But the dispute is another challenge for Senator Hanson as she deals with a damaging split with former ally Brian Burston, the NSW Senator who quit the party earlier this month and joined the United Australia Party set up by billionaire Clive Palmer. Senator Hanson is the registered officer of the NSW party as well as the leader of the national organisation, making her ultimately responsible for the dispute over the way people were signed up. Senator Burston said he believed a large number of the “members” were not financial and should not be relied upon for the party registration. “In my opinion the party should never have been registered because it did NOT have the necessary numbers required for registration,” he said. The internal emails reveal the party struggled to gather 750 members over several months in order to qualify to contest the next state election, with laws saying the registration had to be finished roughly one year before the election, which is due on March 23.

One Nation executive secretary Rod Miles expressed concern by email at estimates the party had 750 members, warning it did not “line up” with numbers he had seen. “According to our constitution, members must be paid up members. Not maybe, not family who will pay eventually,” Mr Miles told colleagues on October 10. “They must be paid up at time of submission.” The party’s NSW secretary, Peter Breen, responded by email within an hour to colleagues including Senator Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby, acknowledging there were problems with “quite a few members” whose membership had expired and were waiting to be billed. “These people are not strictly members,” Mr Breen wrote. “If you are going to apply a narrow interpretation of the constitutional rules about membership then you are right and we don’t have the numbers to register the party.”

Mr Breen estimated that 100 people had signed declaration forms on the understanding they would receive membership forms later and that only a “relaxed view of the rules” would allow the party to register at that time. Six weeks later, Mr Breen told Mr Miles he had a list of 880 members but his email suggested that some might not have paid for membership. “After registration, I will assist to make sure all membership fees are paid,” he said. Days before Christmas, the party was still struggling to identify members who could meet the requirements set by the electoral commission. Mr Breen emailed Mr Ashby on December 21 to warn that out of 880 memberships that had already been lodged, about 220 were “overdue from previous memberships or unpaid new members” of the party.

Despite the doubts, the registration went ahead earlier this year, in a crucial step for Senator Hanson as she tries to build a national organisation ahead of the federal election due by May next year. The NSW Electoral Commission added One Nation to the register of parties on February 16 after checking more than 750 names submitted as members, deciding the party had met the threshold in the law. “Members are not required to pay a membership fee to the party to be relied upon for the purpose of party registration,” a spokesman for the commission said. “Compliance with the constitution or rules of a party is a matter for the party. The NSW Electoral Commission does not regulate or enforce compliance with a political party constitution.” Mr Ashby did not respond to questions other than to refer Fairfax Media to Mr Breen, who remains the NSW party secretary but was removed from Senator Burston’s employment when the Senator quit the party.

“You can take a narrow interpretation of the constitution and say that if you haven’t paid your membership fee you can’t be a member, but the executive made a decision to accept these people as members even though their membership fees hadn’t been paid,” he told Fairfax Media last week. “This was on the basis that the party would bill them. Some hadn’t paid their membership fees at all because they were new members and others had paid their membership fees for the previous years but had expired.” Mr Breen expressed frustration that the emails had been leaked but said the party executive, including Senator Hanson, had approved the process. Senator Burston was the deputy registered officer at the time but was removed from the job in last month’s split. “The executive made a decision to have a broad interpretation of the constitution and they, the executive, would decide that those people who needed to be registered in NSW and to sign declaration forms would be registered as members even though their fees had either not been renewed or hadn’t been paid at all,” Mr Breen said. He added that the party had more than 1200 members in NSW but he was not sure how many had paid their fees.

“Again, because the executive made the decision to register them as members even though they hadn’t paid, the question’s actually not that important. “It’s not going to defeat registration of the party because these people haven’t paid their fees.” Mr Breen said the question of membership status had come up at a meeting he and Senator Burston attended with the commission on May 22, saying one of the commission officers said “some parties do not charge fees” or words to that effect. Senator Burston said the experience showed that a large number of the One Nation members in NSW were not financial and were not members under the constitution. “The party failed at its first attempt to register because not enough members returned the survey forms to the NSW Electoral Commission,” he told Fairfax Media.