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When Jennifer Game’s mobile phone lit up with a call from Pauline Hanson after last year’s federal election, the One Nation candidate had a fair idea of what was coming.

Game had been selected by the populist rightwing party to run for the Senate but had fallen short. Hanson was not happy.

“She was angry,” Game says. “She was out of control – she was not quite screaming but almost screaming and she said, ‘You didn’t win. What happened to your personal vote?’

“I had never heard her speak so venomously to me. I was really quite shocked …

“I did try. I had spent $29,000, I had worked very hard, but that was all swept away for nothing.”

In the 12 months since the election, Hanson and One Nation have been steadily gaining momentum.

Fuelled in part by the disintegration of the opposition Coalition, One Nation has been capitalising on public discontent with the major parties and repositioning itself as a credible alternative.

In March the party defied expectations in the South Australian election, riding an “orange wave” that handed One Nation four lower house and three upper house seats.

One Nation is now regularly outpolling the Liberal and National parties.

The party’s rise means Australia has joined the growing list of liberal democracies around the globe being captured by the populist right. Hanson has praised Nigel Farage and Donald Trump as model leaders.

“We speak for the millions who are sick of being ignored, sold out, and betrayed by a political class that’s completely lost touch,” she said in November, comparing One Nation to Reform UK after meeting her “friend” Farage at Mar-a-Lago.

But alongside her soaring popularity, Hanson is facing growing scrutiny of how her party operates.

Game, who worked for Hanson for eight years as a policy adviser, but later fell out with her, says the public needs to look closely at how One Nation handles its money – the millions it receives from members, candidates and Australian taxpayers for campaign spending.

Under Australian electoral funding laws, a candidate or party that receives at least 4% of the primary vote is entitled to public funding. This was set at $3.38 a vote in the 2025 election – which meant that last year One Nation banked $6.08m from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

But Game says she is yet to receive any reimbursement from One Nation for the $29,000 she spent during the campaign to win a Senate seat in South Australia, despite submitting her receipts. She raised about $10,000 through fundraisers, so remains almost $20,000 out of pocket.

Documents seen by Guardian Australia show that Game has now launched legal action, lodging a claim in March in the magistrates court to recover $14,271 – the amount she believes she is owed by the party in eligible campaign spending.

“I did my best to get elected but now they don’t want to know me,” she says.

“They don’t answer any texts, emails or phone calls. Not only are they taking money from the taxpayer, they are taking money from their own candidates.

“It feels like a money-making scheme going on here – and they don’t think anyone is going to do anything about it.”

Under federal electoral law, claims by parties for public funding must be underpinned with proof of expenditure for any amount above an initial automatic payment of $12,379.

Game questions whether the receipts submitted by candidates are being used by the party in its claims for funding, saying the lack of transparency exposes a “weakness in the law”.

“Nobody really knows what happens to the money that goes to One Nation, as long as they comply with the electoral law,” she says.

“There are very large amounts of government money going to the parties, which is supposed to enable them to function and run candidates, but there’s no legal framework where they have to account for that publicly.”

She adds: “It is important as [One Nation] becomes a major party and the amount of public funding that is going to go their way – there needs to be accountability.”

Taxpayer funding

One Nation has fast become a multimillion-dollar organisation.

After the 2016 federal election it received $1.7m from the AEC. In 2025 the party won about 6.4% of the national vote, equating to almost 1 million people, while a similar number selected the party as their No 1 choice in the Senate. This more than tripled its return from the AEC.

But while the party received more than $6m from the AEC in 2025, Guardian Australia can reveal that the total electoral expenditure declared by the 160 candidates to the commission was just $872,116.

Seventy-six candidates declared spending nothing at all on their campaigns.

On current polling, One Nation is on track to almost quadruple its 2025 result at the next federal election, leading to many more millions flowing into party coffers. Public funding rates will increase by almost 50% to $5 a vote at the next federal election.

The party is known to run “ghost candidates” in many metropolitan seats to secure the public funding entitlement. While these candidates are real people – usually taken from the party’s membership base – they are largely invisible on the hustings.

One Nation has long faced allegations of financial improprieties, including from the AEC itself.

Hanson has twice been forced to pay back election funding – once after the 2019 election and again after the 2022 election. In a 2021 review the AEC found that she had wrongly claimed about $165,000 in expenses.

The then electoral commissioner, Tom Rogers, determined that Hanson, as the party’s registered agent, had failed to “to substantiate expenditure” underpinning its claim for $2.8m. The claims were found to either be “not electoral expenditure” or for spending “that had not been incurred”.

After the $6m 2025 payout, the AEC is again auditing the party’s expenditure claims as part of its review of all party spending.

Hanson is required to ensure that she provides “specific evidence of payment” before making a claim for any amount above $10,000.

