Source : the age
A certain sense of deja vu accompanied this year’s news that a wealthy benefactor had given One Nation a plane.
Pauline Hanson was keen to show off her “sexy” new Cirrus SR22, a present from mining billionaire Gina Rinehart worth an estimated $1.5 million. But a decade earlier, the party leader was flying high in a different light aircraft from another admirer – a plane that has now dropped off the radar.
One Nation, whose financial affairs are under growing scrutiny as the party overtakes the opposition and the government in multiple polls, is refusing to say where the plane has gone and if it has been sold.
It never declared the $100,000 Jabiru 230-D as a political donation, even after an investigation by the electoral commission prompted the donor himself to make a declaration.
The party failed to record it as an asset in its financial accounts.
Instead, it was registered in the name of Hanson’s then chief of staff and now party director, James Ashby. In a police statement seen by this masthead, one former staff member reported the matter as a possible misappropriation.
The funds for the purchase came from Victorian property developer Bill McNee, who offered in 2015 to become a “major financial supporter” of One Nation.
McNee’s company covered tens of thousands of dollars in rent for the party’s Brisbane headquarters. But Ashby raised another idea: a personal plane to carry Hanson from place to place, an airborne publicity stunt.
Ashby would fly his boss himself. He was a pilot, after all, although he held only a recreational licence. His use of the plane without a commercial licence was later investigated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which declined to comment on the outcome, citing privacy obligations.
Flying the plane was one thing. Its ownership was another.
The Jabiru that McNee had paid for was emblazoned with a sign saying “Pauline Hanson’s One Nation” and an illustration of a bobble-headed Hanson flying, shouting “Fed Up!”
But the plane was registered in Ashby’s name, not the party’s, online news publication Independent Australia reported in 2017, quoting Recreational Aviation Australia.
A former One Nation official, who asked to remain anonymous due to fears of litigation, has told this masthead that McNee raised the registration issue with One Nation directly.
“He said ‘that plane was meant for Pauline Hanson and One Nation, not for Mr Ashby’,” the former official recalled McNee saying.
“He was really upset.”
After the donation was revealed by the ABC’s Four Corners, the Australian Electoral Commission launched an inquiry.
McNee eventually declared a $98,175 donation to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in 2018, which the AEC said was “approximately the cost of the Jabiru aircraft”. The electoral commissioner at the time, Tom Rogers, told parliament he understood that One Nation had also declared the donation and that he would double-check.
But One Nation never did declare a $98,175 Jabiru plane. The AEC ultimately concluded the party had met its obligations when it disclosed a $30,500 donation-in-kind from Ashby for use of the plane.
Party financial accounts covering the time of the donation do not record any new asset.
After the AEC published its findings in 2018, a former One Nation staff member approached Queensland Police, outlining concerns that the plane may have been misappropriated.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation “had never received the amount of $98,175 into any party bank account, nor was I informed [of] any party asset of that value being donated at this time,” the former staff member said in a police statement seen by this masthead.
The police statement also contained a recount of a conversation in 2016, in which McNee asked whether the plane needed to be declared.
According to the statement, Ashby said, “the money went into my account, and it’s in my name, so we don’t need to declare it”.
A Queensland Police spokesman confirmed it had received the 2018 statement and “determined the matter did not disclose any Queensland Criminal Code offences”.
One Nation declined to answer detailed questions from this masthead. Ashby said “these matters were canvassed and dealt with in detail at the time”.
McNee was approached for comment.
As for the plane’s current ownership, a Recreational Aviation Australia spokesman said it was a private matter.
Its whereabouts are unknown. A photograph taken at the Caboolture aerodrome in Queensland in 2018 showed the Jabiru stripped of its One Nation livery. Only a www.onenation.com.au sticker on the tail remained.
In January, the plane turned up on another aviation website, parked at Gunnedah in northern NSW.
This time, it was completely bare.
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