Pauline Hanson has used the twentieth anniversary of her One Nation party to savage the media and to declare she’s finished giving interviews to the ABC.
The Queensland senator released a video on her social media pages that said the two-decade anniversary of the party she founded had been marred by a recent savaging she received on a story on the ABC’s Four Corners program that alleged that she’d not properly declared a plane used for electioneering to remote areas.
Hanson also revealed she was due to fly to Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a parliamentary delegation visiting Australian troops for ANZAC Day. However, details of the trip were leaked to ABC journalist Andrew Probyn who aired them on the Insiders program forcing the trip to be cancelled over security concerns.
“Now, that was leaked to Andrew Probyn, who announced it to Insiders,” Hanson said in her video, her comments reported on Fairfax Media. “Here we have a seasoned journalist, who leaked this, big-noting himself.”
The trip reportedly included a number of politicians from both side of politics, however, Probyn only singled out Hanson as one of the delegation.
“I don’t know for whatever reason, he only mentioned Pauline Hanson was going on the trip – good on you, Andrew, great one mate.
“Anyway, because of a security threat now and risk, they have cancelled the trip.
“I was really looking forward to it. It was about getting to know the place, understanding it, to communicate with our men and women over there, understand what their mums and dads and other family members actually feel with them being over there, to actually have a talk.
“And you know what I was really looking forward to – was spending Anzac Day with them, that was going to be fantastic,” she said.
Hanson believed that ABC journalists had a vendetta against her and added she felt she was never given a fair hearing during interviews with the public broadcaster.
“I have no time for them, I won’t be doing any interviews with the ABC and they are actually really out to get my scalp and so are other journalists and I have heard about that, it is all about who can actually get Pauline Hanson’s scalp,” she said.
“So to the ABC don’t bother ringing me up for any interviews, it is not happening,” the senator added.