you to say a few words. LIZ JACKSON: Abbott was gracious and a little overwhelmed. TONY ABBOTT: If I can raise the Liberal torch high, it's only because you, all of you, are holding me up. Just as I said there's nothing wrong with the Australian people; there's nothing wrong with the Liberal party's rank and file. So let's light a torch today - a golden torch - that will burn bright throughout our local area and, who knows, just might be seen right round this big brown land. Thank you very much. (Applause). (End of footage). LIZ JACKSON: Hovering around the fringe of this event is Liberal Party member David Oldfield, later to be employed as Tony Abbott's private secretary. Unbeknownst to Abbott, Oldfield used time in Abbott's office to set up Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party. Four Corners reported this in 1998. (Archive footage from Four Corner 1998) TONY JONES, REPORTER: A rising star in the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott's political career took a battering when it became known that Oldfield had laboured secretly to form One Nation while on his staff. TONY ABBOTT: My inclination was always to assume that the aggressive right wing views were out of character, not in character; that was my inclination. You always give members of your own team the benefit of the doubt. In retrospect I was wrong. (End of footage) LIZ JACKSON: By mid 2001, when Four Corners made a program about the working poor, Tony Abbott was Minister for