Hanson wears burqa in Senate chamber

25 minutes ago 3

Pauline Hanson has worn a burqa into the Senate chamber on Monday afternoon, the second time in her parliamentary career she has performed the stunt.

The One Nation leader’s decision to wear the head covering came minutes after she was denied leave by the government to table a bill to have burqas and full-face coverings banned in Australia, a policy she has campaigned on for decades.

Senator Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in the Senate.

There was uproar in the Senate in the moments after Hanson entered the chamber. She was rebuked by Labor Senate leader Penny Wong and Coalition Senate leader Anne Ruston.

Senator Pauline Hanson sits in her seat after entering the chamber.

Immediately as Hanson entered the chamber, members of the Greens and the crossbench began to protest.

“She is disrespecting a faith ... This needs to be dealt with immediately before we proceed,” Senator Fatima Payman said.

Senator Pauline Hanson moves to the other side of the Senate chamber during a vote. Members of the Greens and crossbench were furious with the stunt.

The chair found initially that Hanson’s dress was allowed, and proceedings were not stopped.

Senate President Sue Lines was not originally in the chamber when Hanson entered in the garment, but returned to hear Wong and Ruston condemn the actions and ask that Hanson be removed.

Wong had asked Lines to rule that Hanson’s conduct was disorderly, quoting Liberal senator George Brandis, who rebuked the One Nation leader the last time she wore the garment on the Senate floor.

“All of us in this place. Have a great privilege and we represent in our states people of every faith ... and we should do so decently,” Wong said. “The sort of disrespect that you are engaging in now is not worthy of a member of the Australian Senate.”

Hanson in front of Senator Fatima Payman.

Hanson was ordered to remove the item and leave the chamber or face suspension, and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to have her removed.

Hanson was heard saying to Lines: “You are so vile, you are not doing your job properly.”

Hanson eventually left the chamber. A number of people in the public gallery applauded as she left.

Hanson first wore a burqa into the Senate chamber in 2017. Her renewed attempt to ban the burqa was slammed by Australia’s Islamophobia envoy Aftab Malik earlier on Monday, who said the move will worsen harassment, threats of rape, and violence against Muslim women in Australia.

“It is frustrating to see Australian Muslim women’s choice of clothing continually tied to national security concerns. Islamophobia is at record levels in Australia, described as ‘unprecedented’ by the Islamophobia Register Australia. Muslim women, in particular, face the brunt,” Malik wrote in a statement provided to this masthead.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson and Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik.

“Senator Pauline Hanson, eight years after her last call to ban the burqa, is again proposing it. This will deepen existing safety risks for Australian Muslim women who choose to wear the headscarf, the hijab, or the full face and body covering, the burqa.”

Hanson’s office did not release a copy of the motion before she attempted to table it in the upper house on Monday afternoon, but an October media statement from her office said the move was set to echo similar bans in France. Hanson was not given leave by the government to introduce the bill.

“This is all about helping to better ensure the safety of the Australian community. This should be the first responsibility of any government, and any government which doesn’t prioritise these measures doesn’t deserve the title,” Hanson said.

Hanson has campaigned against burqas since at least 2002, and in 2014 said she was “offended by the burqa, and opposed to even the niqab”, claiming that “people wearing full face coverings, including women, are known to have hidden bombs underneath them, which they’ve detonated in acts of terror, in various places around the world, such as Chechnya.”

Hanson made headlines in 2017 when she wore a burqa into the Senate, demanding the Coalition government ban the garment.

“In light of our national security of this nation, will [the government] work with me to actually ban the burqa in Australia, considering there have been 13 foiled national threats against us with terrorism, three that have been successful that Australians have lost their lives?” she asked.

Hanson was rebuked by both the then-Coalition government and Labor for the stunt.

Malik pointed to past estimates that showed fewer than 250 women in Australia wore the burqa, and that the action would directly threaten their safety.

“They already face harassment, threats of rape, and violence, not because of what they have done, but because of what they wear. Veiled Muslim women have long been easy targets for bigotry and intolerance against Muslims. A proposed burqa ban will further stigmatise them as outsiders and embolden harassment and abuse,” Malik said.

“All women should be free to choose what they wear or do not wear,” he said.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, who is herself Muslim and mired in a racial vilification case against Hanson, told this masthead One Nation “has nothing to offer Australians apart from tired culture wars and hollow publicity stunts”.

“Nearly 10 years on from Hanson’s pathetic burqa stunt in the Senate, One Nation has flipped through its racist, Islamophobic policy generator and landed on the burqa ban once more,” Faruqi said. “The idea that the government should be regulating what a woman can and cannot wear should never be up for debate. Parliament should outright reject this.”

Senator Hanson wore a burqa into the Senate on Thursday, August 17, 2017.

One Nation’s polling reached a record high, receiving a primary vote of 12 per cent in the latest Resolve Political Monitor from this masthead and record popularity in News Corp’s Newspoll and the AFR Redbridge/Accent polls as well. Hanson is actively aiming to recruit Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, who told this masthead One Nation had “a purer form of understandable conservatism”.

Joyce continued to keep his distance from the Nationals’ party room as MPs returned to parliament on Monday, restating that he would wait until parliament rises to make any decision known about a potential move to One Nation.