One Nation Candidate Offers To Resign After Scandal, Is Outraged When Resignation Is Accepted

One Nation has dumped Queensland state candidate Peter Rogers over a conspiracy laden blog post that appeared on his website earlier this month that stated that both the Port Arthur massacre and the tragic drowning of Syrian child Alan Kurdi were “fabricated” and “made up”.

The now ex-candidate for the seat of Mulgrave claimed that the blog post was written and published by a friend without his knowledge. Unfortunately for him, it would seem as though that excuse wasn’t good enough for One Nation, with Rogers confirming that he was “given the flick” by Pauline Hanson over the phone on Friday evening, a move he described as “very sneaky”.

“Nothing surprises me with One Nation anymore” he told The Age. Buddy, welcome to the club.

Speaking to the ABC, Rogers admitted that he had offered to resign in the wake of the scandal, but added that he “never expected Pauline or the party officials to accept it.”

Whoops!

Rogers accused One Nation of “jumping the gun” and warned that they risked losing votes if they kept accepting people’s resignations willy nilly. “Pauline has made bigger mistakes than what I’ve actually made and she survived it,” he said.

For those of you following along at home, this is the third candidate One Nation has lost in Queensland since December. The party’s first Asian-Australian candidate, Shan Ju Lin, was kicked to the curb after posting homophobic remarks on Facebook, while Andy Semple quit after less than two days in the job after refusing to delete an odious tweet.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to have serious misgivings about One Nation’s screening process.

In slightly more alarming news, former Liberal National MP Sam Cox has announced that he will contest the seat of Burdekin in north Queensland on behalf of One Nation at the next state election. Cox becomes the second LNP crony to defect to One Nation in recent weeks, after Steve Dickson turned his coat and gave Pauline Hanson a foothold in Queensland’s precarious hung parliament. Thanks a bunch Steve.

Hopefully someone tells Cox and Dickson that when it comes to resignations, there are no takesies backsies.