One Nation Adviser in Tasmania Without Required Work-Base Approval
Lee Hanson, the daughter of One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, is working from Tasmania as a senior adviser to New South Wales One Nation Senator Sean Bell without the ministerial approval required for staff based outside Canberra or the senator's home base. Guardian Australia reported the arrangement on 15 September 2026.
Bell appointed Hanson. Under staff work-base rules, a personal adviser is normally based in Canberra or the senator's home base, here New South Wales. Work from elsewhere needs approval from the special minister of state, who oversees parliamentary staffing rules. It works a bit like needing head-office sign-off to sit in a different branch office. No request was lodged, and Bell did not submit one for Hanson.
Australia's Department of Finance approved a contract change moving Hanson from electorate officer to personal adviser. The pay band is public. The personal adviser role pays between $150,000 and $180,000 a year under the latest enterprise agreement, which sets pay and conditions.
The framework turns on two provisions. Under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act, staff are employed to help a parliamentarian carry out duties as an MP, not for party political purposes. The Special Minister of State may approve an alternative work base for a person hired under the Electorate Support Budget, the taxpayer fund for staff, in special circumstances. Staff travelling on official business may claim travelling allowance and excess (Canberra) travel leave.
The employment was first disclosed in February. Guardian Australia published its exclusive on Hanson's taxpayer-funded job with the NSW One Nation senator on 26 February 2026. Hanson had contested the final Senate spot in Tasmania as a One Nation candidate and was unsuccessful. She describes herself as having lived in Tasmania for more than 14 years. In January 2026 she announced that One Nation will contest Tasmania's state and local elections. The September revelations were published in the first episode of The Populist, Guardian Australia's podcast about One Nation.
The broader context here is compliance around taxpayer-funded staffing and the line between parliamentary duties and party organisation. A Tasmania-based adviser to a New South Wales senator invites scrutiny of where parliamentary work is performed and under what authority. Reclassification also matters, because classification sets salary, duties and which work-base rules apply.
Looking at what this means for One Nation's operations, the Tasmania connection is central. A senior adviser living long-term in Tasmania while employed by a mainland senator raises practical questions about day-to-day parliamentary support and political questions about party-building where One Nation plans to run. For practitioners, the test will be documentation: whether approvals are sought and granted, how duties are recorded under the MOP(S) Act, and how travel and allowance claims align with the approved work base.
