One Nation has disputed claims that the party’s Victorian president told its candidate in the upcoming Nepean byelection to accept campaign donations into a personal bank account, blaming reports about the incident on disgruntled former party members.
Two former One Nation branch members have told The Age they quit the party over probity concerns after state president Warren Pickering told candidate Darren Hercus at a February 22 meeting that it was standard practice to use personal accounts to manage campaign finances.
That advice, if followed at the time, would have contravened the Victorian Electoral Act, which – until it was dramatically ruled invalid by the High Court on Wednesday – required all donations to be deposited into a state campaign account registered with and audited by the Victorian Electoral Commission.
One of the two former branch members has sworn two statutory declarations recounting the incident. Pickering did not respond to several calls about the incident on Friday.
But on Saturday morning, at a campaign barbecue in Dromana, Pickering said the conversation “didn’t happen” and that all donations had gone into a dedicated One Nation state campaign account. Pickering said the party was looking at taking legal action against the former party members.
“We’re the most audited party in the country, so we know we have to do the right thing,” he said, before ending the conversation and asking The Age to “jog on”.
After publication on Saturday, a third former party member told The Age they were also at the meeting and confirmed the claims were “word for word” what Pickering said at the meeting. The former members requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisals.
Hercus, speaking at a press conference with party leader Pauline Hanson later on Saturday in Rosebud, reiterated that he had been paying for campaign expenses with his credit card.
“I don’t have any visibility of the finances,” he said.
Hanson said the claims were from “disgruntled former members of the party” who left before Hercus was endorsed as the candidate and had “no understanding of what’s going on”.
“One of them wanted to be the candidate, was not chosen as the candidate,” she said. “I’m fed up with people making false allegations against One Nation.”
Labor is not contesting the May 2 state byelection in the seat of Nepean, triggered by former Liberal MP Sam Groth’s abrupt resignation.
That has left Liberal candidate Anthony Marsh competing head-to-head with One Nation’s Hercus in a test of the populist right-wing party’s ability to make inroads to Victoria after an unprecedented surge in popularity over the past six months. Recent opinion polls have shown One Nation overtaking the Coalition’s primary vote federally.
Liberal candidate Marsh, a former Mornington Peninsula mayor, has put redeveloping the ageing Rosebud Hospital at the centre of his campaign, promising a $340 million investment if the Coalition wins the state election in November.
Hercus said he would push for the hospital to be redeveloped through a private-public partnership. Private investment and introducing private consulting rooms alongside public services could cover the entire $340 million investment, he said.
Hanson said Victoria could improve its health system if it reinstated nurses who had lost their jobs for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations. Victorian nurses have not been required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 since 2024.
Asked whether he agreed with Hanson’s long history of xenophobic and racist remarks, including saying in February there are no “good” Muslims, Hercus said One Nation was “not racist at all”.
“It’s all about capping migration – it’s got nothing to do with race or nationality,” he said.
Labor has pledged to urgently reinstate election finance rules after the High Court this week stuck out sections of the Electoral Act relating to election expenditure and political donations.
Premier Jacinta Allan has said the new laws will apply retrospectively from the date of the High Court decision. Opposition leader Jess Wilson said on Saturday she would work with the government to put rules back in place.
“Voters expect, I think more so than ever, that politicians are honest, they’re upfront and they’re accountable,” she said.
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Patrick Hatch is transport reporter at The Age and a former business reporter.Connect via X or email.
Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He previously served as the paper’s chief reporter and is a journalist of 30 years’ experience.Connect via email.