Bogle’s swing to the left Former One Nation branch president now union man

A FORMER One Nation party branch president is working for a group of Northern Territory unions as a “political co-ordinator”.

The NT News understands Brendan Bogle was employed by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Australian Manufac- turing Workers’ Union earlier this year to help increase their political pull.

The Australian Labor Party is split into two factions, the left and the right.

The CFMEU, ETU, MUA and AMWU are all affiliated with the left faction.

In 1998, Mr Bogle was one of three members of the One Nation Petrie branch who were sacked from the party over a plan to stage a mass defection to the Nationals.

Mr Bogle had warned he would defect and expected up to 200 others to follow him, after concerns about the apparent infiltration of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation by rightwing groups.

In an interview with the ABC’s 7.30 Report he described the party as having “good wholesome values”.

It appears as though Mr Bogle’s political ideologies took a sharp turn and in the years following his sacking he started working for the Transport Workers Union.

The unions involved and Mr Bogle refused to comment on the appointment.

The NT’s left faction convener, Erina Early, also refused to comment on the decision to install Mr Bogle as a political co-ordinator for the four leftwing unions.

Ms Hanson was booted out of the Liberal Party after comments she made about indi- genous Australians, but then as an independent.

In 1997, Ms Hanson cofounded Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, a right-wing political party opposed to immigration and multiculturalism.

She lost her seat at the 1998 federal election.

At the 2016 federal election she was elected to the Senate, representing Queensland, together with three other senators of her party.