Hanson insists she had to sack the convicted rapist on her staff. Leaked text says he chose to quit
One Nation’s former campaign director, a convicted rapist, quit the party voluntarily rather than being sacked as Pauline Hanson claimed, a leaked text message suggests.
Months after serving two years of a five-year prison term for sex offences, party loyalist Sean Black was brought back by Pauline Hanson to work with her. His reappointment and subsequent departure this year after pressure from the federal opposition led Labor and the Coalition to argue the populist outfit was unfit to govern.
Hanson defended Black when asked about his sacking in June, arguing he had “paid his time” behind bars.
Blaming the pressure on Black on those trying to “destroy One Nation”, she admitted on the Inside Politics podcast in June that his sacking was “a decision that I had to make... because people were saying to me, Look, you can’t keep him, I’ve got to sack him.”
On Monday, Hanson doubled down, telling the Australian Financial Review she had “sacked him”.
But One Nation’s general manager Kelvin Morton sent a text message to staff in April contradicting Hanson’s claims, saying Black made the decision himself.
“Just letting you know that Sean Black resigned today. He felt his personal circumstances were becoming a big distraction and leaving would be in the best interests of the party and its members,” Morton said in the message, obtained by this masthead.
Morton asked that staff act in a magnanimous manner when Black returned the following week to conduct handover sessions with his replacement.
Black served two years and three months of a five-year sentence for raping and assaulting his then-partner in a bathroom in 2007. According to court documents, Black became enraged when she asked him to “stop hitting her” after he asked her to change her diet because she “bruised too easily” before dragging her from the shower and raping her.
The controversy comes alongside broader allegations of internal dysfunction. Insiders, including Black, whom Hanson recently described as “disgruntled”, claimed in a series of stories in this masthead that top officials aimed to enrich themselves and that party patron Gina Rinehart exerted undue policy influence.
Charles Swindon, a former Coalition staffer who became a One Nation operative, said it was common inside One Nation to dismiss Black’s conviction. Swindon said that he had heard directly and repeatedly from senior officials in the party – including elected officials, though not Hanson – that the allegations against Black were made up or exaggerated, even though a jury found them to be true.
“We were told Black himself had decided to leave as Hanson didn’t want him to go,” Swindon said. Swindon, who ran the party’s campaign in the Farrer byelection, was sacked after raising concerns about Black and other matters.
Swindon has claimed that Morton downplayed Black’s rape conviction by jokingly describing it as “surprise sex”.
On Saturday, Morton denied ever joking about or downplaying Black’s rape conviction.
“Rape is a serious crime and not a subject for humour,” he said in a statement.
One Nation did not respond to a request for comment. This masthead is not suggesting Hanson lied, only that the text from her party chief and Swindon’s statement contradict the way Hanson has described the matter.
Labor minister Murray Watt said the reports of dysfunction “show that One Nation is not up to governing this country” despite its rapid rise in the polls this year.
“We’ve also seen allegations that the convicted sex offender who supposedly was sacked by One Nation, has retained a paid role as a fundraiser for the One Nation party after we were all told that he was sacked,” Watt said in Canberra, adding that the Australian Electoral Commission could probe the matter.
“What’s important now is that a party that says they are ready to govern this country actually fronts up and answers questions.”
Coalition MP Garth Hamilton echoed the criticism, telling ABC TV the reports revealed the party’s inner workings to prospective voters.
“It’s a great opening so everyone can see inside,” Hamilton said. “This is exactly the sort of chaos that we were told they’d put behind them, and in fact it’s the same old One Nation.”
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