One Nation’s membership structure is bringing waves of fresh funds into the party. Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, claims a 600% increase in members in the past six months, with fees ranging from $60 to $500 a year. With reports that the party is approaching 50,000 members, that represents at least $3m going to the party’s Brisbane headquarters each year.

The party receives substantial funding from state electoral commissions, with each state having different arrangements for the funding of political parties.

One Nation’s polling success in South Australia will send about $1.5m flowing into party coffers as a result of generous new public funding laws.

While the South Australian legislation specifies that there needs to be a dedicated state campaign account linked to the funding, the party’s centralised control has at times muddied the waters.

Game claims that when she oversaw the state branch, funds would regularly be moved from the division’s bank account – with no explanation.

“In a big party, you have the structures, you have the members, you have elected executives, but the membership for One Nation is like a bath – it flows in and out,” she says.

Nor is the party accountable to its members, she says.

“The members are not in touch with each other – these branches are being set up without a bank account, without a constitution, with no power.

At one annual meeting, Game says, she asked for a copy of One Nation’s accounts. “They were sent to me and they were Mickey Mouse accounts,” she says.

“I have only ever seen that one set of accounts and they did not comply with Australian Accounting Standards.

“There are no minutes, no financial reports, no annual reports, they don’t do financials like that, and nothing is routinely provided to members.”

‘Where has all that money gone?’

Robert Hicks is another former candidate who has had a run-in with the party over campaign funding.

The Cairns man, who worked in chemical sales, felt disenfranchised by the major parties and viewed Hanson as a breath of fresh air.

“I put my hand up, I rang up the office in Brisbane and said I would like to run as a candidate [in the Leichhardt electorate],” Hicks tells the Guardian. “They asked me a few questions and that was that.”

The Queensland-based electorate is vast, covering 150,000 sq km of the state’s far north. Hicks signed One Nation’s paperwork and set about campaigning. He spent about $12,000 of his own money on the hustings.

Labor’s Matt Smith won the seat but Hicks was happy with his result – he won about 8% of the primary vote.

What he wasn’t pleased about was the help he received from One Nation HQ in Brisbane. How-to-vote cards didn’t turn up on time or were incorrectly printed. Phone calls went unreturned.

But things really turned sour when he tried to get reimbursed for his campaign spending.

Based on the 7,568 primary votes Hicks received, the AEC public funding return to his party would have equated to a maximum entitlement of $25,625.

But after lodging his claim for a refund from the party, complete with receipts, Hicks was only refunded $2,800 in February – nine months after the election. He claims this has left him out of pocket to the tune of almost $10,000.

Hicks says his emails, including a request for a breakdown of which expenses had been reimbursed, have gone unanswered.

“It is not right, particularly when you look at the income they are deriving from the candidates,” he says. “They put people to work in the field and the return they get is pretty good, I would like to have a business like that.”

Hicks received only about 11% of the amount paid out by the AEC, meaning as much as $22,000 could have been returned to party coffers on the back of his vote if proof of expenditure were provided.

“Where has all that money gone?” he asks.

Hicks resigned from the party in February. “They haven’t done the right thing,” he says. “It is just a nasty, toxic organisation.”

Game accuses One Nation of enriching itself at the expense of people who genuinely believe in its policies.

“The way they treat their members, the way they treat their candidates, it is financially controlling,” she says, pointing to the onerous agreements candidates must sign when they stand for election.

Guardian Australia has obtained a copy of the “funding and disclosure” agreements signed by One Nation candidates.

The paperwork stipulates stringent funding conditions for both Senate and House of Representatives candidates. A Senate candidate will receive “the lesser amount” of either the bond paid to the party to run or one-sixth of 40% of the amount the party receives for formal first preference votes from the AEC. A lower house candidate is only eligible for 35% of the amount paid to the party.

The agreements also outline a range of mandatory items that candidates must buy from head office underwritten by the “campaign expenditure bond” paid in advance, for items ranging from corflutes to a set number of orange T-shirts and business cards.

Game says she was hit with $10,000 bill to buy 1,000 corflutes from Brisbane – despite the fact that South Australia has banned the public display of once-ubiquitous political campaign posters.

“I told them I don’t want any of these, they have passed a law that means you can’t put them up,” she says. “But I ended up with boxes and boxes of them in my garage.

“They all ended up in the bin.”

Candidates also agree that the party may charge a levy on their income if successfully elected, pledging to pay a $150 weekly “fee” as an elected member.

The fee is payable irrespective of whether they remain with One Nation, the declaration of undertaking states.

‘They enjoy being in the shit’

It was February 2025 when Angela* began working at the One Nation head office.

After a week the receptionist stood up at her desk and gave her new colleagues her opinion of the workplace.

“I said to them, ‘This is the most disorganised, chaotic, dysfunctional, politically incorrect office I have ever worked in,’” she says.

