THE PERSECUTION AND DESTRUCTION OF THE ONE NATION PARTY
by David
Ettridge
Two innocent people deliberately charged and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. Information never before released:
When David Ettridge and Pauline Hanson registered Pauline Hanson One Nation Party in Queensland, it was carefully administered through the registration process by the Queensland Electoral Commission.
After all, this was a registration that attracted a lot of political attention. Following that process, which included a successful audit of party members by Commission staff, the Party was registered. In the June 1998 Queensland State Election, the One Nation party 11 seats in the Parliament and the second largest block of primary votes - ahead of the Nationals and Liberals.
Many well know political figures publicly declared the One Nation Party to be a threat that had to be stopped. Such comments were alarming because laws had been enacted to ensure that Australians had the right to form political parties, to vote how they wished and to be protected against anyone who sought to influence or deny such rights. But One Nation's success disturbed many elected legislators who agreed that they should collude to destroy this new party. Finally, Labor and the Coalition agreed on something, even if they wanted to do was illegal. The criminal acts that followed were committed by Politicians and public servants in Queensland. The courts and process were abused.
Joining the swell of anti One Nation's hostility became almost legitimised amongst the political elite. So much so, that it created a powerful environment for conspiring to destroy this new and emerging political force. In their haste, things were said and done to leave a trail of evidence that amounts to criminal conspiracy. Highly secret political interference would lead to the ultimate destruction of the One Nation Party within the Queensland Courts, and the imprisonment of its innocent founders. This document provides a log of facts, co-incidence and peculiarities to support well founded suspicion of political interference that might be regarded by many as a serious criminal culture within the Queensland Government of that time. To this date no compensation has ever been paid to either of the innocent victims of this disgraceful and illegal action.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING : a member of a political party as ...."A member of a political party means a person who is a member of a political party or a related political party". A related political party was defined as ....(a) One is part of the other. (b) Both are parts of the same political party.
The two entities that fell into these descriptions were "Pauline Hanson's One Nation" and "The Pauline Hanson Support Movement". Both had members in large numbers and all court tendered documents showed clearly the names of each of those thousands of party members. Documents showed their application forms for membership of the party, the issued and numbered membership cards and receipts for their membership fees were tendered as evidence that membership existed. There was never any doubt, and there never was a case to answer as was made clear by the final court of appeal decision when the convictions were quashed and the sentences overturned.
The allegations was that
when Ettridge and Hanson registered the Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party in
Queensland, it had only three members and all the names supplied for the
registration were really members of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement. The
charge was that by submitting those names, Ettridge and Hanson had committed a
fraud against the Electoral Commission and an offence against the Act.
If any Judge, QC, Barrister or attending lawyer could read the Electoral Act they could see what the Act said, and that such an allegation was without merit. So, how did this case proceed to criminal trial and how did so many highly experienced legally trained advocates ignore the Electoral Act and such fundamental first year university doctrine as "Contract Law"? Was it possible that all of the many who held the court sessions were so ignorant or were they simply advancing, perhaps under some political pressure or personal prejudice, a prosecution that was so manifestly unjust, and with horrific consequences for the two who were imprisoned? Was self represented Ettridge the only person in the court who could not be relied upon to assist this criminal attack on two innocent people?
Was it the overwhelming power held by the Labor party and its leader Premier Beattie and the extensive infiltration of the Labor party's appointees within the Queensland administration that allowed this manifestly unjust action to go as far as it did? Did the participants all rely on creating favour for their own survival in the administration. They simply allowed their own prejudice to prevail with no fear of consequences? Would Ettridge and Hanson have remained imprisoned for the full three years if Ettridge had not provided clear defence arguments, (arguments not provided by any paid legal counsel) that gave rise to the Court of Appeal's overturning of the sentences and convictions?
Democracy is balanced by the separation of powers. Governments must never control the courts or the police to the extent that governments use those courts to attack the enemies and protect their friends. The Queensland Government is 2003 did just that.
