Culleton covets Senate return to dislodge One Nation replacement and brother-in-law Peter Georgiou

Mr Culleton has returned to farming at Kojonup in the southern WA wheatbelt, following his controversial disqualification from the Upper House in February due to a High Court ruling, while being declared bankrupt in a separate Federal Court decision handed down the same day.

He’s currently claiming to be a “Senator in exile”.

But in a petition referenced under standing order 207 of the Senate rules, and submitted to the Senate Clerk last week, he’s seeking to claim that Senator Georgiou’s election - determined in early March following a special re-count of the WA Senate election votes by the Australian Electoral Commission - was invalid.

The signed petition says the power to replace a Senator is not vested in the High Court and Electoral Commission but in the Governor of WA.

“As such, the Court of Disputed Returns had no power to order the Electoral Commission or the Senate to swear in a new Senator and as such Senator Pangiotis (Peter) Georgiou is ultra vires, and not validly appointed,” it said.

Mr Culleton also started another online petition today calling on the federal Senate to review the legality of events surrounding his removal from the Senate.

“According to the law under the Commonwealth Constitution and Senate Procedure, Senator Rodney Culleton, elected by the people, has been wrongfully removed from his position as Senator,” the petition said.

“The Attorney General George Brandis and President Senator Parry must be called before the Senate to explain why they ignored law and procedure and denied Senator Culleton natural justice and denied the people of Western Australia their elected representative.”

In late March, Mr Culleton also wrote a detailed 15-page letter signed as “Rodney Culleton (Senator in Exile)” which he sent to all Senators, Opposition leader Bill Shorten, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and independent Queensland MP Bob Katter.

In it, the anti-banking crusader claimed he’d conducted personal, legal research which indicated his removal from the Senate was unlawful and unconstitutional.

“I now have compiled factual evidence that uncovers both criminal and civil misconduct, including abuse of power, by some of our country's highest lawmakers, authorities and judges,” he wrote.

“These have revealed a criminal intent to subvert the laws of Australia and subject the elector to illegal practices and contribute to his or her own demise.

“I have faced being labelled a ‘bankrupt’ which I am not (still before the court), a ‘criminal’ when courts convicted me (in absentia) without any procedural fairness and now a media storm which has damaged my good name within the public, resulting in my family also being negatively affected.”

Senator Culleton’s letter also referred to him having sworn an oath of allegiance on August 30 last year - when he first formally entered the Senate - to serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second and her heirs and successors, which he claimed was breached by his alleged “unconstitutional” removal from the Senate.

But after reading the 15-page letter, NSW Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm said Mr Culleton “appears to have overdosed on delusion pills”.

“He claimed he was elected on his own merits rather than because he stood for One Nation, he claimed to know more about the law than the Attorney General, and he refused to accept a decision of the High Court in relation to whether he was a Senator,” he said.

“He now appears to flogging a horse that is resoundingly dead.

“What he ought to be doing is getting on with resolving his bankruptcy and paying his creditors.

“I’m sure both his family and creditors would appreciate it.”

But in response, Mr Culleton said Senator Leyonhjelm “moves and shakes with One Nation and will do whatever it takes to better himself”.

“I’m for farmers and that’s what I’ll do,” he said.

“David Leyonhjelm is entitled to his opinion but he needs to read up on the Senate rules.

“There are certain people in the Senate who just don’t realise what power they have.”

Mr Culleton said the petition challenging the legality of his disqualification was not designed to be a “personal hit” on his brother in law, Senator Georgiou.

“My wife could be sitting there right now,” he said, given his wife Ioanna was listed third on One Nation’s WA Senate ticket, for last year’s federal election.

“It’s about correcting and making it right.

“It is not right and until it is right I will not accept it and I’ve never changed my position.

“I will accept a valid court order and at the moment there are no valid court orders.”

Mr Culleton split form One Nation shortly before his Senate disqualification after falling-out with leader and Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson over his plans to hold a Royal Commission into banking, targeting poor bank-lending practices towards farmers.

But he said despite being closely related, he was now keeping his distance from Senator Georgiou who was officially aligned and voting with One Nation.

“Pete at this point in time is running his own show and he has not contacted me personally, from his own office,” Mr Culleton said.

“He’s with One Nation and I believe (Senator Hanson’s senior advisor) James Ashby has told him not to have any contact with me, at this stage.

“I haven’t heard anything but it doesn’t matter.

“This (petition) is just business and I was the one that was elected by the people and that’s what I’m going to go in and correct.

“The Senate is the house of review - let the Senate do its job.”

Mr Culleton said the petition was necessary because he wasn’t dealt natural justice and alleged errors were made during various legal proceedings surrounding his disqualification.

“The courts were holding hearings whilst I was in the High Court because the High Court referral, by Senator Brandis, was sprung on me at very short notice, as we all know, and clearly interfered, and got in the way of other matters,” he said.

“Basically I was trying to do a juggling act, to whereby I was respectfully putting the courts on notice.

“On November 21 (last year), I tried to get the High Court to adjourn the directions hearing and they refused, and they refused to adjourn the hearing in the Federal Court in Perth.

