Australian senator Pauline Hanson staged a stunt in Parliament that backfired: she wore a burqa on the Senate floor to protest a bill she’s pushing to ban full-face coverings and was punished for it.
Hanson, 71, leader of the right-wing One Nation party, walked into the chamber on Monday draped in the head-to-toe garment after fellow senators refused to debate her proposed national ban on the burqa and similar coverings. Colleagues immediately suspended her for the day. When she didn’t apologise, the Senate took the rare step on Tuesday of censuring her and banning her from seven consecutive sitting days effectively keeping her out for the rest of the year, since Parliament rises on Thursday. The suspension will carry over when the Senate returns in February.
Hanson brushed off the punishment, saying voters not senators will be the final judges at the next election in 2028. She argued it was hypocritical that she wasn’t allowed to wear a burqa in the chamber, even though she says the Senate has no dress code.
But many lawmakers called the move offensive. Senate leader Penny Wong, who was born in Malaysia, moved the censure motion and said Hanson’s act “mocked and vilified an entire faith,” noting nearly a million Australians identify as Muslim. Independent senator Mehreen Faruqi and Labor’s Fatima Payman the two Muslim women in the Senate also spoke out. Faruqi urged the chamber to use the moment to confront “structural and systemic racism” in Australia. Payman, who wears a hijab, said Hanson’s stunt on Monday was “disgraceful.”
Critics also pointed to Hanson’s history of inflammatory comments about migrants and Muslims. Last year a judge found she breached an anti-discrimination law after posting online that Faruqi should “go back” to her country; Hanson is appealing that ruling. Advocacy groups such as the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils called the burqa stunt part of a pattern that vilifies minorities.
This wasn’t Hanson’s first burqa protest. In 2017 she wore one into the Senate and drew outrage, but she wasn’t punished then. Hanson has recently been campaigning on the issue, including a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida earlier this month. Her critics say the latest episode only underscored long-running tensions over race, religion and immigration in Australian politics.
