin’s Taiwanese nationality in media reports, amid suggestions an Asian candidate was incompatible with the values of a party once accused of spouting racist rhetoric towards Asian migrants, was offensive.
“I have an Asian wife and adopted Asian children and I’m in the process of fighting [immigration minister] Peter Dutton right now to bring my abandoned nieces, who are orphans, into Australia and he won’t let them in because I was president of One Nation at the time,” Savage said. “I find that offensive.”
