Former Pauline Hanson’s One Nation senate candidate Steve Dickson has resigned from the party after footage of the married politician propositioning a dancer at a Washington DC strip club was broadcast by A Current Affair.
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In footage originally captured as part of an undercover Al Jazeera investigation into One Nation’s meetings with the powerful US gun lobby, Dickson can be seen partying at the adult venue.
That’s certainly not a crime, but the video also shows Dickson touching a dancer on stage, asking a performer to “slide your hand onto my cock”, and boasting to undercover reporter Rodger Muller that a dancer wanted to go home with him.
Then there were the disparaging remarks Dickson made about Asian women and generally distasteful comments about some of the performers, all of which were aired by Channel Nine last night.
In a statement released this morning, Dickson said the “footage shown does not reflect the person that I am.
“It shows a person who was drunk and not in control of their actions and I take full responsibility for allowing it to happen.”
Dickson used the statement to say his wife Debbie “knows that my untoward actions were the result of excessive consumption of alcohol”.
He closed the statement with a telling sentence:
“As I will no longer be of pubic (sic) interest, I ask that you please respect my family’s privacy at this time.”
A Current Affair approached Senator Pauline Hanson before the programme aired to get her statement on the footage. She refused, but is expected to discuss the matter at a press conference this morning.
Dickson’s website states he is “happily married” and that the couple has two children together.
In a 2017 interview with the Catholic Leader, Dickson said “Your family is everything. You hold them so close to you because there is nothing so important.
“You should care for them, look after them and see they have a reasonable lifestyle for the future.”
After the recent undercover investigation into One Nation’s attempts to secure funding from the National Rifle Association – but before the strip club footage was revealed – Dickson told reporters “I’ve been to strip clubs, probably done a lot of things most young men have done in this country.”
