Politics

Please Enjoy Pauline Hanson Confusing The NRMA With The NRA In A Bizarre Press Conference

The NRMA provides roadside assistance in NSW and the ACT.

by Sam Langford  28 March 2019
Pauline Hanson NRMA

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All week, Australia has been waiting for Pauline Hanson to comment on the explosive Al Jazeera investigation that revealed that members of One Nation had been seeking donations from the American National Rifle Association, or NRA. Today, Hanson finally emerged to defend herself, and promptly disavowed all connections with the group. Or she would have, anyway, if she hadn’t accidentally called them the NRMA instead.

The NRMA, if you’re unaware, is the humble organisation that provides car insurance and roadside assistance in New South Wales and the ACT. An organisation Hanson could probably use right now, after that car crash of a press conference.

“Let me make it very clear to the Australian people, I have never sought donations, or political guidance, from the NRMA,” Hanson said, just one minute into the conference. She then went on to call Jacinda Ardern “Jacinda Ahern”, and personally congratulated Andrew Bolt on his excellent journalism, which can’t possibly be right.

And while Hanson eventually worked out that she was meant to be disavowing ties with the NRA, not the NRMA, she refused to apologise or acknowledge that her party had done anything wrong. Instead, she continued to assert that in every video of her party members, “the footage has been heavily edited, therefore the comments appear have been taken completely out of context”.

The footage she’s referring to appears to show members of her party asking the NRA for political donations, and receiving advice from the NRA about how to respond to gun control advocates after mass shootings. A separate video also appears to show Hanson herself questioning Australia’s deadly Port Arthur massacre. Hanson has called for Al Jazeera to release the full, unedited footage.

In short, One Nation will not be making any changes as a result of the videos: Pauline Hanson insists that the comments never took place, and says that all those involved will remain involved with the party. The only thing that’s new, really, is One Nation’s sudden and unexplained aversion to car insurance.

Don’t take our word for it, though — you can hear Pauline Hanson personally disavowing the NRMA in the video below (skip to 1:15, if you’re impatient).