Penny Wong says ‘he doesn’t speak for this nation’ as One Nation senator Peter Georgiou compares motion to a ‘public flogging’
Fraser Anning has been censured and condemned roundly by the Senate for his comments on the Christchurch massacre, with only One Nation not supporting the censure.
A Greens motion to suspend Anning from the Senate failed after Senate president Scott Ryan reminded the chamber that any attempts to suspend a senator would need to meet a threshold for “disorderly conduct” – a test that relates to conduct inside the chamber.
Anning’s comments were made outside the chamber.
His former party, One Nation, provided the only succour to Anning in the house, with senator Peter Georgiou comparing the motion to a “public flogging”.A Greens motion to suspend Anning from the Senate failed after Senate president Scott Ryan reminded the chamber that any attempts to suspend a senator would need to meet a threshold for “disorderly conduct” – a test that relates to conduct inside the chamber.
Anning’s comments were made outside the chamber.
As the debate continued, Hanson posted on her Facebook page that she had emergency surgery to remove her appendix.
Mathias Cormann joined Penny Wong to present a bipartisan motion calling Australians to “stand against hate and to publicly, and always, condemn actions and comments designed to incite fear and distrust”.
The motion censured Anning “for his inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to attribute blame to victims of a horrific crime and to vilify people on the basis of religion, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people”.
It also quoted the universal declaration of human rights statement that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.
Wong said Anning’s comments amounted to an attack on the foundational principles of liberal democracy – “equality, justice and non-discrimination that all citizens are equal”.
“How pathetic,” said Wong. “How shameful. Shameful and pathetic attempt by a bloke who has never been elected to get attention by exploiting diversity as a fault line for political advantage.
“Well, this motion makes it clear he doesn’t speak for us. He doesn’t speak for the Senate. He doesn’t speak for this nation.”
Cormann said the violence witnessed at the Christchurch mosque was an “affront to common humanity”.
“In Australia we do not accept and do not tolerate that sort of divisive, inflammatory commentary which seeks to incite hatred and which seeks to vilify people. It is why we are the most successful migrant nation in the world,” Cormann said.
Anning doubled down on his comments, denying that he attributed blame to the victims. He claimed the move was a “blatant attack on freedom of speech”.
“This is exactly the kind of self-righteous leftwing intolerance of alternative views that you would expect from an extremist party like the Greens,” Anning said.
“But what is shocking is, it is supposedly a Liberal prime minister who is leading the charge, joining hands with Labor and the Greens.”
Labor senator Pat Dodson raised the spectre of Indigenous massacres as examples of “murderous prejudice”, saying the victims were not Muslim fanatics but innocent men, women and children at Friday prayers.
“We know that Senator Anning knows the real cause of the bloodshed in Christchurch. The real cause was prejudice, hate and a passion for violent action, aided and abetted by the availability of a military-style weapon.”
The first Muslim senator, Mehreen Faruqi for the Greens, said Anning misunderstood hate speech and freedom of speech.
“What did three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim do to deserve this? What about Hamza Mustafa, who had just celebrated his 16th birthday? Senator Anning, you are an absolute disgrace.”
Justice party senator Derryn Hinch said Anning had sunk to a new low and referenced One Nation’s recent scandal following revelations they had sought to raise funds from the National Rifle Association.
“It was straight out of the NRA handbook on how gun extremists can benefit from little kids being murdered,” Hinch said.
“I’m actually surprised he wasn’t on the sauce and on the plane with Pauline Hanson’s treasonous apparatchiks, as they requested millions of dollars from the despicable gun lobby to undermine our gun laws and undermine this parliament and put Aussie families at risk.”
Following the censure, Greens leader Richard Di Natale again urged the Senate to suspend Anning and said his use of the term the “final solution” in relation to immigration was made in his first speech – inside the chamber.
Di Natale said nearly 1.5 million Australians had signed a petition calling for the removal of Anning from the Senate and he urged the chamber to suspend the senator for just 24 hours.
“The one thing that unites us all is that we do not use hate speech to divide,” Di Natale said. “Let’s come together to deny this attention seeker the platform he craves.”
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