Pauline Hanson caught on camera suggesting Australia’s worst gun massacre was a conspiracy

SYDNEY: Australia’s hard-right One Nation Party faced outrage and risked voters’ ire yesterday after its leader Pauline Hanson was captured on camera suggesting the county’s worst gun massacre was a conspiracy.

In footage from an Al Jazeera undercover investigation, Hanson floats the idea that the 1996 Port Arthur shootings, which left 35 people dead, were carried out to change Australian gun laws.

“An MP said it would actually take a massacre in Tasmania to change the gun laws in Australia,” she told an undercover journalist posing as a gun lobbyist.

“Those shots, they were precision shots,” she continues. “I’ve read a lot, and I’ve read the book on it — Port Arthur. A lot of questions there,” Hanson added.

The same Al Jazeera investigation earlier this week revealed senior One Nation members travelled to the US in September last year to solicit millions in donations from gun lobby group the National Rifle Association.

Hanson reportedly made the comments about three months after they returned.

Australia was rocked in 1996 when gunman Martin Bryant went on a rampage with semiautomatic weapons at the historic Tasmanian colonial convict site of Port Arthur.

It led to swift gun legislation, making Australia the gold standard for gun control advocates, and the laws retain overwhelming public support.

The footage comes at a particularly sensitive time, less than two weeks after an Australian gunman massacred 50 people at two mosques in neighbouring New Zealand, where the government swiftly tightened weapons regulations.

Hansen, who was condemned by all political quarters, tried to turn fire on Al Jazeera, describing it as an “Islamist organisation”, while claiming she had been “heavily edited” and her party had been “stitched-up”.

But she appeared to backtrack on claims that someone other than Bryant may have been behind Port Arthur – a common claim from conspiracy theorists after similar shootings in the US.

“There is no question in my mind that Martin Bryant was the only person responsible,” Hansen told reporters.

The footage could have wideranging implications for Hanson’s party and for general elections expected in May. And the political fallout is already mounting.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose conservative Liberal Party has for years courted One Nation voters, on Thursday slammed the behaviour as “appalling”.

“The comments particularly last night and the linkages to Port Arthur, I’m sure all Australians would be shocked about,” he told reporters.

After days of mounting pressure, Morrison said his party would rank One Nation below the opposition Labor Party on voting cards in the upcoming election.

Under Australia’s voting system parties jostle for voter preference, as secondary votes can be critical, particularly in marginal seats like those in northern Australia where minority party One Nation enjoys its largest support.

Morrison had resisted attacking Hanson and her party, fearing One Nation voters would not list the Liberal party as a preference.

Hanson branded Morrison a “fool” for the move, saying that he had handed election victory to Australia’s centre-left parties. – AFP