"So Abbott was the initiator. Correct?"

No. ON involved criminal and civil proceedings; I have linked to the initial civil proceedings and the Appeal from those proceedings; in both instances it was found that ON was not correctly registered. That is the end of that.

Abbott was not a party to either of those cases; whether he provided financial backing is irrelevant because the AEC has found his trust was NOT an associated entity. That is the end of that.

Ettridge and Hanson were prosecuted by the QLD AG in 2003 by the Beattie government, an ALP government! How could Abbott have influenced that?!

Hanson and Ettridge's criminal conviction was quashed because the court found there was doubt the standard of criminal conviction was satisfied.

So Ettridge and Hanson remain convicted by the civil proceedings but have had the benefit of doubt applied to their circumstances in the criminal proceedings.

An enquiry by the Crime and Conduct Commission in 2004 into whether due process had been met in the various ON proceedings found it had.

So, we have had 2 civil and 2 criminal proceedings and a commission enquiry as well as 2 AEC enquiries into the matter.

Abbott is legally clear; you might not like what happened to Ettridge and Hanson, and I'm sure the faux outrage here masks complete indifference but Abbott did nothing legally wrong.

Dear Alan's pathetic attempt to establish equivalence between Abbott and Gillard is both wrong and no doubt the last desperate attempt by rusted on ALP acolytes to mitigate the impending demolition in September.

cohenite,

"So Abbott was the initiator. Correct?"

"No...."

Perhaps you should tell that to Mr Abbott.

To take a quote from his O'Brien interview:

"Abbott: "If you go back, Kerry, to the parliamentary debate on 1 July, I think it was, of 1989--1998--Labor speaker after speaker were demanding, screaming, that the Government in general, but I in particular, do something to stop this terrible Hanson woman.

Well, I did."

So thank you for the soft-shoe shuffle, but Tony appears to believe that "he" stopped Hanson....

"Well, I did."

Poirot, you live in a parallel universe.

I have gone through chapter and verse why Abbott is legally clear; look at the civil cases; who was the plaintiff; was it Abbott? No.

Abbott had nothing to do with the criminal proceedings; that was the ALP!

This is a farcical attempt to wrap Abbott in a conspiracy, and, as I say, establish some sort of equivalence with Gillard where NO court action or response to the accusations has occurred against her except she saying she didn't do it.

Pathetic.

Exactly right Cohenite.
Gillard hasn't been made to answer to a court of law re these allegations because there was no legal case to answer.

Unfortunately for Abbott, the criminal justice system obviously believes there are reasons enough to try him in court.
There is no getting away from that fact, no matter how much the Liberal tragics protest.

I expect that by his very own standards, Abbott will be standing down any day now while this matter is in Court and not offering his "tainted" vote in Parliament.

This matter, as well as the Slush Fund he created was known about in the Blogosphere long before it was announced in the mainstream media.

If it involved Gillard it would have been screaming at us from the front pages of every newspaper but it's been quietly put to one side.

Funny that.

Lexi,

Are you lying or illerate?

"Mr Abbott admitted that he did not take legal advice on disclosure until after he got the AEC's letter in 2003." He had got verbal advice only.

"It was then he sought legal advice and got it from a senior lawyer." This you made up as he never used the word "then"

"Taking legal advice" is a technical term specifically referring to a written opinion provided by a legal firm upon which they stake their reputation. This is driven home by Abbott's specific use of the term " I sought legal advice and got oral advice from a senior lawyer"

AA,

The term ‘fund’ refers to any vehicle containing money which includes a bank account or the association which opened it.

Abbott initiated the civil case to de register One Nation. The criminal case was initiated by the AG of Queensland as a consequence of One Nation being found to have been registered and thus having obtained commonwealth funding using a false declaration.

To initiate requires specific action, not simply a consequence of other actions. I see AA's grasp of English is as poor as his grasp of Economics.