1. Prior to Ettridge and Hanson being charged under the Crimes Act (Not the penalty provisions of the Electoral Act), two police Major Fraud Squad investigations both found that no offence had been committed. Many police spent 18 months investigating to reach this obvious conclusion.
2. The above Police
report was never discovered to the defence and was never available for defence
at trial. It has been denied to Ettridge three times under attempts to get a
copy under FOI. The relevant Minister refuses to release it. Why? Because it no
doubt shows from the outset why charges should never have been laid. If police
concluded there was no lawful reason to charge, then only unlawful reasons such
as political pressure remain.
3. The very police who worked on the police "No Case" Investigations attended court and gave sworn testimony to convince the jury of the guilt of Ettridge and Hanson.
4. The DPP and the Crown prosecutor knew of the findings of the Police Investigation and ignored them. Why? What other pressures were at work to commit the under resourced DPP to running a criminal trial when the Police said there was no case for doing so?
5. The correct defence as upheld by the November 2003 Court of Appeal was submitted to the Court by Ettridge in a pre trial hearing, and was ignored by the prevailing Judge who never again appeared to manage the case. A new judge, one who had been a political appointee took over the trial. One can only surmise that the exiting Judge did not want anything to do with this disgraceful abuse of process.
6. In written pre trial submissions, also copied to the Crown Prosecutor and to Hanson's lawyer, Ettridge had placed the Contract Law defence argument before the court, just moments later those two arguments were upheld by the three court of appeal judges.
7. Ettridge's defence arguments re the interpretation of the membership definition with the Electoral Act was also sent in writing and hand delivered to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the head of the Crown Law, the Chief Judge and the Police Commissioner. Only the Police Commissioner acknowledged its receipt.
8. The Electoral Act provided for a maximum penalty of 6 months or a $1,500 fine for the alleged offence. Not a three year prison term.
9. Eight months AFTER
they were charged, and five years AFTER the alleged offence occurred, the
penalties of the Electoral Act were increased. Those new penalties were applied
RETROSPECTIVELY, in direct contravention of the Declaration of
Human Rights, a
document to which Australia is a signatory.
10. On 19th August 1999, Queensland's Courier Mail newspaper ran a story saying that the then Attorney General of Queensland had claimed that Ettridge and Hanson's alleged offence carried a penalty of up to 6 months imprisonment or a $1,500 fine. He had correctly confirmed the penalty provision of the Electoral Act.
11. As a former Federal M.P. Pauline Hanson could be disqualified for seeking a seat in Parliament if she was to receive a jail term exceeding 12 months imprisonment. She needed to be neutralised, which is essentially the conspirators motive. The other part of their motive was to illegally destroy a legally constituted political party.
12. Section 158 of the Qld Electoral Act says "no one may hinder or interfere with the free exercise or performance by another person, of any right or duty under this Act that relates to an election". Clearly many people did.
13. Section 78 of the Criminal code has similar provisions with two years imprisonment for offenders.
14. When a number of disenchanted and former members of the One Nation Party assisted a 1998 civil action against the One Nation Party, also driven by the same argument adopted by the Crown in the criminal trial, the case was heard by Justice Atkinson, a judge appointed by the incumbent Qld Labor Govt. Her judgement against the One Nation Party was critically flawed in fact. She had accepted the perjured testimony of several witnesses who lied that the list of persons was in fact a list of names of members of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement. As described at the beginning of this document, and if that was in fact what happened, such an action was not illegal. Any reading of the Act clearly showed that. Then, anyone could have and should have simply compared the two lists - the wrong list accepted by the Judge as being the true list attached to the application to register and the ACTUAL list of names attached to the application to register - to see that the lists were completely different in many ways. Years later, in the criminal trial when being crossed examined by Ettridge, Ettridge showed the former Electoral Commissioner the list Justice Atkinson had found to be the list attached to the application to register the party and he declared it was not. And yet, the civil court had found against the One Nation Party by saying it was! A bit like saying the murder weapon was a gun when it had clearly been a knife. Such an incredible error was used as justification, (against the findings of the repeated police reports), of the Crown Prosecutor to lay charges. Several years later she too was appointed by the Queensland Labor Party Government as Judge in the District Court.
