Pauline Hanson’s troubled campaign has taken another devastating blow after one of her candidates posted lewd photos of himself groping a woman’s breast on social media.
Ross Macdonald, the Queensland candidate in the marginal seat of Leichhardt, posted the photos of himself on Facebook, captioned with distasteful comments about women.
There were also two other photos posted on his profile: one of him holding up raffle tickets in front of a topless woman, and another of a woman showing cleavage, with a caption from Macdonald saying “WOW!! What a heart.”
The latest scandal comes after Senator Hanson appeared on Nine’s A Current Affair on Tuesday night, shedding tears during an interview with host Tracy Grimshaw.
“I cop all this s**t all the time and I’m sick of it! Absolutely sick of it,” Ms Hanson said as she broke down.
Ms Hanson went on to compare the wrongdoings of candidates in her party to that of politicians from other parties, claiming targeted media attention was partly to blame for the One Nation's recent drop in popularity.
“Kevin Rudd goes to a strip joint, you’ve got Craig Thompson using the credit card of the unions at a brothel, you’ve had corruption, you’ve had Eddie Obeid, you’ve had everything but they just sail through it,” she said.
One Nation is reeling from a spate of recent scandals that have rocked the right-wing party, with Steve Dickson, Ms Hanson’s right-hand, resigning yesterday after footage emerged of him groping and making derogatory comments to a woman at a Washington DC strip club.
$1.5 billion to remote housing under ALP
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has announced Labor will spend $1.5 billion over the next decade to improve remote Indigenous housing if his party wins the May 18 election.
The promise by the ALP would double that of the Coalition's commitment and potentially bring about long-term stability.
Key areas of funding would see money directed at addressing overcrowding and creating jobs in remote communities.
In Western Australia, the pledge was welcomed by Housing Minister Peter Tinley and Treasurer Ben Wyatt, who have both been pushing for a better deal for the State since the end of June last year.
"WA has consistently argued that the Commonwealth has historic and moral obligations to provide ongoing funding support for remote communities that, in WA, are home to an estimated 12,000-14,000 of the country's most disadvantaged people," Mr Wyatt said.
"It is gratifying to see that a Federal Labor Government will recognise and honour that responsibility - something the Morrison Government has flatly refused," he said.
In June 2018, the Federal Coalition walked away from a $1.1 billion remote housing deal over 10-years, claiming responsibility for remote communities rested solely with the State.
Liberal Party candidate dumped after anti-Islamic comments
A Victorian Liberal Party candidate has been sacked over an "appalling" anti-Islam rant - after he posted online last year saying Muslims were plotting to kill and enslave all Australians.
Candidate Jeremy Hearn, who was contesting for the seat of Issacs in Melbourne's South-East, has since apologised for the comments, in which he labelled Muslims as people of "bad character."
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus welcomed Mr Hearn's dumping, congratulating the Liberal party for their swift action in doing so.
"Mr Hearn's comments are hate speech and abhorrent. An apology is not enough - Prime Minister Scott Morrison must show some leadership and sack him. Enough is enough. We need a change of government," he posted on Facebook.
Deputy leader of the Liberal Government, Josh Frydenberg said the Government had moved quickly to sack Mr Hearn as his comments were "unacceptable."
"We've acted very swiftly, those comments were unacceptable, they have no place in the Liberal Party, they don't reflect the views of the Liberal Party," Mr Frydenberg said.
However, the Deputy leader made it clear that the LNP were not taking orders from the Labor Party.
"But I won't be lectured on these matters by the Labor Party who've had to disendorse their Senate candidate in the Northern Territory for anti-semetic views," he said.
