{"id":731302,"date":"2026-06-12T06:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731302\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T06:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:39:16","slug":"one-nation-fundraising-audit-pauline-hanson-scoffs-at-anthony-albaneses-scepticism-of-fire-the-liar-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731302\/","title":{"rendered":"One Nation fundraising audit: Pauline Hanson scoffs at Anthony Albanese\u2019s scepticism of \u2018Fire the Liar\u2019 campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 12, 2026 \u2014 11:53am<\/p>\n

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Pauline Hanson has weaponised the prime minister\u2019s scepticism of her fundraising success to accuse Anthony Albanese of lying again as she released an audit that said the money brought in by her attack campaign was legitimate.<\/p>\n

The One Nation leader posted the report to social media on Thursday night, taking aim at the prime minister for suggesting there was no evidence the massive sums raised through her Fire the Liar fundraiser<\/a>, which on Friday morning had rocketed to almost $3 million in donations, were real.<\/p>\n

Hanson said the audit \u201cproves the site and money is ridgy didge\u201d, scoffing at suggestions the donations were illegitimate and challenging the prime minister to demonstrate his own fundraising success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would I call out the liar, fire the liar, then go and do something like that myself? It would destroy me,\u201d she said on Thursday during a campaign-style national tour of One Nation fundraisers. She flew to Melbourne on Friday morning after sold-out events in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

Independent contractor and software engineer Daryl Monnink said a review of the website\u2019s data and consultation with the donation code engineer had shown all payments were verified, and the progress bar displayed on the website was accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am satisfied that the fundraising total calculation currently includes only successfully received and validated donation payments,\u201d Monnink wrote in his audit, which was an informal review of the website commissioned by the party, as opposed to official declarations made to the electoral commission.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne Nation leader Pauline Hanson.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

The donation code engineer, Peter Arvoll, declined to comment while Monnink referred this masthead to Hanson\u2019s chief of staff, James Ashby.<\/p>\n

One Nation senator Sean Bell said on Friday that his party had been \u201cquite excited\u201d to hear Albanese\u2019s barb because they knew tens of thousands of people had donated<\/a> to the fundraiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat occurred yesterday was a prime minister in denial. He was clearly rattled when he was asked about this, and he questioned the veracity. He\u2019s sort of fallen back on conspiracy theories,\u201d Bell told Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hired an independent auditor just to verify those claims because they are real, and the people who donated are real, and they\u2019re mad. They\u2019re mad at a terrible government, a bad prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian Labor Party president Wayne Swan remained unconvinced, telling Nine\u2019s Today show he doubted the success of the fundraiser because Labor had not raised similar sums.<\/p>\n

Asked how much his own party\u2019s social media campaign \u2013 which appealed for donations to stop the rise of One Nation and spurred Hanson to launch her own fundraiser in retaliation \u2013 had made, Swan said: \u201cI haven\u2019t the faintest idea, but I can tell you it won\u2019t be $2 million, and I doubt very much whether One Nation has raised $2 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swan labelled the campaign a \u201ccomplete farce\u201d and accused the minor party of using it to portray donations from wealthy sponsors as grassroots support.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a complete smoke screen to cover up the fact that they\u2019re getting huge donations from the top end of town,\u201d Swan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Nation are the billionaires\u2019 party. They\u2019re pretending they\u2019re running small donations, and they\u2019re running money from Gina Rinehart and many other wealthy individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The details of the millions in donations<\/a> will not be made public until the Australian Electoral Commission publishes its declaration data on February 1. Even then, donations of less than $17,300 will remain anonymous. That threshold will be lowered to $5000 next year as part of an overhaul of laws that will also cap donors giving more than $50,000 to a party.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie said Albanese had scored \u201ca huge own goal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe sought to raise funds against his political opponents by trying to put them down, and they returned fire. And it turns out Australians don\u2019t like the Labor Party\u2019s budget,\u201d the Nationals senator told Sky News on Friday.<\/p>\n

Labor frontbencher Mark Butler sought to downplay the significance of the One Nation fundraiser and turn it into an attack, casting the minor party\u2019s surge in popularity as a reshaping of conservative politics in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese online fundraising campaigns are pretty common, and this will probably pale in comparison to the money that One Nation receives from a billionaire like Gina Rinehart,\u201d Butler told Seven\u2019s Sunrise.<\/p>\n

Appearing alongside Butler was deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume, who, after accusing Butler of being rattled by One Nation, deviated from the party line and ruled out a preference deal with the minor party.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the Coalition would preference One Nation \u2013 a prospect entertained by party leader Angus Taylor and president Tony Abbott earlier this week \u2013 Hume said: \u201cNo, that\u2019s not on the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Abbott\u2019s openness to the proposal, Hume said: \u201cAngus Taylor said yesterday, we are not carving up seats, we are not talking about preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor on Thursday ruled out seat-sharing with One Nation after frontbencher Tony Pasin suggested that the parties make a deal so they would not run against each other in the same electorate, making it difficult for the Coalition to govern in its own right.<\/p>\n

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\"BrittanyBrittany Busch<\/a> is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.\"EmilyEmily Kaine<\/a> is a national news blogger at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 12, 2026 \u2014 11:53am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-731302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731302","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=731302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}