One Nation Party

The One Nation Party is a conservative nationalist and protectionist political group in Australia. The party was formed in 1997 by Pauline Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge[?]. She had been expelled from the Liberal Party in 1996 shortly before the March federal elections in that year due to comments against race-based welfare she made to a newspaper in her home town of Ipswich, Queensland.

One Nation's peak was the 1998 Queensland State Election, at which they won 22.66% of the vote, and 11 of the 89 seats.

Since that time, the party has been plagued by internal divisions and has split several times. Most of their MPs in the Queensland Parliament deserted One Nation and then lost their seats at the following election. Lawsuits from grass-roots members forced Hanson to repay approximately AU $500,000 of public funding won at the 1998 Queensland election because of the way the One Nation leadership set up the organisation, with two separate parties, a secret one with less than 15 members—the leadership and the MPs— which held all power and controlled the money raised by the other, powerless, outer party which ordinary members were allowed to join. Having now repaid the public funding with the help of donations from the general public, Hanson is currently fighting fresh charges to the effect that she pocketed a portion of the money raised and used it for personal gain.

One Nation currently has two Members in the Western Australian parliament, two MPs in the Queensland state parliament, and one Senator. There is also a separate One Nation Party in New South Wales state politics, the One Nation NSW Political Party. It is led by David Oldfield who sits in the New South Wales state upper house.

See also: David Ettridge[?], David Oldfield, John Pasquarelli[?]