“I said it nicely.”

Angela had witnessed inappropriate banter, verbal abuse, contempt for the One Nation members who contacted party HQ and a level of disorganisation that shocked her.

In one example, Angela said two staff members screamed at each other over who was entitled to use the company car.

When she started, she says, there were 20,000 unread emails in the party’s main inbox.

“They enjoy being in the shit. I have not seen anything like it.

“They never had a nice word to say to each other; there would be joking, derogatory comments, but backhanded and really nasty. I couldn’t stand it.”

Nothing would be done “until it is panic stations”.

The office is thinly staffed. The operations manager is Alexander Jones, a 26-year-old former mail clerk who started working for One Nation fresh out of high school. He also sits on the party’s national executive as treasurer.

In 2023 he pleaded guilty to attempted electoral fraud after trying to deceive the Queensland Electoral Commission over the timing of a $24,000 claim for payment. His lawyer argued that Jones had been “crushed” by his heavy workload. He was fined $1,000, with no conviction recorded. The magistrate noted his “glowing” community credentials and the fact the party had been entitled to the claim.

Working alongside Jones was the campaign manager, Sean Black, a convicted rapist who was sentenced to five years’ jail in 2017 for assaulting a woman.

Black was working for One Nation’s Queensland senator Malcolm Roberts before he was sentenced, then rehired after he was released in 2020. He was let go then hired again in 2023. He was appointed to the executive last year as national secretary.

On Sunday, amid a backlash to Black’s continued employment, Hanson said his position had been terminated.

The office supervisor was Liddy Vearing. According to her Instagram account, Vearing is a feng shui practitioner, an energy healer and a “psychic intuitive”.

Angela says the three full-time staff members at party HQ are assisted by casual staff – like her – and volunteers, among whom there is a high turnover. She says five administrative staff came and went in 2025.

The office largely reports to Ashby, who has been described as Hanson’s adopted child; her family once called him her “favourite son”.

At the apex of One Nation’s power structure sits an unlisted public company, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Limited. It has four directors: Hanson, Roberts, Jones and the party’s South Australian leader, Carlos Quaremba.

The party’s governing document is its constitution, which in 2017 was amended to make Hanson president for life. This expressly states that Hanson will be able to choose her successor – expected to be her daughter, Lee Hanson. Only after her successor’s term is completed will the national president be chosen by the executive.

The constitution is not publicly available. The current version has never been lodged with the AEC and is not given to new members when they sign up.

Guardian Australia has obtained a copy. It reveals for the first time the full extent of Hanson’s powers.

The constitution gives the national executive the power to disband “subordinate bodies, divisions, executives, executive bodies or committees” as deemed necessary by the national executive for the “protection of the party”.

As president, Hanson is the registered officer of the party in all states “by default” and can delegate any state position to someone of her choosing, even if they are “not a state or national executive member”.

The constitution also states that the national executive – which can be as few as three members, and just two for a decision-making “quorum” – has the power to “expel from the party or remove from their position of office any individual in any subordinate body, division, executive body, or committee”.

The national executive is also responsible for the “set up management and operation of bank accounts as deemed necessary by the national executive”.

‘That was a huge kick in the guts’

Angela had previous experience volunteering in the electorate office of a One Nation MP and saw stark differences in how constituent concerns were managed. While constituents were treated “respectfully” by the electorate office, phone calls from party members to head office were discouraged.

She remembers at one point being told while on the phone to “just fuck ’em off”.

“I was told, ‘You shouldn’t be taking those calls.’”

Angela raised her “serious concerns” about the office culture with party officials in Canberra and was given the phone number of Lee Hanson. But before she had a chance to speak to the party’s new national executive manager, her position was terminated.

She bears no malice towards the party, and continues to volunteer for a One Nation MP, but says party HQ needs fixing.

“Barnaby has got no idea what he is getting himself into.”

The Guardian has spoken to three other former One Nation employees who share similar concerns about management of head office.

One had his pay cut by about 40% after being told he had been paid incorrectly for several months. Guardian Australia has seen payslips that verify the change.

“That was a huge kick in the guts and it was very stressful,” the worker says.

“I don’t wish the party any ill will … But if One Nation are going up in the polls, I am just hoping that the head office can fix up all of their administration.

“I hope they can fix the chaos in there because, especially when the campaign hits, they don’t have enough people to be running a large federal campaign.”

Another former worker says the payroll was a constant problem and the party was repeatedly criticised for not providing campaign materials to candidates on time.

“There were weeks where I didn’t get paid,” he says. “Sometimes they would miss two weeks worth of payments and I would get it in the third week, then my super wasn’t paid properly. They would fix it but it was a regular thing.”

