Barnaby Joyce dines with One Nation leader amid defection speculation
“Have a look before you go, Barnaby,” Canavan, one of the coalition’s most conservative MPs, said on ABC TV, before condemning Hanson for what he described as his demonstrative attention-seeking and tendency to blow up his relationships with colleagues.
“I don’t like these kinds of policies,” Canavan said. “This is disrespectful to Muslim Australians. I do not support making fun of people.”
Hanson was expelled from the Senate on Monday afternoon, prompting the chamber to be suspended for refusing to remove her burqa after Labor and the Coalition combined to condemn her.
Following vociferous protests from independent senators Lidia Thorpe, Fatima Payman and Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi over Hanson’s display, Labor Senate leader Penny Wong asked Senate President Sue Lines to rule Hanson’s behavior was disorderly, quoting former Liberal senator George Brandis, who berated the One Nation leader when he wore the garment on the Senate floor in 2017.
“All of us here have the great privilege of representing people of all faiths in our states… and we must do it properly,” Wong said. “The disrespect you are now displaying is unbecoming of a member of the Australian Senate.”
Hanson’s dinner with Joyce was the pair’s second meeting in three days after speaking together at the Conservative Political Action Conference Christmas event in Brisbane on Saturday.
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Joyce, 58 and twice Australia’s deputy prime minister, did not deny he was on track to join One Nation when asked on Monday morning; Because speculations are increasing that 71-year-old Hanson will take over the leadership of the party when he retires.
“I just don’t want a circus. I’m trying to wait until the end of the sitting week,” Joyce told reporters on Monday.
When asked about Hanson’s decision to wear a burqa, Joyce told the imprint: “People are free to express themselves politically, and you’re free to interpret it however you want.”
