Pauline Hanson suspended from Senate over burqa stunt as Mehreen Faruqi says parliament ‘drips in racism’ | Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson was condemned by the Senate after her burqa demonstration on Tuesday, was suspended from parliament for seven days for refusing to apologize and will be banned from representing parliament in overseas delegations.
Labour, the Coalition, the Greens and crossbench members voted for the no-confidence motion in an overwhelming show of opposition to a repeat of the 2017 demonstration. Only Hanson, three fellow One Nation senators and United Australia senator Ralph Babet opposed it.
The Senate voted 55-5 to condemn Hanson’s burqa demonstration. The motion, which was also accepted by the Senate, stated that Hanson’s actions “intended to denigrate and ridicule people on the basis of their religion” and were “disrespectful to Muslim Australians”.
The motion went on to condemn Hanson for disrespecting the Senate by ignoring and rejecting resolutions calling for the removal of the burqa, forcing the Senate to temporarily close on Monday afternoon and seeing Hanson suspended from parliament for the remainder of the day.
On Monday, government sources said Hanson’s temporary dismissal was a stronger step than the no-confidence motion. However, the motion adopted by the Senate criticizing Hanson’s “blatant disregard for the authority of the Senate President” stated that the chamber “does not find it appropriate for Senator Hanson to represent the Senate as a member of any delegation during the term of office of the Parliament.” The motion to censure also called on Hanson to “immediately issue a statement or apology” for his actions.
This mirrored the motion of censure and punishment leveled against Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi in July after she held up a banner reading “Sanctions on Israel” during Governor General Sam Mostyn’s speech to open parliament.
However, Hanson refused to apologize and instead gave a five-minute speech to defend his actions. Immediately after this, government leader Penny Wong demanded that Hanson be suspended from parliament for seven days, and Hanson agreed.
Speaking in the Senate ahead of the vote to condemn Hanson, Faruqi said: “This parliament is now dripping with racism.”
“Finally, after three decades of hatred and racism against Muslims, against Asians, against people of color, at least some of us in this chamber want to hold Senator Hanson accountable,” he said.
“You just want to talk about respecting each other. That’s where respecting each other and just talking the talk gets us, this parliament is now dripping with racism, because for decades – for decades – politicians and both major parties, I would say, let that happen.”
Wong, who brought forward Tuesday’s motion as the first order of business in the Senate, claimed that Hanson “has been making biased demonstrations in protest for decades.”
“After what happened yesterday, this morning someone I’m close to told me about a conversation she had with her seven-year-old daughter last night, and her daughter asked: ‘Mom, do all Christians hate Muslims?’ “That summed up where we found ourselves and seeing it again,” he said.
During an emotional discussion, Wong told the story of a young girl asking if Christians hated Muslims.
Babet was heard by this byline and by many others in the Senate chamber to call out “I do” at this point in Wong’s speech.
The words “I do” can be faintly discerned in video recordings of the Senate debate and heard by several Senate sources from various political parties. “Yes, I hate radical Islam,” Babet told Guardian Australia.
Reached for comment, Babet added: “Radical Islam has no place in Australia; this is the sword with which radical Marxists will tear apart western civilisation.”
