The perils of Pauline. Let’s get one thing straight. If I had a tape apparently showing Liberal or Labor senators and apparatchiks ripping off their own candidates — not to mention the taxpayer, through the Electoral Commissioner — I’d be screaming bloody murder.
The fact that it was Pauline Hanson and James Ashby was, perhaps, more predictable (after Four Corners and the One Nation plane scandal) but still a major news story. Especially with the Queensland state election looming. What happened to “keep the bastards honest”?
[Is Pauline Hanson going back to jail?]
The Brisbane Courier-Mail, which broke the yarn, had two damning front pages. The first:”Let’s Make Some Cash. Exclusive: Hanson’s top adviser recorded discussing scheme to rip off taxpayers and One Nation candidates”.
The follow-up was just as bad: “Come Clean Pauline. Please explain. Secret recording challenges Hanson’s claim on scheme”.
I won’t detail the whole grubby scenario, but here’s the potted version.
Hanson, Ashby and two other (unidentified) One Nation executives had a two-hour meeting late last year, and somebody recorded it.
Ashby said: “Can I just point out, I’ve said this once before, there is an opportunity for us to make some money out of this, if we play it smart. Now I know they say you can’t make money out of state elections, but you can. And I’ll deny I ever said this, but …”
His plan, now dismissed by PHON as “brainstorming”, was to buy corflutes (those candidate plastic posters for fences and lamp posts) for $5, sell them to their own One Nation candidates for $11 and pocket the difference.
Then Ashby goes further, and this is why I said on radio they could face criminal charges of conspiring to defraud the taxpayer through the Queensland Electoral Commission.
He details how the candidates would submit an invoice to the commission for the inflated price, they would be reimbursed $11, keep $5 and the rest would go to HQ.
Ashby: “Where are we making money? ‘Cause when you lodge the receipt, at the full price, with the Electoral Commission of Queensland, you get back the full amount that’s been issued to you as an invoice.”
Hanson says on the tape (which I have heard): “The candidates get something and the party gets a certain amount.”
[Poll Bludger: One Nation legal woes spell electoral trouble for LNP]
At Monday’s weird presser in Perth, where it looked like the main protagonist was “Senator” Ashby and Hanson was his sidekick, she stressed: “Don’t forget, I was at the meeting as well. You do not have the full recording of that meeting, so you have no idea what was said at the rest of the meeting. We knocked it on the head at the meeting. It didn’t go ahead, that’s why. It was an issue that was raised and it was knocked on the head there and then.”
A very reliable One Nation source, who provided me with the tape, questioned whether that was the complete truth.
Hanson says on the tape: “Just look at it, what is the best financial outlook for us?”
But wait, there’s more. The other woman at the meeting was worried about the financial health of some candidates. She said: “But these candidates up front don’t have a lot of money.”
Ashby had a slick solution. “We’ll sell it again to them for eight bucks.” Again?
And this damning kicker: “Like what we did.”
What does that mean? I don’t know, but it prompted me to tweet:
***
Some belated budget after-party gossip with the emphasis on sip. On budget night I saw a blonde sipping red wine through a straw. I thought it must be some trendy new Canberra practice.
It brought back memories of the time when it was considered de rigeur, in the hobnob marquees at the Melbourne Cup, for socialites, in little dresses and big headgear, to sip a piccolo of French champagne through a straw — until they realised it got them shickered and unseemly much faster than a glass of pinot.
(A doctor explained to me that the straw concentrates the bubbles and the alcohol gets into your bloodstream much quicker. Sounds feasible.)
Curious, I asked the blonde why she did it and she gave me a plausible explanation: it meant she didn’t smear her lipstick on the glass and she was being considerate to the glass-washing barman and other patrons because we all hate getting wine glasses with lipstick stains glued to them.
I recounted the story to a cynical female staffer. Bullbleep, she said. The woman was obviously heavily botoxed and with lips full of that stuff you can’t feel the glass and risk missing your mouth with the wine.
Like when you try to navigate a glass of water after you’ve been to the dentist.
I wonder if Nicole Kidman drinks wine through a straw?
And in that tape, didn’t Ashby say ‘like the liberals do’ ?
If this is not prosecuted I will believe the relevant officials are corrupt. And if the officials are directed not to, or urged to exercise discretion, I believe that amounts to corruption too – by the officials, and by those doing the directing or urging. And worst of all, and the most likely outcome of all, is no prosecution and the not so subtle hint to Hanson that a prosecution could be brought on if she does not support key pieces of legislation. And that, without a doubt, would be corrupt. And impossible to prove.
The straw thing is a load of shit – ethanol absorption happens on every membrane up to and including skin. The only way to appreciably speed absorption is to squirt it up your arse (but don’t do this – you reduce the onset to a few seconds, leading sometimes to minor cases of death).
The doctor told you the straw thing because doctors do and say what they’ve always done and said… evidence-based medicine is a new thing (ask Richard Di Natale if you don’t believe me).
And the answer to your headline query is “no”
The Pauline stuff is vaguely interesting although information I find elsewhere. But I certainly don’t pay for a Crikey subscription for access to utterly pointless, somewhat sexist stories about anonymous women and drinking wine through straws. And why has Nicole Kidman been dragged into it?
I think the inference is that Nicole might have had a bit of botox along the way.
But how Hinch would know this is anyone’s guess!
And an incidental bit of casual sexism – ingrained in me too, because I know what it means: using the word “blonde” to refer to a woman. We all respond to it, we all have a particular if vaguish image of the woman it refers to. Complete objectification, defining a woman by her hair colour alone.
Hey settle down sheeple, no need for this sort of hyperbole against Dezza – how could the man who just suggested to Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs that her claims of increased sexism against women in public life was a trumped up claim worthy of pussy-grabber/sook-in-chief Trump, be sexist?
Agreed Ben, Hinch should have his Crikey gig canned after his performance against the HRC today – disgraceful stuff, comparing her to Trump…..piss him off Crikey, I’ve had enough already.
Hinch’s presence on Crikey has irritated me from day one and I’ve pleaded for his removal before.
Having Hinch here continues to make me question the worth of the price of subscription .
Crikey must be doing very well to be able to feel comfortable with alienating their readership.
Hey, Derryn, you could cut up corflute signs and drink red wine thru that. I’d buy the sign for 5 bucks, and sell you a straw for 1. Think how many straws you could get from a corflute sign?
The Human Headline’s on stronger stuff these days… as Jacquie Lambie said “If you think it’s drug free up here you’re kidding yourselves”