Blood on the wall and defamation: a history of Brian Burston v Pauline Hanson

After a long trial replete with grubby allegations, Pauline Hanson is going to have to pony up for a big chunk of Brian Burston’s legal fees.

The former One Nation Katter’s Australia Party independent United Australia Party senator sued his old boss Hanson for defamation back in June 2020 over comments she made in a Facebook post, a television interview and a text to his wife. Federal Court Justice Robert Bromwich has ordered Hanson pay 75% of the costs of the interlocutory application.

A look back, then, on the ballad of Brian and Pauline — quite possibly the most publicly fractious political relationship in a party littered with them.

Backstabbing and ‘intimidation’

Burston debuted as the George Harrison of the 2016-2018 One Nation Senate team. It turned out to be a parliamentary Ship of Theseus, and Burston was shed like worm-rotten wood as surely as Rod Culleton, Fraser Anning and (temporarily) Malcolm Roberts had been before him.

It all started so well. While Culleton, Anning and Roberts were loud and controversial, Burston quietly traded in the more garden-variety PHON: opposing “aggressive multiculturalism” and marriage equality. But then he defected from the One Nation ticket on company tax cuts and started deleting all references to the party from his social media profiles. He was ditched as party whip — a role he’d held since 2016. Hanson tearfully accused him of “stabbing her in the back” in a TV interview.

Before he’d even officially left, Burston was attempting to bring Hanson before the Senate privileges committee for “alleged interference, intimidation and threats” after he defected. Things briefly calmed down once he was officially gone, and after shopping around the right-wing minor parties, he became United Australia Party’s leader in the Senate, forming a voting bloc with right-wing senators David Leyonhjelm, Cory Bernardi and Anning.

Blood on the walls

Things got seriously grotesque in February 2019. After Hanson used parliamentary privilege to accuse an unnamed senator (but anyone could guess) of sexually harassing at least six members of staff, Burston got in a scuffle with One Nation adviser James Ashby, after a Minerals Council event in Parliament.

After the fight, Burston smeared the blood from a resulting injury across Hanson’s door. “This Parliament doesn’t need an election, it needs an exorcism,” is how Crikey’s Bernard Keane put it. Burston stood in the Senate the next day and said: “Whilst I do not recall the incident of blood on the door, I now have come to the conclusion that it was myself and I sincerely apologise for that action.”

Burston continued to add to the generally sordid vibe of the times by accusing Hanson of sexually harassing him a handful of times over the past 20 years.

Suit and counter-suit

Inevitably the pair ended up in court. After Burston’s defamation case, Hanson counter-sued, claiming his defamation suit against her was retaliation for her allegations that he sexually harassed his staffers.

Hanson sought declarations under the Sex Discrimination Act that Burston’s lawsuit, his sexual harassment allegations against her, and his smearing blood on her door were unlawful.

So all in all, it’s going to end up costing Burston less money than Hanson. On top of this, Hanson has previously been forced to pay him $250,000 in damages for wrongly accusing him of sexual abuse and an unprovoked assault.

But you’d be hard-pressed to find a more pyrrhic victory. In awarding the $250,000, the court still found that evidence established Burston had sexually harassed two female staff members.

Justice Robert Bromwich said he had no doubt Burston had sexually propositioned the two staffers and that one suffered “continued harassment from Mr Burston during her employment, predominantly of a sexual nature”.