One Nation media conferences don’t tend to go the way most media conferences in this building go. In the latter, journalists politely listen to the statement of the person who has called the presser, ask questions about it and then, usually with a segue like “on another matter”, move the discussion to other issues, if there are any.

One Nation media conferences are more like feeding time at the zoo as journalists flock around to feast on the carcass of reason and decency that is Pauline Hanson and her rather mutable crew of senators. The fact that the feeling of animosity is decidedly mutual makes the whole affair rather entertaining.

Yesterday at lunchtime, Hanson called a presser to announce that Malcolm Roberts would be referred to the High Court to determine his eligibility to sit in the Senate. “Called” is being generous — some TV networks were told, but not merely did the likes of Crikey not get an alert (we haven’t been on One Nation’s distribution list for a long time, if ever) but radio outlets and photographers only found out when they saw the event unfolding on their office TV screens, prompting them to rush downstairs to the Senate courtyard.

The problem was, Hanson and Malcolm of India weren’t keen to actually talk about the subject on which they had called the gathering, claiming that, 1) it was complicated, and 2) the media would misrepresent any evidence that Roberts might furnish that he had renounced his British citizenship before last year’s election. You may have already seen the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann grilling Roberts on why he wouldn’t answer the simple question of when he renounced his citizenship; BuzzFeed’s Mark Di Stefano, who has diligently compiled the evidence that Maharajah Malcolm is a Brit, showed up late — having not got an alert, like many of us — and proceeded to demand of Roberts why he’d lied about his citizenship. Another journalist then caught Hanson out by nastily and unfairly asking what, exactly, was so complicated about the issue, leaving Hanson at a loss for words.

Plainly annoyed by this, Hanson then stormed off, just as Roberts was answering another question, requiring him to give up and follow in her wake. Also bobbing in her wake was Roberts’ troubled adviser Sean Black. Black is normally happy to give Crikey the benefit of his views — indeed has been known to do so unprompted — but, curiously, didn’t respond to our repeated inquiries as to his welfare. Perhaps he has banned himself from talking to the media, something that undoubtedly leaves the world poorer.

If Hanson appeared cowardly and foolish retreating from her own presser, Attorney-General George Brandis didn’t look much better. When the Greens and others were mulling referring Roberts to the High Court earlier this week, Brandis was aghast at the idea and quick to say the government wouldn’t be backing the referral. Brandis, of course, works hard to keep One Nation on side — he memorably lavished praise on Rod Culleton’s legal nous not long before a court found Culleton bankrupt, and he was turfed from the Senate. With One Nation itself deciding there was a real problem with Roberts’ eligibility, Brandis had to limply back Hanson’s motion, albeit warning that it was “a very dangerous course” when parties began pursuing other senators over their eligibility.

Backflips rarely look elegant, but when someone like Brandis performs them, they look ungainly indeed.