15. As soon as this evidence had been written into the criminal trial transcript, Ettridge quickly provided this glaring error to the Director of Public prosecution and demanded the Crown abandon its trial which was based on false evidence. He also asked the trial Judge to interrupt the criminal trial so a court hearing could be called to correct the error of Justice Atkinson, upon which the Crown's case had been justified. Both were ignored and denied.
16. The consequences of Justice Atkinson's decision, based upon such a glaringly false fact, was never challenged by One Nation's three man legal team. In fact, during the Atkinson trial when the Electoral Commissioner was sworn in and available for cross examination, the One Nation Party's legal team did not ask him a single question - a fact discovered by Ettridge when reading the lengthy transcripts. Here was the one person who could have closed the civil case by identifying the list of names as a matter of court and evidence procedure, and he was not asked a single question to provide and defence and to exonerate us. In fact, in the transcript it was declared that the correct list of names used to register the Party in Queensland was suspiciously not even in the courtroom!! No one attempted to get it, which raises suspicion about the competence or ethics being practised in that court by all parties. Justice Atkinson's decision was greatly advantaged by not having the Electoral Commission.
17. The wife of a prominent QC involved in the One Nation defence was appointed by the Labor Party to the Queensland Supreme Court a few years earlier.
18. In an article in the Courier Mail on September 15th 1988, it said "The Bar Association of Queensland has slammed the appointment of Roslyn Atkinson to the Supreme Court bench, claiming that she had not been chosen on merit". A media release said "Justice Atkinson has demonstrated ability in her relatively short term as a lawyer, but not for the time and at the necessary level to demonstrate a capacity to perform the function of a Justice of the Supreme Court".
19. In a breach of the Electoral Act, the civil charges against us were allowed to be brought to court 14 months after the time limit allowed for such a challenge.
20. Four years later, in the criminal court, the main witness against Ettridge and Hanson, the witness relied upon so heavily by Justice Atkinson to arrive at her flawed judgement, was soundly discredited in dialogue between the Crown prosecutor and Chief Judge Patsy Wolf. That witness was described by the senior investigating Major Fraud Squad Detective as not being a person of truth. Judge Patsy Wolf said "Well, it's accepted on the cross examination that he was totally discredited". And yet Justice Atkinson had accepted and even relied upon his perjury. The Crown's barrister prosecuting for the DPP was in court arguing that the person who contributed to Justice Atkinson's flawed decision had lied! And yet the criminal trial continued.
21. In another astonishing turn of events, the person who had initiated the action against the One Nation party in the civil court of Justice Atkinson, and the person who had won the action, sought a retrial on the grounds that the case had been won by "fraud, deliberate withholding of evidence, conspiracy and perjured evidence". His attempt predicably failed.
22. On the 18th August, 1999, on the same day and immediately after the decision of Justice Atkinson had become known to him during a Parliamentary session, the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie also made an astonishing admission "After the election there were 11, then there were 10, then there were five, and today there are none. That's the way we are, in terms of entitlement, I did say, by the way, that we would get rid of One Nation". Such a boast is strange because it reveals he and others intended to remove a lawfully registered and formed political party, and in so boasting he attracted suspicion that he and others in what must have been a conspiracy between them had brought about this result. The revelations earlier in this document of changes to the law, the application of the law retrospectively and the ultimately severe penalties issued by a Judge appointed by Mr Beattie and perhaps others, leaves little doubt that political interference had taken place in the courts and in the judicial process. In so doing laws were broken, and yet to this day no one has been charged.
23. In a story in the Courier Mail dated 23rd June 2000, the following was said "The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has come under repeated attacks over poor resourcing, a series of senior resignations and claims of political interference". At this time and for some years prior to this newspaper article, Peter Beattie had been the Premier of Queensland. He was also Premier during the period in 2003 when Ettridge and Hanson were charged, trialled and imprisoned for an offence the Court of Appeal later declared they had not committed.
