Tony Abbott Should Say "Sorry" to One Nation If He Ever Wants to Be Prime Minister

Tony Abbott should say "Sorry" to One Nation of he wants ever to become Prime Minister.

One Nation people have not forgotten his part in the political "trust" fund "Australians for Honest Politics" (a misnomer if ever there was one) set up to prevent One Nation getting funding from the 1998 Queensland State Election after it had won 24 per cent of the vote and 11 seats.

The allegation promoted by Australians for Honest Politics, and others, that One Nation was fraudulently registered, culminated in the jailing of two of its founders under the regime of the Queensland Labor Party, that had significantly had lost several seats to One Nation in the election. These convictions were later overturned by a higher court proving it was Australians for Honest Politics and the Queensland Labor Government's legal system that had question marks over them, not the registration of One Nation.

The irony is that on past form Tony Abbott will move Opposition policy closer to One Nation's.

Hansard of February 28, 2006 reports he said in answer to a question about ethnic branch stacking against Simon Crean in the Victorian ALP "... he still has the Greek branches but he has lost the Spanish branches, the Vietnamese branches as well as the Cambodian branches. I could not help but think, 'Are there any Australians left in the so-called Australian Labor Party?' "

He might just as well have paraphrased Pauline Hanson and said "I believe the Labor Party is in danger of being swamped by Asians."

One Nation people, who are the real Australians for Honest Politics, say they want an astute Prime Minister who can admit he is wrong not someone inclined to take rash action based on an incomplete assessment of the facts.