In an emotional interview with A Current Affair on Tuesday, One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson confirmed that her party no longer had a place for her disgraced Queensland leader, Steve Dickson, after a video of his strip club romp while on a visit to the United States last year was leaked to Australian media.
Pauline Hanson has told voters they deserve better it was revealed that the Queensland leader of One Nation, Steve Dickson, groped a dancer and made inappropriate comments while drunk at a strip club in Washington D.C. in September 2018.
Pauline Hanson's full interview with Tracy Grimshaw
I'm sorry for getting so emotional.
由 Pauline Hanson's Please Explain 发布于 2019年4月30日周二
She also said she was getting “kicked in the guts time and time again” and was “absolutely sick of it.”
“Why is everyone so frightened of myself, why is everyone so frightened of One Nation? And it’s quite evident in this election,” she told A Current Affair on Tuesday.
“I cop all this shit all the time and I’m sick of it.
“They have sat on this information and footage for over seven months and conveniently gave the tapes to (Nine’s) A Current Affair less than three weeks out from a federal election,” Hanson added.
In the exclusive interview, Hanson admitted if she could turn back time, she would tell Dickson and Ashby not to travel to the United States.
Dickson’s name will still appear on the upper house ballot paper on May 18 but Senator Hanson said voters would know he no longer represented One Nation.
Dickson resigned as soon as footage of his x-rated antics was aired by the Nine Network on Monday night.
The footage showed him cavorting with strippers and he was also caught saying: “I’ve done more Asian than I know what to do with.”
WARNING: viewer discretion advised
#BREAKING: Steve Dickson, the One Nation candidate who was filmed using racial slurs in a strip club while attempting to solicit sex from workers, has stepped down and resigned. #9News pic.twitter.com/dLYNZQTzqZ
— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) April 29, 2019
Earlier on Tuesday, Senator Hanson said lots of men went to strip clubs but it was Dickson’s language and behaviour that failed to live up to her expectations and those of voters.
“I am both shocked and disappointed at the vision I forced myself to watch,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
“Steve Dickson yesterday offered his resignation from all positions within the party, which I have accepted.”
Earlier, Dickson issued a statement saying he was very upset with himself.
“I found the footage difficult to watch as my words and actions under intoxication and in that environment are not a true reflection of myself,” he said.
“I am also deeply remorseful for my disrespectful comments towards women.
“The footage shown does not reflect the person I am. It shows a person who was drunk and not in control of his actions.”
The recording was captured by an undercover Al Jazeera journalist posing as a gun rights lobbyist and leaked to Nine’s A Current Affair.
Senator Hanson accused the Qatari-backed television news network Al Jazeera—which recorded the footage last year—of trying to hurt her party three weeks out from the federal election.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2225199484192850
Al Jazeera said it did not give Nine permission to screen the footage, filmed as part of an undercover investigation into meetings about alleged political donations between Dickson, Senator Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby, and America’s National Rifle Association.
By Tracey Ferrier and Aaron Bunch.