Pauline Hanson has declared she will take “all appropriate action” after her One Nation associates James Ashby and Steve Dickson were caught on video seeking a $20m donation from the National Rifle Association – but the appropriate action will have to wait until later in the week.

The One Nation leader, who is reportedly unwell and has not appeared in public since the scandal broke, did not rebuke her errant colleagues explicitly when she issued a statement via social media on Wednesday.

She instead attempted the same defensive strategy as Ashby and Dickson. Appealing to One Nation’s base in an obvious effort in damage control, Hanson accused al-Jazeera, the state-funded broadcaster of Qatar, of producing a “hit piece” on One Nation.

“A Qatari government organisation should not be targeting Australian political parties,” Hanson said. The One Nation leader said she would have more to say “after the full hit piece has been released”.

I was shocked & disgusted with the Al Jazeera hit piece. A Qatari government organisation should not be targeting Australian political parties. This has been referred to ASIO. After the full hit piece has been released I’ll make a full statement & take all appropriate action. -PH — Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) March 27, 2019

The al-Jazeera investigation, which captured the damning conduct from the One Nation operatives, used hidden cameras and a undercover journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.

The documentary revealed Ashby and Dickson had sought millions in donations from the firearms lobby in a bid to seize the balance of power in the Australian parliament, and weaken Australia’s gun laws.

Part one of the documentary screened on the ABC on Monday night. Part two is scheduled to screen on Thursday.

The Australian Electoral Commission has reviewed the contents of the program, and a spokesman said the organisation “did not see any material that could involve the operation of section 326 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918”.

That section of the legislation prohibits asking for, receiving, offering or giving a benefit to influence a person’s candidature.

The AEC said the conduct captured by the documentary happened in the US, and the Australian electoral law did not have extraterritorial operation. “As the events on the program occurred in the United States, there does not appear to be any scope for offence provisions in the Electoral Act to apply”.

“The AEC, therefore, does not intend to refer the matter to the Australian Federal Police”.

Ashby and Dickson claimed on Tuesday they had been “on the sauce” drinking scotch for “three or four hours” when they were filmed covertly discussing seeking the donation from the NRA.

The prime minister said on Wednesday that wasn’t much of a plea bargain. “Frankly, being drunk is no excuse for trading away Australia’s gun laws to foreign bidders – that’s the conduct of One Nation officials,” Scott Morrison told reporters on Wednesday.

Morrison, who is under sustained political pressure because he can’t say how his party will deal with One Nation preferences at the coming federal election, has used the controversy to try and persuade people intending to lodge a protest vote with the far-right party to vote for the government instead.

The prime minister attempted to walk a line when he criticised the One Nation party but not One Nation voters, because “they’re two very different things”.

He said people intending to lodge a protest vote at the coming election would not find the answer they were seeking. “You won’t find a serious program to manage our population growth in the minor parties or in One Nation or any of the others. You won’t find it”.

“These are not parties of government. They’re parties of grievance. And what we’re about is actually responding to, listening to, and meeting these concerns, which are very legitimate, that have been raised by people who are considering voting for these other minor parties”.

“So my message to them is very simple – don’t vote One Nation.”

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said Morrison needed to get off the fence.

“One Nation is a circus and anyone who watched that video footage last night, you almost had to have your fingers over your eyes but you’re peeking through still to watch the train crash which is extreme rightwing politics in this country,” the Labor leader told journalists.

“Anyone who watched that video footage last night of two leaders of One Nation basically selling Australia’s gun laws to the highest bidders, the National Rifle Association of America – anyone who watched that footage would know that you should put One Nation last”.

“How abhorrent does a political party’s conduct have to be before Mr Morrison will put the nation’s interests ahead of the political interest of the government?”