{"id":729904,"date":"2026-06-11T15:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/729904\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T15:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:32:14","slug":"pauline-hanson-former-queensland-premier-says-one-nation-leader-was-not-jailed-in-a-witch-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/729904\/","title":{"rendered":"Pauline Hanson: Former Queensland premier says One Nation leader was not jailed in a \u2018witch hunt\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie has rejected Pauline Hanson\u2019s claim that changes to his state\u2019s electoral laws two decades ago were designed to target her, insisting the reforms were designed to combat electoral fraud within the Labor Party following a major corruption scandal.<\/p>\n

Hanson on Thursday accused Beattie and newly elected Liberal Party president Tony Abbott of orchestrating a \u201cpolitical witch hunt\u201d that led to her 11-week imprisonment for electoral fraud in 2003, a conviction later quashed on appeal.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a business function in Perth, the One Nation founder alleged Beattie had changed Queensland laws before her trial, increasing the maximum penalty from six months\u2019 jail or a fine to seven years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a political witch hunt, because prior to my trial, Peter Beattie changed the laws in Queensland from a six-month jail term or a fine to seven years retrospective,\u201d Hanson said, fighting back tears at times.<\/p>\n

She said Abbott had set up a controversial $100,000 slush fund to underwrite a legal bid to deregister One Nation in the lead-up to the 1998 federal election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very hard time for my children,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cThe kids didn\u2019t have their fathers at that time. I was the only one that they had and so I was their whole life. And through politics, they\u2019ve had to wear so much. But you know what they said to me the other day? They said \u2018Mum, it hasn\u2019t been easy, but you\u2019ve taught us resilience, to be independent, to stand on our own two feet, and for that we thank you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In separate remarks in Perth, Hanson revealed she was abused by a former partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t go into detail, but I had domestic violence as well,\u201d she said of a relationship in her past. \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of relationships but I\u2019ve never married again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Queensland premier Peter Beattie.NRL Photos<\/p>\n

But Beattie said Hanson\u2019s account was \u201csimply wrong\u201d, arguing the reforms were driven by recommendations from the Shepherdson Inquiry into electoral fraud and branch-stacking within the Queensland ALP.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe law change had nothing to do with Pauline Hanson,\u201d Beattie said. \u201cThe irony of her claim is that the ALP rorters hated me for the rest of my time in office and no doubt still do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beattie his government had been re-elected on a platform of cleaning up electoral fraud and the law changes delivered on an election commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reforms were a response to the independent Shepherdson Inquiry and my desire to stamp out electoral fraud in the ALP. They were electoral integrity measures and nothing to do with Pauline Hanson.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Shepherdson Inquiry exposed widespread branch-stacking and electoral enrolment fraud within Labor ranks, triggering a major political crisis for the Beattie government.<\/p>\n

Several MPs were found guilty of electoral rorts, while deputy premier Jim Elder resigned to fight charges, and a number of party members were expelled from the ALP as a result.<\/p>\n

Among the allegations a state MP had told \u201cwar stories\u201d about having nine people enrolled at his unit in the 1980s, and claimed that a federal Labor Party figure \u2013 whose name was suppressed \u2013 had a dozen people enrolled at his house in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t deny that I was a fierce critic of Pauline Hanson\u2019s policies at the time and strongly opposed her politically,\u201d Beattie said. \u201cI actively worked against One Nation, as I did against ALP rorters \u2026 [but] the law changes were to deal with ALP electoral fraud and nothing to do with Pauline Hanson or Tony Abbott.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott has since said he was sorry that Hanson went to jail, but has stood by his efforts to expose the \u201cshenanigans\u201d within One Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween Pauline and myself there has been a lot of dirty water under the bridge, but her willingness to let the past be the past is a sign of decency which is all too rare these days in our public life,\u201d Abbott said in 2018 when launching her book Pauline, In Her Own Words.<\/p>\n

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"RobRob Harris<\/a> is the national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Canberra. He is a former Europe correspondent.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-729904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}