Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation party reported more than $1m in missing and worthless assets in more than six years of filed financial reports, Guardian Australia can reveal.<\/p>\n
The financial returns lodged by One Nation<\/a> with the Office of Fair Trading in Queensland from 2016 to 2022 have been criticised by a leading expert in financial accounting as \u201csloppy and unprofessional\u201d.<\/p>\n The documents show the party has repeatedly failed to meet its legal obligations for running an incorporated association. It has failed to hold annual general meetings on time, repeatedly filed annual and financial reports late, or not filed them at all, and used an account manager to sign a director\u2019s declaration form.<\/p>\n The party has not filed annual returns with the regulator since 2022.<\/p>\n Matthew Pinnuck, a professor of financial accounting at the University of Melbourne and a former audit manager at KPMG, assessed the six years of financial accounts obtained by the Guardian.<\/p>\n Pinnuck said the \u201cincredibly sloppy\u201d reports raised questions about the party\u2019s fitness for government.<\/p>\n \u201cThe overall quality of the preparation and presentation of the financial statements is very poor and unprofessional,\u201d Pinnuck said.<\/p>\n He drew attention to \u201chighly unusual\u201d accounting entries that showed substantial assets had been bought and sold, but were not recorded on the party\u2019s balance sheet.<\/p>\n The 2021 balance sheet shows the One Nation Queensland division held assets such as property and equipment worth $93,000, up from just $10,307 in 2020. However, in the same year the party reported that it purchased property and equipment worth $575,710 and claimed to have sold property, plant and equipment worth $492,491.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth amounts are many times larger than the total carrying value of the organisation\u2019s property, plant and equipment,\u201d Pinnuck said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have got a very typical asset base, and then all of a sudden throughout the year they are buying property and equipment and selling property, plant and equipment. It is very unusual full stop. There could be an explanation for that but it is difficult to think of what that could be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018An important aspect of governance\u2019<\/p>\n Pinnuck said another \u201chighly unusual\u201d entry showed that the party bought more than $100,000 worth of office equipment in 2020 which was immediately written off as \u201cworthless\u201d.<\/p>\n Pinnuck said this had been achieved by depreciating the total value of the asset to zero in the same year of purchase. He said office equipment would typically be expected to have a useful life of about five to 10 years, with the cost depreciated over the same period.<\/p>\n The party posted significant financial losses in three of the last four years of the filed annual reports. In 2022, the party recorded a deficit of $1.05m, more than double the previous year\u2019s reported loss of $517,000 and a more than $3m turnaround compared with the $2.2m surplus it posted in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cThese recurring losses may raise questions about the organisation\u2019s ability to manage its financial affairs effectively,\u201d Pinnuck said. \u201cGiven that financial management is an important aspect of governance, such results question the organisation\u2019s capacity to oversee and manage public resources responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The party has chosen to report as a \u201cspecial purpose entity\u201d, which is a reporting method usually reserved for small businesses. It requires less disclosure under Australian accounting standards, limiting transparency around the party\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is potentially a breach of the Corporations Act as the financial statements have been prepared on a special purpose basis when arguably they should have been prepared on a general purpose basis,\u201d Pinnuck said.<\/p>\n Under the law, organisations can only prepare simplified reduced disclosure financial statements if they are not publicly accountable, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the political significance of the organisation and the existence of a broad range of external stakeholders (eg members, donors, regulators, journalists, researchers, and the public) who rely on its financial statements, there is a strong argument that One Nation Queensland Division Inc are publicly accountable. Therefore they should have prepared full scope financial statements with complete disclosure and not the simplified reduced disclosure financial statements.\u201d<\/p>\n A non-director signing a director\u2019s declaration would also arguably be a breach of the law, he said.<\/p>\n Increasing scrutiny<\/p>\n One Nation has been under increasing scrutiny<\/a> for its handling of public and membership funds as it seeks to position itself as a mainstream political force and alternative opposition in parliament.<\/p>\n Hanson claimed last week<\/a> she was able to do the job of prime minister, seizing on opinion polling that shows One Nation is now the most popular party<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n The party\u2019s financial records also show that it recorded net negative cashflows of about $440,000 in 2020 and 2021 combined, for investing activities unrelated to property, plant and equipment.<\/p>\n It appears that some of this relates to the purchase of a $253,654 financial \u201casset\u201d linked to the investment company Mayfair Platinum.<\/p>\n One Nation reportedly invested $500,000<\/a> in the since-collapsed Mayfair Platinum, which had promoted a billion-dollar redevelopment of Queensland\u2019s Mission beach and Dunk Island. The investment scheme<\/a> was frozen in early 2020, and the federal court found in 2021 that the group had engaged in misleading and deceptive advertising.<\/p>\n Despite the scheme\u2019s collapse, Mayfair Platinum investments were still listed as current assets on the organisation\u2019s balance sheet in 2021 and 2022, valued at between $265,000 and $300,000.<\/p>\n