{"id":786182,"date":"2026-07-08T04:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/786182\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:14:13","slug":"david-sharaz-banned-from-national-press-club-following-pauline-hanson-stunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/786182\/","title":{"rendered":"David Sharaz banned from National Press Club following Pauline Hanson stunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Sharaz, who is being investigated for his role in a protest stunt that disrupted Pauline Hanson<\/a>\u2019s address to the National Press Club, has been banned from the institution.<\/p>\n

The National Press Club claimed Sharaz filmed the moment a banner came down during the One Nation<\/a> leader\u2019s speech on June 17 before promptly leaving the room. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A screen descends behind One Nation leader Pauline Hanson at the National Press Club in June.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sharaz is a representative of the activist group GetUp that claimed responsibility for the incident and the husband of former political staffer Brittany Higgins<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The National Press Club chief executive Maurice Reilly on Wednesday confirmed he has declined Sharaz\u2019s membership application and banned him from all events. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is not welcome at the club in the future,\u201d he said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Sharaz has received no contact regarding a change to his membership application. <\/p>\n

Hanson was making her first address to the National Press Club<\/a> in her 30-year political career when a banner unfurled behind her. <\/p>\n

\u201cI opposed a pay rise for workers while I took a $100,000 pay rise for myself,\u201d the banner read. <\/p>\n

The National Press Club alleged that two people broke into the Canberra building and installed a drop-down screen in front of its media wall and light box. <\/p>\n

The banner was unfurled once it was activated by a remote device. <\/p>\n

\"National<\/p>\n

National Press Club staff remove a screen which was lowered as Pauline Hanson spoke.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

GetUp claimed credit for the stunt and said it was their rare opportunity to get their message across. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t do stunts for the sake of it. The National Press Club was Hanson\u2019s moment \u2013 the biggest platform she\u2019s ever had, with every major media outlet in the room,\u201d the group wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t get many chances to put her real record in front of the entire country at the exact moment she\u2019s performing her battler routine. So today, we took that chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Press Club alleged Sharaz had filmed the incident and promptly left during the commotion. <\/p>\n

ACT Policing is continuing to investigate<\/a> the alleged unauthorised access and interference with equipment at the National Press Club. <\/p>\n

Reilly said it will assess whether to pursue legal action following the outcome of the investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Sharaz, who is being investigated for his role in a protest stunt that disrupted Pauline Hanson\u2019s address…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-786182","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\/786182","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=786182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}