Australia | Party accused of asking US gun lobby for money

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

Australia’s prime minister yesterday accused an influential minor political party of trying to “sell Australia’s gun laws to the highest bidders” by asking the U.S. gun lobby for donations.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was responding to an Al Jazeera documentary that reported One Nation party officials Steve Dickson and James Ashby flew to the United States for meetings with pro-gun interests including the National Rifle Association and political donors Koch Industries in September last year seeking money to undermine Australian gun laws.

Dickson and Ashby later told reporters that they had not secured any U.S. money. They also said they had been quoted by Al Jazeera out of context and often after drinking.

The trip took place weeks before the Australian Parliament banned foreign political donations with laws that took effect Jan. 1.

Morrison said the revelations were reasons why Australians should not vote for One Nation at general elections due in May.

“We have reports that One Nation officials basically sought to sell Australia’s gun laws to the highest bidders to a foreign buyer and I find that abhorrent,” Morrison said.

Morrison said his government had made laws to “criminalize taking foreign political donations so foreign lobbyists cannot seek to influence our politics.”

Opposition leader Bill Shorten, whom opinion polls suggest will be prime minister after the election, accused One Nation of a “betrayal of the Australian political system.”

“The idea of One National political party operatives going to the United States, seeking millions of dollars, promising to water- down gun law protection in Australia — that was absolutely horrifying,” Shorten said.

The Al Jazeera documentary used secret recordings made by a journalist posing as gun lobbyist Rodger Muller with a hidden camera.

One Nation, an anti-Muslim party that had four senators after 2016 election but has been left with two after defections, said in a statement that all party members “have always complied with the law.”

One Nation also suggested the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera had breached new laws that prohibit covert foreign interference in Australian politics. The party said it had had complained to Australia’s main domestic security agency and police “due to concerns of foreign interference into Australian politics in the lead up to the imminent federal election.”

“Al Jazeera are a state owned propaganda arm of the Qatari government that supports Islamic extremist groups and are not a legitimate media organization,” the statement said.

“One Nation was invited by Rodger Muller, who has now been outed as a foreign agent working for Al Jazeera to meet with the NRA, American business leaders and attend the Congressional Sportsmen’s Dinner” in Washington, the statement said.

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Ashby, who is party leader Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, is recorded saying that the party would “own” both the Australian Senate and House of Representatives with a USD20 million donation from the U.S. gun lobby. This means the party would hold the balance of power in both chambers and influence a government’s legislative agenda.

Ashby also warned that if such a donation became public, it would “rock the boat.”

He told reporters yesterday that the U.S. trip had been a fact- finding mission to learn campaign tactics.

“These conversations with the NRA were to look at nothing more than their techniques. This was not about sourcing money from the NRA. This was about sourcing technology, sourcing an understanding of how they operate, but never was it about seeking $20 million dollars from the NRA,” Ashby told reporters. Rod McGuirk, Canberra, AP