Senator suspended from Australian parliament for burqa-wearing stunt

An Australian senator campaigning for a national burqa ban was suspended Tuesday from parliament for the rest of the year after wearing the garment in the chamber.

Pauline Hanson, the 71-year-old leader of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrations One Nation minor party, was accused of performing a disrespectful stunt on Monday after she walked into the Senate wearing a burqa to protest fellow senators’ refusal to consider her bill that would ban the burqa and other full-face coverings in public places.

Senators suspended Hanson, who is not Muslim, for the rest of the day after she reportedly refused to leave the room or remove the burqa. Hanson’s bill to ban the burqa and other full-face coverings in public places was not voted on.

In the absence of an apology, the Senate passed a censure motion Tuesday that barred Hanson from seven consecutive Senate sitting days.

The Senate will be taking its annual break for the year on Thursday. Hanson’s suspension will continue when parliament resumes in February next year.

After her suspension was announced, Hanson claimed that One Nation “was stopped from even introducing a Bill, meaning the Parliament couldn’t have a debate.”

“That’s not democracy. The people will judge me when I face the next election. My future is in the people’s hands, not these gutless politicians,” she wrote.

Hanson had pulled the same political stunt in 2017 when she wore a burqa in the Senate as a form of protest, but she faced no consequences at the time.

On Tuesday, Sen. Penny Wong, who is also Australia’s foreign minister, said by wearing the burqa, Hanson had “mocked and vilified an entire faith.”

“In her first speech to this House, she said, ‘Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians,’ people like me. Now she’s added Muslims to the list,” Wong said to the Senate, in a video shared on Facebook. “In my very first speech in this place, I said that because of people like her, Australia was in danger of being swamped by hatred.”

Wong said that Hanson’s stunt was “purely to get attention” and “not for the first time.”

“I believe, and I think most of this Senate believes, that disrespecting fellow Australians because of their faith is itself un-Australian,” Wong said.

“Sen. Hanson’s hateful and shallow pageantry tears at our social fabric, and I believe it makes Australia weaker, and it also has cruel consequences for many of our most vulnerable, including in our schoolyards,” Wong told the Senate.

Mehreen Faruqi said she and Fatima Payman were the only Muslims in the Senate. But when Hanson first wore the burqa in 2017, there were none.

“Let this be the start of actually dealing with structural and systemic racism that pervades this country and let that be grounded in justice,” Faruqi said of the censure motion. ”

“After thirty years of Pauline Hanson spewing vile racism at First Nations people, Muslims, Asians and people of colour, Parliament finally censured her,” Faruqi wrote in the caption of a video she shared of herself speaking before the Senate.

“But thirty years of this racism and discrimination didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because both major parties didn’t just look the other way — they enabled it, excused it, and let it fester.

“Now this Parliament is drowning in the consequences. I stood up today to say: no more.”

Payman told Hanson on Monday that her use of the burqa was “disgraceful” and “a shame.”

“So Pauline Hanson was not allowed to move her bill to ban the burqa today and what does she do in retaliation? Chucks on the burqa and walks into the chamber, like seriously? You did this in 2017 and got condemned but clearly it felt like she was itching for another stunt,” Payman said in a video posted to Instagram on Monday.

She also shared a photo of Hanson wearing a burqa while she was seated behind her, writing, “The face you make when you came to work to vote on legislation but your colleague wants attention.”

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In response to the criticism, Hanson took to X on Monday and claimed that “the usual hypocrites had an absolute freak out” by her stunt.

“Today I wore a burqa into the Senate after One Nation’s bill to ban the burqa and face coverings in public was blocked from even being introduced,” Hanson wrote.

“The fact is more than 20 countries around the world have banned the Burqa because they recognise it as a tool that oppresses women, poses a national security risk, encourages radical Islam and threatens social cohesion,” she continued. “If these hypocrites don’t want me to wear a burqa, they can always support my ban.”

In 2017, Hanson wore the black head-to-ankle garment for more than 10 minutes before removing it as she stood to explain that she wanted the outfits banned on national security grounds.

“There has been a large majority of Australians (who) wish to see the banning of the burqa,” said Hanson as senators objected.

Attorney General George Brandis drew applause when he said his government would not ban the burqa, and chastised Hanson for what he described as a “stunt.”

“To ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments is an appalling thing to do, and I would ask you to reflect on what you have done,” Brandis said.

“It is one thing to wear religious dress as a sincere act of faith; it is another to wear it as a stunt here in the Senate,” Wong told Hanson.

— With files from The Associated Press