As political aerobatics go, this was a whopper. The Senate’s version of Question Time is a tame affair and is better known for supplementary questions than stunts, but on Thursday afternoon, with the media attention fixated on citizenship, Senator Pauline Hanson strode into the Chamber wearing a black burqa, complete with her Senator’s lapel pin for identification purposes, and executed her right to keep the Government accountable through public questioning.
Sensing the immediate unease of his colleagues, the President of the Senate, Senator the Hon Stephen Parry, was quick to comfort the chamber, saying, “I’ve been advised by the Clerk, by the attendant, that the identity of Senator Hanson was established before she entered the chamber”. The President did take the opportunity to briefly editorialise on the stunt, sayin, “I’m not going to dictate the standard of dress for senators in this Chamber. I believe Senators should be making their own decisions about the standard of dress”.
While Senator Hanson would be pleased the stunt generated her extended media coverage, she didn’t anticipate the response from the Attorney-General, Senator the Hon George Brandis QC, who upon reiterating that the Government would not work with her to ban the burqa, set about publicly condemning the actions, saying “I am not going to pretend to ignore the stunt that you have tried to pull today, by arriving in the Chamber dressed in a burqa, when we all know that you are not an adherent of the Islamic faith… And 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’ve done”.
In a week where division was the main show in town, it was an edifying display by members of the Labor Party and the Greens, who rose to their feet to give the Attorney-General a standing ovation for his response.
Senator Hanson took to her Facebook page on Thursday, posting a video that has since had more than 115,000 views, saying “I believe most Australians don’t want it (burqa)… And another thing is, it’s un-Australian”. Revelling in the attention, Senator Hanson confirmed to Channel Seven’s Sunrise program on Friday morning, that “I would not change a thing; I am not embarrassed by what I did. I have created debate, it needed to be done”.
