Jennifer Game spent eight years as One Nation's South Australia party leader and policy adviser to Pauline Hanson. She was a "true believer" once. Not anymore. "They use people," Game said, describing a party structure she now sees as fundamentally undemocratic. "It's not a party, in truth. It's more like a small business."
A Pattern of Financial Exploitation
Game's disillusionment turned concrete when One Nation refused to repay her $2,000 nomination deposit and more than $14,000 in claimable expenses from last year's federal election. She'd run as a Senate candidate, spent her own money, and watched the party get reimbursed while she got nothing. Eventually, her deposit came back after a debt recovery process. In June, a magistrate ordered One Nation to pay her more than $14,000 in electoral expenses. "For them not to pay me the money I was entitled to, when I'd spent it and they'd been reimbursed for it, that crossed a line for me," Game said.
That financial pattern isn't isolated. Six would-be candidates for Victoria's upcoming November 28 state election told Four Corners they witnessed what former Liberal National MP Aidan McLindon called "very sloppy, ad hoc, probably pre-determined and dishonest" preselection processes. McLindon defeated Hanson in the Queensland state seat of Beaudesert 17 years ago. He was approached to join One Nation's Victorian leadership team, then rejected after disagreeing with eventual state leader Warren Pickering.
One Nation received 1,200 applications to run for office in Victoria. Each would-be candidate paid $150 to apply. Those chosen to run faced another $5,500 fee—disclosed only at the end of the interview process. "What we're seeing here is a bit of an insidious money grab," McLindon said. "Oh, by the way, we've got all your hopes up, but before you sign the dotted line, here's a $5,500 [fee]." The fees add up to about $700,000 from the preselection process for the lower house alone. McLindon believes this is exploitative during a cost-of-living crisis. While Labor doesn't charge prospective candidates an application fee, the Liberal Party has been known to charge up to $5,000, depending on the seat, to help cover background checks and discourage frivolous applications. But would-be Liberal candidates know they'll be charged a fee when they apply.
Power Concentrated, Democracy Absent
Game described a party lacking "checks and balances," where Senator Hanson's then-chief of staff James Ashby wielded outsized influence. "She had become a weak character," Game said. "She was dominated by her [then] chief of staff, James Ashby, and she was just unable to break free of that. She became highly dependent on him. He was running everything."
When Game failed to win a Senate seat one year ago, she received a text from Ashby criticizing her ability to sell One Nation's "message," followed by what she described as an angry phone call from Senator Hanson. "She used a voice that I've not heard before," Game said. Hanson asked: "What happened to your personal vote?" Game said: "I think she thought I was going to easily get in, and that I'd done something, that it was my fault. She demands enormous loyalty from people, but she doesn't give it."
Would-be candidates in Victoria described a preselection process that wasn't democratic. About 160 of the 1,200 applicants who made it through initial vetting participated in 15-minute Zoom interviews with a three-person panel including Pickering. One former councillor who requested anonymity said it didn't feel like a proper interview. "[Mr Pickering] had a scripted monologue that took up virtually the entire 15 minutes, and then he asked some inane questions," the former councillor said. Applicants were prevented from applying to run in the upper house—the seats One Nation is more likely to win.
Michael Labrador, a Whittlesea councillor who won pre-selection but chose not to run, agreed the process didn't reward quality candidates. "One Nation espoused meritocracy, but the process wasn't meritocratic at all," Labrador said. "Pretty much anyone with political ambition, or who had merit or experience behind them, or a community profile was shut out of the winnable seats in the upper house." By early September, with less than 90 days to polling day, the party had only announced a third of its lower house candidates. "They're trying to build a grassroots campaign on quicksand," Labrador said. "You don't have much time to get your troops on the ground. You don't have time to build volunteers and a donor base."
Labrador said the $5,500 candidate fee was one of the decisive factors in his not running. "That was quite shocking to me," he said, adding that the fee would be difficult for blue-collar workers and small business owners to pay. "It felt a bit frustrating to see that we are being called to put money down, when I know that the party has some significant financial backing."
A Decade-Old Pattern
McLindon met with One Nation powerbroker James Ashby in the lead-up to the preselection process. "[James Ashby] is somebody who has been in the game of politics for a long time, which unfortunately for him, is probably just that, a game," McLindon said. "This is serious. This is a country to save. These are people's livelihoods at stake."
Nine years ago, Ashby was caught boasting about how the party could potentially profit from a Queensland state election. In a secret recording of a meeting obtained by the ABC in 2017, Ashby said: "Can I just point out, and I've said this once before, there is an opportunity for us to make some money on this if we play it smart. Now I know they say you can't make money out of state elections, but you can." At the time, Ashby dismissed the recording as part of a "brainstorming session," and said "we never went through with it."
McLindon said he was concerned the party wasn't treating prospective candidates with the dignity they deserved. "There's a certain level of decency, communication, and respect that's required that I do not believe James Ashby is giving to people," he said. "I think it's well overdue that Pauline Hanson puts the magnifying glass on a couple of those key people around her, otherwise it will be the demise of the party."
Adriana Buccianti, a former Trumpet of Patriots candidate, signed up for the One Nation preselection process full of hope in February. She didn't make it through to the interview process and said the party didn't inform her she was unsuccessful. "I never heard back. I never got an email, nothing," Buccianti said. She was so disillusioned by the preselection process she quit the party soon after.
Michael Piastrino, the One Nation candidate for Berwick, told Four Corners he had no problem with the preselection process. "I was rapt," he said. "The vetting process was fantastic. I think it was done so professionally." The former Liberal candidate, who runs an award-winning hairdressing salon in Albert Park, said he didn't think the party lost anything by announcing its candidates later than expected. "To run a strong campaign, if you're known in the area, 12 to 14 weeks is plenty of time," he said. "We've got farmers, all sorts of different people with different backgrounds and professions and we've all come together and we'll get the job done."
Four Corners repeatedly requested interviews with key figures in One Nation, including Senator Hanson and Ashby. None were available. A series of detailed questions sent to One Nation went unanswered.
Why This Matters:
One Nation's rise this year delivered a by-election victory in the federal seat of Farrer, four lower house and three upper house seats in South Australia's state parliament, and a by-election victory in Western Australia. As the party turns its attention to Victoria, these accounts from experienced political candidates—former mayors, local councillors, and an ex-MP—reveal a preselection process they describe as chaotic, not merit-based, and financially exploitative. The $700,000 in fees collected from would-be lower house candidates alone raises questions about whether a party claiming to represent working Australians during a cost-of-living crisis is instead extracting resources from the very communities it seeks to mobilize. When aspiring candidates with community profiles and political experience are shut out of winnable seats, and when financial obligations aren't disclosed until the end of interview processes, democratic accountability within the party structure comes into question. Game's observation that One Nation operates "more like a small business" than a democratic party suggests voters may be supporting an organization whose internal practices don't match its public rhetoric about representing ordinary Australians.