Members of the Greens and the crossbench are firing back at Pauline Hanson as she entered the Senate chamber wearing a burqa after she failed to raise a motion to have the garment banned.
“She is disrespecting a faith ... it’s absolutely unconstitutional. This needs to be dealt with immediately before we proceed,” senator Fatima Payman said.
The chair found that Hanson’s dress is allowed, and proceedings should not be stopped.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe rose to her feet and yelled out: “This can’t be happening. Get this racist woman out of here now. Get her out. Get her out … who’s in charge here?”
“I’ll shut down this senate until she is removed,” Thorpe said.
Thorpe yelled at Labor senators to stand up and speak on what was going on in the chamber.
“Racism should not be the choice of the Senate. This is a racist senator,” Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi said. “There is a person in here ridiculing my religion.”
Hanson’s renewed attempt to ban the burqa was slammed by Australia’s Islamophobia envoy, who said the move would worsen harassment, threats of rape and violence against Muslim women in Australia.
The One Nation leader performed the same stunt in 2017 and it was dubbed by the then attorney-general, George Brandis, as an “appalling thing to do”.