One nation has lost two of its three New South Wales MPs. Mark Latham and Rod Roberts have quit the party, accusing it of attempting to misuse taxpayer funds to buy merchandise. The allegations have now been referred to the NSW electoral commission.
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00:00 Mark Latham and his now former One Nation colleague Rod Roberts have got up in the Legislative
00:07 Council and said that they are quitting One Nation, they will now be independents, because
00:14 of alleged attempts to misuse taxpayer money at One Nation head office.
00:19 Mr Latham has tabled a lengthy letter in Parliament explaining his reasons and he's alleging that
00:25 the party's head office tried to claim back money from the NSW Electoral Commission's
00:31 administration fund to use for party paraphernalia and merchandise ahead of an election, things
00:38 like hats and party signs.
00:42 In this letter he says he raised the issue with the party's National Director Rod Miles
00:47 who allegedly responded "we do things differently here".
00:51 Mr Latham says he threatened to report the matter to police and to the Electoral Commission
00:57 and that is only when the party relented.
00:59 He says that Ms Hanson complained hysterically about that intervention in a phone call late
01:05 last year.
01:06 This letter urges the Special Minister of State in NSW to send the allegations to authorities.
01:13 I too inform the Parliament that I'll be sitting as an independent in the chamber following
01:19 the recent Queensland One Nation takeover of the NSW branch.
01:22 I cannot remain as a One Nation MP due to past attempts at defrauding NSW electoral
01:28 funds and the appointment of a new State Executive orchestrator to repeat these rorts.
01:33 This is a somewhat unsurprising move from Mark Latham given that last week Senator Pauline
01:39 Hanson reshuffled the NSW Executive Board and she made open the position of Parliamentary
01:47 Leader and that was Mark Latham's job and he said that that process was done without
01:52 his consultation.
01:53 There's been a rift that has grown between these two since Mark Latham tweeted something
01:59 earlier in the year to a Parliamentary colleague Alex Greenwich which Ms Hanson said at the
02:04 time was disgusting.
02:06 She said that she tried to contact Mr Latham and that he didn't pick up her calls.
02:11 Senator Pauline Hanson has issued a statement denying these allegations.
02:17 She's asked Mr Latham to apologise.
02:20 She says she utterly rejects the allegations made by these individuals under the protection
02:25 of Parliamentary privilege and she says both men should repeat those accusations outside
02:31 of Parliamentary privilege because she doesn't believe that they would stand.
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