Qld: Omens were bad for Hanson
By Ainsley Pavey
BRISBANE, Aug 20 AAP - The omens were bad on day one of the trial.
Pauline Hanson's supporters gathered outside the wrong courthouse awaiting the arrivalof their hero and former One Nation leader.
When they discovered their mistake and ran to the District Court in Brisbane, theyformed a guard of honour for Hanson, who was dressed in black.
The 49-year-old cried as she entered the court for a trial that would produce some theatre.
Crown Prosecutor Brendan Campbell immediately told the jury to ignore Hanson's "razzledazzle" because the darling of right-wing politics was on trial for "just plain fraud".
By the end of the first day of what turned out to be a 230-day trial, Hanson had shownshe was out of her depth in court when she clearly misunderstood the charges she was facingand refused to enter a plea on one charge.
Trial Judge Patsy Wolfe asked for Hanson to explain but her lawyer Chris Nyst was leftto mop up the embarrassing gaffe in the crucial first stages of the trial.
It sparked a chain of strange moments in a trial that would become bogged down overthe origin of exhibit 17A - the list of 1,047 names used to register One Nation in December1997.
The Crown rolled out 29 witnesses to show the list was of members of Hanson's supportmovement but Nyst and co-accused David Ettridge would maintain it was from the party'sdatabase.
From the moment the prosecution opened the case, it tried to enlarge One Nation's reputationas a scrappy do-it-yourself operation.
Queensland Electoral Commissioner Des O'Shea revealed Hanson had to be chased up tosign the registration form which landed her in court.
The constitution attached to the application had also wrongly referred to it beinga party to elect federal and not state candidates.
If the application was looking stupid it became really on the nose when former partypowerbrokers testified Hanson and Ettridge had said the party had only three members.
The evidence was challenged but witnesses maintained the pair told them only Hanson,Ettridge and former One Nation policy adviser David Oldfield belonged to the party.
Ettridge had boasted of a bullet-proof structure no "white ant" could destroy.
Although it was structured so the trio could hold onto power at least until an election,if the evidence was true then there was no way out for the accused pair.
The law clearly stated a party must show proof of more than 500 members to be lawfullyregistered if it did not already have an elected representative.
And Ettridge was caught out twice. Not only had he been taped on a video at a hostileTownsville branch meeting but wrote the structure down in the "Kelly Letter" which becamea focus at the trial.
Ettridge maintained the letter was a fake because it had no letterhead or signaturebut it was traced back to One Nation's headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Manly.
The 59-year-old former adman argued repeatedly for a mistrial but his own witness perhapsbrought him undone with revelations the party failed to declare full income to the AustralianElectoral Commission in 1997.
His defence seemed to start sinking during the testimony of former membership coordinatorSteve Menagh, who gave a very confused version of One Nation's structure.
"The political ... the support movement ... the political party or support ... oh ...
I'm not sure but the reason being is because that's part of the reason why the structurewas set up - to confused people - and I was never bothered about the way it was set upbecause I knew for a fact it totally ...," Mr Menagh said.
Mr Menagh appeared to fall victim to a deliberate plan, revealed by the support movementfounder Paul Trewartha at the trial, to make the structure ambiguous.
There were other witnesses who were not so much confused as forgetful.
Former One Nation figure Chris Bramwell was the most memorable after being sent outsideto look up a phone book because he failed to name a business associate who offered tofund the successful Supreme Court deregistration case.
Mr Bramwell said Hanson admitted it was a party of only three. He was declared a hostile witness.
AAP ap/sc/cjh/bwl
KEYWORD: HANSON TRIAL (AAP BACKGROUNDER)
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