Pauline Hanson - Fraud Conviction and Acquittal

Fraud Conviction and Acquittal

On 20 August 2003, in a separate and this time criminal case, a jury in the District Court of Queensland convicted Hanson and Ettridge of electoral fraud. Both of them were sentenced to three years imprisonment for falsely claiming that 500 members of the 'Pauline Hanson Support Movement' were members of the political organisation 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation', in order to register that organisation in Queensland as a political party and apply for electoral funding. Because the registration was found to be unlawful, Hanson's receipt of electoral funding worth A$498,637 resulted in two further convictions for dishonestly obtaining property – each with three-year sentences, to run concurrently with the first. Hanson's initial reaction to the verdict was – "Rubbish, I'm not guilty. It's a joke."

Prime Minister John Howard said it was "a very long, unconditional sentence" and Bronwyn Bishop said Hanson was a political prisoner, comparing her conviction with Robert Mugabe's treatment of Zimbabwean opponents.

On 6 November 2003 (delivering judgment the day after hearing the appeal), the Queensland Court of Appeal quashed all of Hanson and Ettridge's convictions. Hanson and Ettridge were immediately released from jail. The Court's unanimous decision was that the evidence did not support a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt that the people on the list were not members of the 'Pauline Hanson's One Nation' party and that Hanson and Ettridge knew this when the application to register the party was submitted. Accordingly, the convictions regarding registration were quashed. The convictions regarding funding, which depended on the same facts, were also quashed. However, in order to reach this decision the court had to suppose that the three founding members of One Nation – Hanson, Ettridge and Oldfield – had misinterpreted the party's constitution when they had claimed, in earlier public statements, to be the only members of the party. Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, with whom the other two judges agreed overall, suggested that, if Hanson, Ettridge and especially the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had used better lawyers from the start, the whole matter might not have taken so long, up to the appeal hearing, or even have been avoided altogether. Court of Appeal President Margaret McMurdo rebuked many politicians, including Prime Minister John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop MHR. Their observations, she said, demonstrated at least "a lack of understanding of the Rule of Law" and "an attempt to influence the judicial appellate process and to interfere with the independence of the judiciary for cynical political motives," although she praised other leading Coalition politicians for accepting the District Court's decision.

At this time, media criticism was directed at political interference by leading federal Liberal politician Tony Abbott, who had arranged for the lawyers who instituted the earlier, Sharples action to act on a largely pro bono basis. Investigations by the ABC's Four Corners programme showed that Abbott had financed this action in an effort to derail the One Nation party.