24. Even the Fraud Squad detectives who interviewed various potential witnesses, made no secret of the political pressure they were under. In sworn affidavits by three different people, claims were made by those three people that Fraud Squad detectives had admitted that Police were under political pressure. These bizarre admissions were made by the police who were assisting the real conspirators to break the law!
25. Australia has signed the Declaration of Human Rights. In article 11 (2) it says ..."Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed".
26. After a committal hearing in 2002, Ettridge had his rights to freedom of speech denied. The court imposed a ban on Ettridge speaking to the media about the case. Ettridge's rights to free speech were enshrined in the Covenant of Civil and Political Rights signed by Australia on the 16th December 1966.
27. Following the flawed judgement of Justice Roslyn Atkinson in the civil matter, the One Nation Party was de-registered and required to repay a $502,000 amount which the party had received for electoral reimbursements. This has never been recovered by the Party in spite of many demands for it. The basis for seizing the One Nation Party's electoral funding, and its justification by the Atkinson court decision has been totally unofficially overturned by the later Court of Appeal decision in November 2003. Of course it is unlikely to ever be repaid. The same Court of Appeal which confirmed the flawed Atkinson judgement has come to a totally opposite decision some years later. I speculate that the Judges were by now growing tired of the political interference and needed to send the government a message - stop interfering with the courts.
28. In spite of the comedy of errors, the trail of evidence against the Queensland Government, the rejection by the politically influenced DPP of the "No Case" police report, the many criticisms by Senior Council and a High Court Judge of the way the Criminal trial was managed, the criticism by Queensland's Court of Appeal judges as to the management of the legal side of the trial, no compensation for extensive legal costs and personal losses has ever been paid.
29. To this day, Australian political history will show this affair to have been the most blatant, arrogant and disgraceful abuse of power ever witnessed in this country.
30. The civil action in the Labor Government's appointee Justice Atkinson's court against One Nation was not initiated by the Queensland Electoral Commission. They never believed they had been defrauded. They had their own audit procedures which confirmed the registration was legal. Ettridge and Hanson's innocence was confirmed by the major fraud squad reports.
31. The Criminal action some years later was initiated by the Labor Government's appointee - the Director of the DPP AFTER the Major Fraud Squad had delivered her two reports saying that no fraud had taken place.
32. Suspicions about political pressure exist when detectives tell witnesses they are under political pressure to gather witness evidence and the appointee at the DPP seeks charges against innocent people in a complete break from the traditional chain of action. She was on her own and as shown by the Court of Appeal and Ettridge's court submissions, there never was any case against Ettridge and Hanson. Had there been, the Electoral Commission would have been the Plaintiff as the aggrieved party.
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS :
1. The Police told the DPP no offence had been committed.
2. Ettridge told every senior lawmaker in Queensland no offence had been committed. Ettridge told the Director of Public Prosecutions in writing that there was no case to answer.
3. The very legal facts supported by 3 of Queensland's most senior judges in the Court of Appeal which gave rise to the overturning of Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe's Judgement and sentencing which Ettridge provided the court and the DPP in written defence submissions were ignored.
4. Ettridge told the DPP that Justice Atkinson's decision was based upon the wrong evidence, a fact which was proven and so clearly apparent.
5. During the criminal trial Ettridge sought to have the criminal trial adjourned while he tested this new evidence in an attempt to have the Atkinson decision overturned, but it was refused by Judge Patsy Wolfe.
6. The police told three
separate witnesses they were under political pressure.
7. The law was so clear and so easy to understand, so when it wasn't understood by the many legal representatives al all levels the only conclusion that can be made is that they did not want to disturb the political intention of this case. Many must have become intentional or reluctant co-conspirators in this shocking abuse of power and procedure.
8.Ettridge and Hanson were handcuffed, imprisoned and disgraced and they spent 3 months of a 3 year sentence in maximum security prisons. They were at all times completely innocent and the law was ignored by people determined to destroy them and the political party they co founded. To this day, no one has faced any consequences.
The Queensland Government has been using the courts to protect their friends and to attack their enemies. All of this in modern Australia and under the noses of the media, Judges, the legal profession and senior public servants.