www.silverguide.site –

One Nation says reports that its Victorian state president, Warren Pickering, told a candidate to use his personal bank account for campaign finances contain “false allegations”.

The rightwing party, which has surged in the polls in recent months, said there was no personal bank account used but did not answer specific questions about whether the advice was given.

On Saturday, party leader Pauline Hanson held a press conference with Nepean candidate Darren Hercus ahead of the 2 May byelection in the Mornington Peninsula seat.

The byelection was triggered by Sam Groth’s resignation after a defamation battle and infighting in the Victorian Liberal party.

The Nine newspapers reported on Saturday that two former members of Hanson’s party raised concerns about the advice to use a personal bank account for campaign donations, and both had since quit the party over the handling of donations.

Under Victoria’s electoral laws at the time, all donations had to go into an account registered with the electoral commission.

On Wednesday the high court scrapped those laws, removing critical safeguards ahead of the state’s November election. The government has pledged to introduce new laws to ensure accountability, and says they will apply retrospectively.

On Saturday, when asked about the alleged advice, Hercus said the situation was “in the hands of the lawyers at the moment”.

“I’m not going to comment,” he said, later adding that he was using his personal credit card to fund the campaign.

Hanson then said they were “false allegations”, that there was “no separate bank account”, just an “account that was set up purely for the campaign”.

“So these allegations are coming from disgruntled former members of the party,” she said. “They’ve had no involvement in it at all.”

Hanson said she would sue the people who made the allegations, and that the electoral commission would audit the accounts.

Hanson was also asked whether Pickering had given the advice in the first place, and Pickering – speaking from the sidelines – said the state executive would have given “rational, logical advice”.

Hercus said he had no visibility of the finances, and Hanson said candidates “really are not across” the finances because they were complicated.

Pressed further, Hanson said she wouldn’t “keep going on this” and wanted to talk about replacing the Rosebud hospital, where the press conference was being held. Pressed for details on that, she said she wouldn’t “make policy on the run” but that the hospital needed to be replaced.

Hercus was asked about his proposal to redevelop the hospital through a public-private partnership, which he claims would save taxpayers $340m. Asked to explain how it would work, he said: “I don’t know the numbers that great.”

The press conference had a shambolic start after a member of the public said: “Pauline, why don’t you go back to where you came from?” When challenged, he clarified that he was referring to Queensland.

The man then had a short tussle with Pickering, who was trying to physically block him from the press conference. Hanson delayed the start of the press conference as the altercation continued, then called the man “ill informed” for suggesting One Nation planned to cancel the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Under its “slash government waste” policy, One Nation says it would “review $3bn worth of medications approved for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) during the pandemic”.

Asked about the scrapping of Victoria’s political donation laws, Hanson said the party’s donations come from “ordinary mums and dads”.

“We don’t get the big donations by corporations or from unions like the other political parties do,” she said.

One Nation MP and former Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce has confirmed that Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, is a “substantial supporter” of the party. Hanson has made use of Rinehart’s private plane multiple times.

One Nation is facing growing scrutiny about how it spends the millions it receives in taxpayer dollars. In an investigation published this week, former candidates told Guardian Australia they were yet to see their share of the more than $6m the party banked after the 2025 federal election.

One Nation did not respond to Guardian Australia’s questions as part of that story, but has previously stated that the party’s “national and state finances were regularly audited by chartered accountants, and the NSW and Australian electoral commissions”.