Police raids on One Nation condemned

Police raids on One Nation condemned

By Margaret Allum

On January 21, offices of the One Nation party in Ipswich, Queensland, and Sydney were raided by the Queensland police major fraud squad and the New South Wales commercial crime squad.

Documents and computer files detailing membership and financial records were seized as part of an action that the police dubbed "Operation Tier". The operation followed the de-registering of One Nation in Queensland by that state's Supreme Court.

The Democratic Socialists have condemned the police actions. Democratic Socialist spokesperson Peter Boyle explained that while his party totally opposed the policies of Pauline Hanson and One Nation, it condemned the police intervention against political parties as a dangerous precedent.

"We strongly oppose what One Nation stands for, but we condemn the police raids on its offices as a politically motivated attack. While parties have to be accountable to their members, this is not what is behind this sort of intimidation from the state. If this goes uncriticised, parties on the left may find that they are the next targets of police harassment."

"The irony", Boyle pointed out, "is that federal and state governments are implementing Hanson's racist policies while trying to destroy One Nation through police raids".

From GLW issue 391