Qld: Heather Hill pleased with Hong offer

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-1999
Qld: Heather Hill pleased with Hong offer

BRISBANE, Dec 16 AAP - A "battered and bruised" Heather Hill has been buoyed by an
offer of legal help from her old adversary, Sydney businessman Chuck Hong.

Mr Hong yesterday offered Mrs Hill help to fight her dismissal from One Nation by Queensland
Senator Len Harris - but Mrs Hill said she would make no decisions on her future until
after Christmas.

Mr Hong launched the High Court challenge that prevented Mrs Hill taking her Senate
seat on the grounds she had not renounced her British citizenship as required by the constitution.

Senator Harris replaced Mrs Hill in the parliament.

Mrs Hill then worked as an adviser to the senator until her dismissal on Monday after
she sided with five Queensland MPs who broke away from the One Nation party to call themselves
One Nation Queensland.

Mr Hong said yesterday he had initiated the High Court challenge to disqualify Mrs
Hill on the principle of upholding the rule of law.

"Likewise, I am offering legal assistance to Heather Hill against her dismissal also
on the principle of upholding the rule of law," he said in a statement.

"In the present power struggle within One Nation, Heather Hill is clearly the underdog.

Heather Hill, the underdog, has my sympathy."

Mrs Hill said she appreciated Mr Hong's offer.

"He called me the underdog and I feel like the underdog, but it shows we are all Aussies
and in this together," she told AAP.

"I am still trying to determine what I am going to do, but I am pleased he has put this offer.

"I understand he is sending me a letter with the details, but I am going to telephone
him and thank him personally."

Mrs Hill said Mr Hong's comment that the challenge to her election had been to uphold
the law and had not been a personal issue had been very pleasing.

She said while she was keen to get back into parliament, she had not made any decision
on whether she would run for Bundamba in the by-election due early next year following
the resignation of Labor's Bob Gibbs.

"I am so battered and bruised, I really don't know what I am going to do yet about
Bundamba or anything else," she said.

"I want to take Christmas off, enjoy some time with my family and decide what is important
in my life.

"After that, in the new year, I will come out with the boxing gloves on," Mrs Hill said.

Meanwhile, the leader of the breakaway One Nation Queensland, Bill Feldman, said his
group might back down if One Nation national director David Ettridge carried out threatened
legal action.

Mr Ettridge said on Tuesday that the use of the name One Nation by the breakaway MPs
was an infringement of a trademark.

Mr Feldman said today, "We don't want to be involved in a protracted legal battle."

He said the One Nation national executive was now "showing its true colours, displaying
an elitism that One Nation was supposed to oppose".

AAP jfs/sd/wjf/bwl

KEYWORD: NATION QLD DAYLEAD

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