One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been suspended from the Senate for seven days, after a motion moved by Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
Hanson was defiant, refusing to apologise following her stunt in the Senate on Monday, which saw her wear a black burqa into the chamber.
The suspension was given without a vote, with Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe heckling Hanson as she left the chamber.
‘See ya later racist!,’ Thorpe yelled.
‘Where is the apology?’ Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said, talking over Hanson as she spoke.
Pauline Hanson (pictured) has been suspended from the Senate for seven days
The suspension comes a day after Pauline Hanson (pictured) wore a burqa on the Senate floor
Independent senator Fatima Payman, who quit Labor over its stance on Palestine, earlier claimed the behaviour left others feeling unsafe.
‘This is … an old trick that Pauline Hanson’s pulled out of the bag. Very disrespectful, very unAustralian,’ she told ABC News.
When asked what impact the stunt would have on Muslim women, Senator Payman, who wears a hijab, said it would most likely lead to schoolgirls and women wearing hijabs to be abused or assaulted.
‘There is bound to be people out on the streets, young schoolgirls, who are probably yelled at or abused or assaulted, and it is just the division we do not want to see in society.’
Ali Kadri, chief executive of the Islamic College of Brisbane, said: ‘Whenever Pauline Hanson does these stunts in the Parliament, it escalates and radicalises people even more where people think that it is OK to abuse a little Australian Muslim girl wearing a hijab.’
Cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek pointed to the issue of growing right-wing extremism in Australia.
‘I don’t remember the last time someone in a burqa robbed a bank, but I do recall a couple of weeks ago that there was a queue of neo-Nazis standing outside NSW Parliament,’ she told ABC radio.
‘Senator Hanson’s stunt yesterday is simply a guarantee that some schoolgirl wearing a headscarf is going to get bullied on the train on the way to school today. I don’t see how it helps anyone.’
