Pauline Hanson is under renewed fire over undercover footage of her appearing to suggest the Port Arthur Massacre was a government conspiracy.
Incredibly, it isn’t the first time that conspiracy theory has damaged One Nation.
In January 2017, the party dumped one of its Queensland candidates, Peter Rogers, ahead of the state election over a controversial blog post he claimed not to have written.
The post said the Port Arthur shooting was a hoax.
“The greatest social changes that happen in Australia are founded on total lies and a fabricated incident. Look at Port Arthur,” it read.
It also alleged the iconic photograph of a Syrian boy’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach was faked and the child, three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, was actually “alive and well”.
The haunting image of young Aylan had become a global symbol for the plight of refugees and the world’s failure to stop the bloodshed in Syria.
RELATED: Aylan Kurdi’s father says ‘horror must end’
The blog post, which has been deleted, was published on Mr Rogers’ website. He said it was written by a friend who was running the site without his knowledge while he was overseas in Hong Kong.
Mr Rogers offered his resignation after the post became a public issue, but was surprised when One Nation accepted it.
“I offered to resign when the issue blew up in the media, but I never expected Pauline or the party officials to accept it,” he said at the time.
“Other politicians, including Ms Hanson, have done far worse and survived.
“I made a mistake by allowing this guy to look after my website, but Pauline has made bigger mistakes than what I’ve actually made, and she survived it.”
Mr Rogers posted on Facebook today after the undercover footage of Ms Hanson emerged.
“Is this a joke?” he asked. “Isn’t this the reason why you asked me to resign Pauline?”
News.com.au has contacted him for comment.
In the video of Ms Hanson, which is part of Al Jazeera’s documentary following One Nation’s interactions with the American gun lobby, the One Nation leader says she has “a lot of questions” about Port Arthur, where a gunman shot and killed 35 people.
“An MP said it would actually take a massacre in Tasmania to change the gun laws,” she tells undercover journalist Rodger Muller.
“Haven’t you heard that? Have a look at it. It was said on the floor of parliament.
“Those shots. They were precision shots.
“Check the number out. I’ve read a lot and I have read the book on it, Port Arthur. A lot of questions there.”
RELATED: Pauline Hanson caught on hidden camera
Today Ms Hanson said her comments were “obviously heavily edited and do not reflect how I feel about those tragedies”.
“There is no question in my mind that Martin Bryant was the only person responsible,” she said.
“My belief stands today that he should have faced the death penalty.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Ms Hanson’s comments about Port Arthur helped sway him to commit to preferencing One Nation below Labor at the election.
“There have been further revelations overnight also, which have led me to the position this morning,” he said.
“The comments, particularly last night and the linkages to Port Arthur, I was shocked by them.”
The second part of the documentary How To Sell A Massacre airs on the ABC tonight, and it contains more damaging revelations for One Nation.
It shows Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby discussing how to sell a pro-gun message to Australians, who remain overwhelmingly supportive of the strict gun laws implemented by John Howard in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996.
In polling published last year, Essential Research found just 7 per cent of Australians thought the country’s gun laws were too strict, compared to 62 per cent who felt they were “about right” and a further quarter who said they were too weak.
RELATED: What’s in part two of the documentary
Mr Ashby suggests targeting the pitch to women and “vulnerable people”.
“It’s like Vegemite. You don’t put a f***ing bundle of the s*** on your toast. A light smear at first, get them used to the flavour,” Mr Ashby says.
“Part of it will be let’s start at women’s shooting range programs, self-defence programs, whatever those things might be. Start re-empowering women or vulnerable people.”
Tonight’s footage also reveals One Nation’s Queensland leader Steve Dickson comparing winning the balance of power in parliament to putting the government in a headlock and holding a gun to its head.
“The thing you need to understand about the balance of power is the headlock and the 9mm to the back of the head. That’s where it sits,” Mr Dickson said.
“Once you say, ‘We want something’, we will get it. Without it, they don’t get any legislation through.”
Those comments echo what Mr Dickson said in part one of the documentary — that gaining the balance of power would mean One Nation had “the whole government by the balls”.
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