One Nation’s ‘incredibly sloppy’ financial reports reveal more than $1m in missing or worthless assets

Pauline Hanson in the Senate. Her One Nation party has not filed annual returns with the Office of Fair Trading since 2022. Photograph: Sam Mooy/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Pauline Hanson in the Senate. Her One Nation party has not filed annual returns with the Office of Fair Trading since 2022. Photograph: Sam Mooy/Getty Images One Nation’s ‘incredibly sloppy’ financial reports reveal more than $1m in missing or worthless assets Exclusive: Financial returns, obtained by the Guardian, are ‘very poor and unprofessional’ and call into question party’s fitness to govern, expert says Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party reported more than $1m in missing and worthless assets in more than six years of filed financial reports, Guardian Australia can reveal. The financial returns lodged by One Nation with the Office of Fair Trading in Queensland from 2016 to 2022 have been criticised by a leading expert in financial accounting as “sloppy and unprofessional”. The documents show the party has repeatedly failed to meet its legal obligations for running an incorporated association. It has failed to hold annual general meetings on time, repeatedly filed annual and financial reports late, or not filed them at all, and used an account manager to sign a director’s declaration form. The party has not filed annual returns with the regulator since 2022. Matthew Pinnuck, a professor of financial accounting at the University of Melbourne and a former audit manager at KPMG, assessed the six years of financial accounts obtained by the Guardian. Labor must be clear about its purpose - or risk losing voters to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation | Tony Barry Read more Pinnuck said the “incredibly sloppy” reports raised questions about the party’s fitness for government. “The overall quality of the preparation and presentation of the financial statements is very poor and unprofessional,” Pinnuck said. He drew attention to “highly unusual” accounting entries that showed substantial assets had been bought and sold, but were not recorded on the party’s balance sheet. The 2021 balance sheet shows the One Nation Queensland division held assets such as property and equipment worth $93,000, up from just $10,307 in 2020. However, in the same year the party reported that it purchased property and equipment worth $575,710 and claimed to have sold property, plant and equipment worth $492,491. “Both amounts are many times larger than the total carrying value of the organisation’s property, plant and equipment,” Pinnuck said. “They have got a very typical asset base, and then all of a sudden throughout the year they are buying property and equipment and selling property, plant and equipment. It is very unusual full stop. There could be an explanation for that but it is difficult to think of what that could be.” ‘An important aspect of governance’ Pinnuck said another “highly unusual” entry showed that the party bought more th