Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce stayed overnight at Gina Rinehart’s $20m Brisbane mansion after fundraising events held for One Nation, Guardian Australia can reveal.
On one occasion, Joyce conducted a live television interview with Channel Seven’s Sunrise program from a room that appears to be a bedroom in Rinehart’s home.
The interview took place on Monday 13 April, the morning after a fundraising event at the mining magnate’s house on the banks of the Brisbane River in Hawthorne.
The new details underscoring the depth of the relationship between Australia’s richest person and One Nation have been revealed in the first episode of the Guardian’s new podcast about the party, The Populist, released on Monday.
Parliamentary expenditure records show that Hanson and Joyce declared flights on 13 April courtesy of Hancock Prospecting, with flight-tracking data showing that the pair flew on Rinehart’s luxury Gulfstream jet from Brisbane to Sydney that afternoon.
The accommodation at Rinehart’s home has not been declared to the parliament, which has rules in place mandating that gifts or hospitality valued at more than $300 – or any interest “where a conflict of interest with a [parliamentarian]’s public duties could foreseeably arise or be seen to arise” – should be declared.
The guidelines state that “hospitality” refers to “free or concessional accommodation” provided to the MP, the MP’s spouse or partner or dependent children “wholly or partly by any person, organisation, business or interest group or foreign government or its representative”.
The provision of meals or accommodation excludes “hospitality provided in a purely social way by friends or colleagues”, but the guidelines are designed to place on the public record interests that may conflict, or be seen to conflict, with an MP’s public duty.
Joyce told Guardian Australia that Rinehart “was a long-term friend over decades not a motel”.
“When I stay with family or friends they don’t charge me, nor do I see it as work,” he said.
“I will never be ashamed of doing the research to do a better job.”
Guardian Australia can also reveal that Hanson has been using one of Rinehart’s bodyguards for her personal security.
The man, who has been seen escorting Hanson in Perth and Canberra, has been one of Rinehart’s closest bodyguards for more than a decade.
The New South Wales supreme court heard in 2013 that Rinehart had asked the bodyguard to offer one of her daughters, Bianca Rinehart, a $25m loan to pull out of a court battle contesting the family trust. The offer was rejected.
According to his LinkedIn, the man works as a security manager with an undeclared company but a post from 2023 shows him listed as an employee of Hancock Energy. It is unclear if he remains employed by Hancock Prospecting.
Guardian Australia has previously reported multiple breaches of Senate rules, with One Nation failing to declare flights gifted by Hancock Prospecting to Hanson going back to August last year.
The fresh details of the company’s financial support for One Nation come despite Hanson telling reporters in February she was not being funded by Rinehart, and after the party’s national director, James Ashby, said in December last year: “We have not seen any money from her.”
The Labor senator Murray Watt criticised Hanson for failing to disclose the links between her party and Rinehart, including the undeclared flights.
“I think that the lengths that she and her colleagues have gone repeatedly to conceal donations, staffing matters, all sorts of other things about their operations, it does make you think that there’s something to hide,” Watt told the Guardian.
“In a democratic system like Australia, there is a responsibility of politicians to be transparent about decision making, about their operations, and again Pauline Hanson seems to want to get all the benefits of power without any of the responsibilities of power.
“The level of concealment that goes on suggests a guilty conscience.
“I think that one of the reasons that One Nation goes to such efforts to conceal their financial gain from Gina Rinehart and her companies is because there is such a close alignment between what Gina Rinehart and Hancock want to see happen and One Nation’s policies.”
One Nation did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia.
A spokesperson for Hancock Prospecting said: “Donations will be disclosed in accordance with applicable laws and reporting requirements.”