“The hearings went ahead in Perth without me present.

“Procedural fairness hasn’t played out fairly, everything was rushed, and I’m not happy about that because at all material times I was a duly elected Senator by the people of Western Australia.”

Mr Culleton said under Senate rules, all matters referring to a Senator must return to the Senate to be dealt with as a member.

“That is the law and they are the rules and that’s what’s going to happen,” he said.

He said legal view underpinning the petition lodged last week had also come through advice from his barrister Peter King.

“My lawyers were very disappointed with the way the cases were managed,” he said.

“At all material times their position was that it had to come back to the Senate and be dealt with under section 47 and 49.

“It has to go back to the Senate for the Senate to decide and that’s what this petition is about.

“It is the process and the process must be done right and this petition is aiming to set the process right, otherwise it will just set up a case precedent.

“It was a very sporadic hearing and there are no case precedents in the Court of Disputed Returns.

“It was just a sporadic hearing saying ‘oh well we just need you to answer the question’ (but) all material times I was convicted in absentia and no sentence can be applied under NSW law, when there’s a conviction in absentia.”

Mr Culleton said his bankruptcy ruling was also fluid.

“A bankrupt is someone that is not in control of their assets – I’m still fully in control of my assets – there is no trustee and the matter is still before the courts,” he said last week.

“The High Court at this stage.”

Mr Culleton said he was also holding discussions with former Wesfarmers director Dick Lester who pushed the legal action which underpinned the bankruptcy ruling in the Federal Court late last year, relating to a debt from a deal that went wrong between the two former farm neighbours, over the lease and sale of a property at Williams, and sale of oats.

“There are discussions happening,” he said.

“We’ve both exhausted a hell of a lot of funds.

“It’s been a massive, massive legal cost over something that I think was more personal over a beat-up really - two guys flexing their legal muscle.

“But at the end of the day, even the best fighters get tired after the 18th round and we all run out of Vaseline to spread over the top eyelid.

“The point is, without the sweat and the salt getting into the eyes, and while we can still see and put pen to paper, it may be a time to sit down and hug and say, ‘let’s sort this thing out’ so there are opportunities coming around with that as well.”

But Mr Lester said Mr Culleton had formally advised the High Court of the “discontinuance” of his application to seek leave to appeal against Justice Barker’s finding of December 23, 2016, through a court document filed by Maitland Lawyers and officially stamped last Friday, April 28.

“Justice Barker’s decision of December 23 on the sequestration orders stands and he (Mr Culleton) is now out of time to appeal, so that’s it,” he said.

Mr Lester also said the talks with Mr Culleton were futile because an offer of $10,000 to settle the debt could not and would not be legally accepted.

“There’s no point Rodney sending me $10,000 - I can’t release him - it’s gone way past the point where we can negotiate,” he said.

“It’s in the hands of the courts now.”

Mr Lester said an official creditors’ report of April 2017 by the trustee had put the debt owed to his company Balwyn Nominees by My Culleton at $271,134 and the overall total owed to six creditors at more than $3 million.

Mr Culleton said another push to force him to potentially repay a debt of reportedly about $100,000, paid to him while serving in parliament since the 2016 election, also underpinned last week’s petition and formed part of his standing order request.

“I’m certainly not concerned by the government trying to throw a punch at me to say, ‘we want our salary back’,” he said.

“That is something that I would contest, but in contesting it, I also actually welcome it, because it has enabled me to put the true facts on the table and that is what the Senate standing order is all about.

“I was never ever, not a Senator – the point is they could not get rid of me under the way they’ve done it and that has to be corrected.

“This is my way that I have to deal with it.

“The media has been ringing me saying they understand the government is going to start to commence action to reclaim the money and I said, ‘good luck to them’.

“This way we can put in the proper affidavits to show the government has used the wrong means to get rid of me from the Senate.

“It’s the lesser of two evils.

“And people have been saying it’s hellishly quiet since I’ve been gone from Canberra.

“I’m a Senator in exile – it hasn’t been dealt with properly so it’s still unfinished business.”

Senator Parry’s office declined to comment on the status of any petitions lodged by Mr Culleton.

It’s understood the government is also still taking advice on whether it would be equitable to pursue the commonwealth debt attributable to Mr Culleton and former SA Family First Senator Bob Day, who was also disqualified from parliament recently after being deemed ineligible to stand at last year’s federal election, following a ruling in the Court of Disputed Returns.

A decision would need to be made by either of the two individuals on whether they wanted to seek a waiver of the debt, in an application made to the Special Minister of State Scott Ryan, to ultimately determine.

Senator Culleton said last week he was preparing for seeding on the farm at Kojonup which was a vastly different scenario to serving in federal parliament.

“You can take the boy out of the country but you can never take the country out of the boy,” he said.

“I can breathe through my orifice now and I haven’t got people sticking their fingers in and trying to cut off my air supply around parliament.

“The point is, parliament is a different playing field with no rules and essentially I’ve just been spelling and getting prepared and I’m ready to go back in (to the Senate) and right the wrongs – that’s what I’m going to do.”