An Australian senator who has long campaigned for the Islamic women's garment known as the burqa to be banned in the country has been suspended from parliament for a week for her protest on Monday in which she wore the full body covering into the chamber and refused to remove it.
Pauline Hanson of the anti-immigration One Nation party was accused of racism by fellow lawmakers when she walked into the parliament wearing a burqa on Monday. Hanson called the move — which she has now done twice in a decade — a protest against her colleagues' refusal to allow her to introduce a bill that would ban burqas and other face coverings in public.
Once inside, Hanson refused to remove the burqa, leading the Senate to be suspended for the remainder of that day.
The protest was met by outrage by some of her fellow senators, with Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters calling it a "middle finger to people of faith."
"It is extremely racist and unsafe," Waters added.
Independent Senator Fatima Payman looks on as One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Nov. 24, 2025.
AAP/Mick Tsikas/REUTERS
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 55 to five on a motion that condemned Hanson's actions as being "intended to vilify and mock people on the basis of their religion" and calling them "disrespectful to Muslim Australians."
Following the motion, Hanson was barred for seven consecutive Senate sitting days, which will mean her suspension will continue when parliament comes back into session in February of next year after its holiday break.
Speaking to Sky News Australia, Hanson rejected accusations that her protest had vilified or mocked Muslims.
"At the end of the day this is Australia. It is not the Australian cultural way of life. I just want equality for all Australians and I don't want to see the suppression or oppression of women in this country," she told the news channel.
Hanson previously wore a burqa to Parliament in 2017, but this week was the first time she was punished for it. When she did it in 2017, she said it was to highlight what she called security issues posed by the garment, which she linked to terrorism.
