A far-right Australian lawmaker has prompted angry accusations of racism after wearing a burqa in parliament to draw attention to her push to ban the garment in public.
Pauline Hanson, the leader of the populist anti-immigration One Nation party, carried out the stunt on Monday after she was prevented from tabling a Senate bill to ban the traditional Muslim garment and other face coverings from Australian public life.
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Hanson prompted immediate outrage as she walked into the Senate chamber wearing the burqa, with several lawmakers accusing her of racism and Islamophobia.
Proceedings were suspended when she refused to remove the garment.
“A dress code might be a choice of the senators, but racism should not be the choice of the Senate,” Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the first Muslim to be elected to Australia’s upper chamber, said. “This is a racist senator displaying blatant racism and Islamophobia.”
Independent Senator Fatima Payman, who is also Muslim, called the stunt “disgraceful” and accused Hanson of “disrespecting the Muslims out there, the Muslim Australians”.
Penny Wong, leader of Australia’s centre-left Labour government in the Senate, called Hanson’s actions “not worthy of a member of the Australian Senate” and moved a motion to suspend her.
It was the second time Hanson had used a burqa as a prop in parliament in support of her long-running bid to ban the garment from being worn publicly. She previously donned the garment in 2017.
The senator for Queensland first rose to prominence in the 1990s on the back of her strident opposition to immigration from Asia and by asylum seekers.
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Her One Nation party has four seats in the Senate, having doubled its representation in the chamber in May’s general election, with support for its far-right agenda on the rise.
In a statement posted on Facebook following Monday’s events, Hanson said her actions were in protest at the Senate rejecting her proposed bill.
She asserted that she had worn the “oppressive” garment to highlight the mistreatment of women and the risk it posed to national security.
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