haha

Victor

I laughed at this when I saw it. What is it about (a) extremists (b) politicians (c) extremeist politiciians that they can't keep clean?

http://home.eircom.net/content/reuters/worldnews/1231247?view=Eircomnet

Anti-immigrant campaigner jailed for vote fraud
From:Reuters
Wednesday, 20th August, 2003

BRISBANE (Reuters) - The controversial founder of Australia's anti-immigrant One Nation party, Pauline Hanson, has been jailed for three years after being found guilty of electoral fraud.

"Rubbish, I'm not guilty," Hanson said angrily after the verdict was read out in a Brisbane court on Wednesday, the Australian Associated Press news agency reported.

"It's a joke," added Hanson, a former fish and chip shop owner who stormed into Australian politics in 1996 railing against Asian immigration and handouts to Aborigines.

The fiery redhead, known as much for her garish wardrobe as her strident politics, had pleaded not guilty to fraudulently registering One Nation in the state of Queensland.

Hanson also denied dishonestly obtaining A$500,000 in electoral funds used for the campaigns of 11 politicians elected to the Queensland state parliament.

It took a jury in the Queensland capital Brisbane nine hours to find Hanson, 49, and One Nation co-founder David Ettridge, 58, guilty.

A court official said the judge handed Hanson and her co-defendant three-year jail sentences. Hanson, who AAP said broke down in tears and hugged her two sons as the sentence was announced, could have faced a maximum 10-year prison term.

"She's going to jail tonight for sure. The bed's been turned down," the court official said.

Hanson's lawyer Chris Nyst told reporters she would appeal.

END OF THE ROAD

Prosecutors had accused the pair of passing off a list of 500 supporters as genuine, paid-up members of One Nation to register the party and apply for electoral reimbursements.

Hanson is due to face separate charges over allegations she used political funds for personal expenditure.

The conviction effectively ends Hanson's political ambitions while the party she founded struggles to survive; its thunder muted by the conservative government's tough stance on illegal immigration.

Hanson grabbed world headlines and set off alarm bells in a region wary of any revival of a "White Australia" policy after she warned in 1996 against Asian immigration in her maiden speech as an independent member of the federal parliament.

"They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate," Hanson told parliament then.

She used her sudden political fame to form far-right One Nation, which rode a xenophobic groundswell against an Asian influx and special treatment for Australia's downtrodden Aborigines to win a million votes in a 1998 election.

But Hanson, who once recorded a video statement when she thought she was going to be assassinated, lost her own seat in the national parliament in 1998 and has been in the political wilderness ever since.

She quit One Nation last year, leaving the party plagued by in-fighting, to concentrate on her looming court cases.

Queensland state premier Peter Beattie urged supporters and detractors alike to accept the court's decision.

"There will be people who will see her as being martyred. I just say to all those people who think that way, that this process has been followed in accordance with the law. There has been no political interference," he told reporters.

But diehard fans were not so easily convinced.

"I think there were certain major influences in the political area, they wanted to make sure she didn't come back to haunt them," One Nation state parliamentarian Bill Flynn told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.