Mining tycoon Gina Rinehart extended a warm invitation to Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation party, facilitating her journey across Europe. Rinehart generously covered Hanson’s tickets to an exquisite fashion extravaganza during the trip.
According to the recently updated parliamentary register of interests, Rinehart financed Hanson’s flights between London and Sicily, with a stopover in Rome, for both legs of the journey.
Despite receiving this travel support, Hanson disclosed that she personally covered all costs related to accommodation, dining, and daily expenses during this journey from July 11 to 16, as initially unveiled by Fairfax outlets.
The trip sparked criticism after Hanson was seen with Rinehart at a lavish resort in Italy and in attendance at a high-profile Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Sicily.
Upon her return to Australia, Senator Hanson faced inquiries about the financial details of the trip. Although she avoided specifics on the expense breakdown, she was adamant that the luxury weekend had not burdened Australian taxpayers.
“It didn’t cost the taxpayer one cent for my trip overseas. Not one cent,” she told a Seven West Media event.
Hanson, who was also gifted a private plane by Rinehart in April, defended her billionaire friend, who inherited Hancock Prospecting from her late father, saying she had “done it tough”.
“She had to borrow everything and was flat out in the very start to pay the bills. She’s built up that company,” she said.
On Monday, Hanson lost an appeal over a Federal Court finding she had made a racist remark towards deputy Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi.
In response to a post on social media soon after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, Hanson told Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
In his initial decision handed down in 2024, Justice Angus Stewart ruled the post was “seriously offensive” and a “strong form of racism”.
Hanson said she was disappointed by Monday’s outcome and was considering lodging a final appeal in the High Court.
“Public discussion in Australia has become almost totally silenced by laws and rules which prevent ordinary people expressing their personal views in case some small part of our society takes some sort of offence or feels hurt or ‘distressed’,” she said in a statement.
“This has never been, nor ever should be, the Australian way.”
Hanson has 28 days to lodge an appeal with the country’s highest court