MEDIA RELEASE

10 June 1998

SENIOR ONE NATION OFFICIAL WAS
A FORMER PRESIDENT OF AN EXTREMIST ORGANISATION

 

There is growing evidence of One Nation links to:

This is evidenced in a number of ways:

Tom King, President of the Queensland State Electoral Committee for One Nation, has been revealed to be a former President of the far right Australian Defence Association (SE Qld Branch) who has espoused conspiracies about the UN taking over and ruining Australia. King has had material published in the extremist far-right publication The Strategy as well as the League of Rights publication On Target. King has also admitted knowing the editor of The Strategy "very well". King continues to distribute Australian Defence Association material. Tony Pitt is also closely associated with The Strategy.

Furthermore, endorsed NSW One Nation Federal candidate Ross Provis has been revealed to have links to the militant AUSI Freedom Scouts as well being an active member of Grahame Campbell's Australia First Party. The AUSI Freedom Scouts advertise extensively in extremist gun magazine, Lock, Stock and Barrel and The Strategy.

A book written by Joe Vialls of WA, who has had material published in the racist New Age magazine New Dawn, advanced the conspiracy also espoused by Hanson confidant Tony Pitt that the Port Arthur massacre was a cover up perpetrated by a number of secret agencies.

Excerpts of the book have been published in the Victorian extremist publication The Strategy as well as New Age magazine Exposure which is edited by former One Nation candidate David Summers. The book PORT ARTHUR MYSTERIES OF THE MASSACRE has been actively distributed in all National Party seats with an accompanying oral message of "vote for One Nation or Australia First".

Also, Pauline Hanson's senior adviser David Oldfield has met with leaders of gun groups including Ron Owen, editor of the extremist gun magazine Lock Stock and Barrel; Ian McNiven, Vice President of the Fire Arm Owners Australia who has expressed support for the ideology of AUSI Freedom Scouts; and the militant group, Loyal Regiment of Australian Guardians. McNiven subscribes to the conspiracy theory of a "New World Order" and has urged supporters to buy back their freedom to bear arms "with the most expensive currency in the world…blood". His fears of an Indonesian take over appear to be shared by Oldfield who said, "If I am going to fight anyone its not going to be over keeping guns, its going to be the bloody Indonesians".

It is also of interest to note that the Pauline Hanson Internet site, managed by Global Web Builders, managing director Scott Balson (GWB), has provided an Internet link to the racist publication The Strategy which claims "… to present the 'truth' without fear or favour, irrespective of its source." However, the associations between GWB and The Strategy exceed simply sharing of common ideology, rather it appears that the two organisations have formed a business arrangement, whereby GWB promotes The Strategy and vice-versa.

Mr Mark Briskin, Director Research and Publications of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission said, " It appears that One Nation has become a forum for a range of far-right groups to advance their ideas, including militias, conspirators and xenophobes, as evidenced in the effective merger of the Australians Against Further Immigration with One Nation. There is striking resonance between the views espoused in extremist publications such as The Strategy and the National Interest with the speeches given by Hanson. No one should doubt One Nation's right-wing credentials."

Executive Director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission Mr Danny Ben-Moshe said, "One Nation has claimed that they cannot help it if far-right figures lend them support. But now we see that such figures are an integral part of the One Nation machinery. This is potentially the most concerted attempt by the far right to become a serious force in Australian politics."

The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, is  a national, Jewish, anti-racism watchdog.


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