Sydney — A far-right Australian politician sparked outrage Monday after donning a burqa at the country’s parliament, in a display that other lawmakers condemned as racist, unsafe and disrespectful.
Pauline Hanson of the anti-immigration One Nation party was seeking to introduce a bill in the Senate that would ban full face coverings in Australia — a policy she has campaigned on for decades.
Just minutes after other lawmakers blocked her from introducing that bill, she returned wearing a black burqa and sat down.
Her display was meet by outrage from her fellow senators.
Australian Greens leader in the Senate Larissa Waters said the move was “the middle finger to people of faith.”
“It is extremely racist and unsafe,” Waters added.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who also serves as leader of the government in the Senate, condemned it as “disrespectful.”
AAP/Mick Tsikas/REUTERS
“All of us in this place have a great privilege in coming into this chamber,” Wong said. “We represent in our states, people of every faith, of every faith, of all backgrounds. And we should do so decently.”
Hanson refused to remove the burqa and the Senate was suspended.
It is the second time she has donned the Muslim clothing in parliament.
In 2017, she wore a full burqa in the Senate to highlight what she said were the security issues the garment posed, linking it to terror.
In a statement posted later Monday on a Facebook account that she endorses, Hanson called her actions a protest against the Senate rejecting her proposed bill.
“So if the Parliament won’t ban it, I will display this oppressive, radical, non-religious head garb that risk our national security and the ill-treatment of women on the floor of our parliament so that every Australian knows what’s at stake,” Hanson wrote. “If they don’t want me wearing it — ban the burqa.”
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Hanson has previously described Islam as “a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own,” and she claimed in a 2016 speech that Australia was being “swamped by Muslims.”
Her party has seen its support among the public increase as the country’s main conservative opposition remain beset by infighting. A poll this month reported by The Australian Financial Review showed the One Nation party with a still modest, but record 18% support.
That comes as a government envoy said in September that Australia had failed to tackle persistent and intensifying Islamophobia.
