Shooters party backs Hanson claim One Nation senator sought to defect

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The NSW leader of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party has backed up One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s claim that her colleague Senator Brian Burston considered defecting to the minor party.

Senator Burston said reports he approached the party were “totally and absolutely false”, as a bitter dispute within One Nation played out in a series of TV interviews on Thursday.

But NSW Shooters party representative Robert Borsak said the senator made an approach via an “intermediary” to the party’s state director to discuss becoming the party’s only federal voice in Canberra.

“The message simply was, would I be prepared to have a meeting with him to discuss him joining us?” he told 2GB Radio.

Mr Borsak said the offer of a federal seat was “tempting” but Senator Burston would not be a good representative of the party.

“To be frank we wouldn’t even consider it, really. It would end up in tears,” he said.

“We don’t want to get involved in the seat swapping and party jumping that goes on in Canberra.

“I’ve had the media chasing me today asking me whether it’s the truth and of course it’s the truth. We’ve got no reason to embellish it, we’ve got no reason to make up stories.

“It’s unfortunate that that happened but it happened.”

The One Nation dispute reached fever pitch late on Thursday when leader Pauline Hanson gave an emotional TV interview in which she accused her colleague of “stabbing her in the back”.

“This hurts me. It hurts me deeply because … It means so much to me what I’m trying to do. And for him to turn around and do this to me … it’s hard but I’m going to keep going,” she said.

Senator Burston said he spoke with Senator Hanson on the phone last night and that she was “very angry”. 

“I ended up hanging up on her,” he told Sky News.

The dispute was triggered when Senator Burston revealed he would break ranks with One Nation and vote with the Coalition in favour of company tax cuts.

The Coalition’s bid to gradually lower Australia’s company tax rate from 30 percent to 25 percent was dealt a seemingly fatal blow last week, when One Nation leader Pauline Hanson backflipped on a previous deal  and indicated her three senators would vote ‘no’.

Brian Burston said he would honour the previous “handshake” deal he made with finance minister Mathias Cormann to support the tax cuts.

Senator Hanson said the policy had not been “well-received” by voters and claimed the government had failed to meet its end of the deal that secured her support.