One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson has declared her party, and its local supporters will not be bullied out of Maryborough by self-declared union thugs working for Labor.

Senator Hanson, campaigning in the region this week with One Nation state election candidate and Maryborough businesswoman Taryn Gillard, said her party was standing up to a culture of bullying and intimidation fostered in the community by local Labor member Bruce Saunders.

“First we had some security guard tell us I couldn’t look at a local TAFE facility, and then some self-important council official tried to tell me I wasn’t allowed to film an interview next to a statue of Mary Poppins on a public footpath,” she said.

“And then we learned the owners of a venue we had booked for a private function had been directly contacted by Labor to be told they would never get any help from Labor again.

“It’s no wonder there’s a strong appetite for change in Maryborough if this is what the community has been dealing with: a local Labor member so frightened of his own shadow that his party will brazenly attempt to silence opposing views by intimidating small businesses and thinking they will get away with it. They did it to our previous candidate too.

“They have no idea about One Nation if they’re trying to scare us off. Taryn Gillard is an excellent local candidate with strong connections in her community, an award-winning small business owner who has organised fundraisers and a food program to help people in her community doing it tough thanks to Labor’s cost-of-living crisis and Labor’s failures on youth crime. She knows her community and what they’ve endured under Labor.

“We all know Labor is the master of dirty campaigning and false election scaremongering. We all know Labor is the puppet of union boss thugs holding Queensland’s economy hostage. I also know local supporters of One Nation and the wider community of Maryborough won’t be intimidated or bullied by these cowards.

“The people of Maryborough and Queensland deserve better. One Nation aims to run a candidate in every seat at this state election, and we have a strong focus on regional areas irresponsibly neglected by Labor and the LNP.

“One Nation won’t be bullied by Labor cowards. We are proud to stand with regional communities like Maryborough.”