Merch sales

In the downstairs warehouse of the Brisbane HQ is a screen printer that’s used to create the party merchandise ordered through One Nation’s website. It sells everything from caps and stubby holders to bobble-headed Pauline Hanson toys.

The party claims as a “cheeky little fact” that the in-house printing supports local jobs – but former employees say it is mostly undertaken by existing administrative staff or volunteers.

The merchandise sales – just one of the party’s many income streams – have caught the attention of regulators in NSW.

In 2021 the state upper house MPs Rod Roberts and Mark Latham raised concerns about the party’s financial governance while they were both on the state executive, using parliamentary privilege to accuse the party of “defrauding NSW electoral funds”.

Latham claimed that the party was diverting funds provided under the NSW electoral administration fund to the party’s Brisbane office where they were used to buy party merchandise and to pay for items such as conveyor belts that were used in the production lines.

This merchandise would then be on-sold to fund the federal campaign, he said, in what he described as “Ashby-style money laundering”.

Ashby had previously been referred to the Queensland Electoral Commission after leaked recordings showed he had proposed One Nation could “make some money” on its campaign packages for the state election. He used to run a printing service used by the party but sold the company in 2023.

Latham claimed that only after he threatened to report the party to the police for misappropriation of funds did the Queensland branch repay about $100,000 to the NSW division.

In 2023 Latham referred his concerns to the then special minister of state, John Graham, who confirmed that the allegations were being examined by the state electoral commission.

It is unclear whether the investigation has been completed.

In March Latham questioned the electoral commission about what he called “a clear abuse” of the state’s electoral funding laws and said the lack of information coming from officials at the state regulator made them like “Trappist monks”.

“Aren’t you there to inform the voters about things that matter in a democracy?” he asked in parliament. “We now know the standing of One Nation in these polls. Byelections and other state elections are coming up. Haven’t the public got the right to know that this rort took place and you took action against it?

“It’s like you’re running some protection racket for electoral crooks, because the public doesn’t know.”

Hanson rejected the claims made by Latham and Roberts, issuing a statement that said the party’s “national and state finances were regularly audited by chartered accountants, and the NSW and Australian electoral commissions”.

Latham, Roberts and a fellow One Nation parliamentarian, Tania Mihailuk, have all since left the party, continuing the well-documented trend of One Nation candidates quitting the party after being elected. From 1998 until March’s South Australian election, 25 of the 38 candidates elected to state and federal parliaments have resigned or been dumped.

Guardian Australia has uncovered further evidence of the party routinely transferring money between its state and federal branches, including invoices issued to state branches for material provided by party HQ.

In 2021 the NSW branch lodged expenditure details with the NSW Electoral Commission that shows it paid more than $20,000 to One Nation’s Queensland division for the supply of a range of items, including freight and vehicle hire for the Upper Hunter byelection and corflutes.

There has also been a curious history of inter-branch loans. Across 2020 and 2021, the Queensland division lent a combined $77,500 to the NSW branch, charged at an interest rate of 12.7%.

Hanson herself is listed as a donor to the party federally. She made payments totalling $245,000 before the last election, which the party claims were a loan made on “commercial terms”. She is also listed among the party’s creditors and is owed $95,000. The AEC collects no details of these commercial terms.

Federal disclosures show that the Victorian branch of the party has given $60,000 to HQ, with no explanation given for the three payments made since 2023. It is also a lender to the Queensland division, providing $80,000 in 2024 at a rate of 7.35%.

‘You have got one person … who is everything’

Jim Savage remains a One Nation voter.

The Queenslander was the party’s national president for a decade and was responsible for bringing Hanson back into One Nation after eight failed election campaigns and before her successful 2016 Senate tilt.

It was, he says, one of his “passions”, and he still wants Hanson to succeed.

But Savage’s falling out with the party also came down to a disagreement over financial management – he had requested access to the party’s audited financial reports at an annual meeting and was removed by security when he arrived.

“What is at the core of all the issues of One Nation is you have got one person in Pauline Hanson who is everything,” Savage says.

“She’s a senator, she is the president, she is the returning officer, she is everything. And I am sure that not a cheque could be written without her signature.”

The constitution giving Hanson “total control” over the party was agreed to soon after she was elected to the Senate.

Savage claims that while he was overseas Hanson called an extraordinary meeting of the ruling body. She appointed Ashby and two others to it, allowing her to “stack the executive”. He resigned as president as a result.

“A lot of people, especially now they have got the shits on with the major parties, are going to join One Nation,” Savage says.

“But they don’t think about things like the financial reports, or the treasurer’s reports – they think they are happy to be a member and that’s about it.

“She says it is my party, my money and no one tells me what to do. Well, it is the members who should be telling her what to do …

“The whole party, there is a mirage there about who she is and what they are about.

“I know they are surging in the polls. But people should know who they are.”

One Nation did not respond to questions from the Guardian.

*Name has been changed