Lucy Zelic: Hanson’s Burqa stunt has all the big issues covered

As outrage and offence drove the headlines, I wondered if any politicians outside of One Nation were prepared to say: “We value the way we treat our women in this country”.

Pauline Hanson was suspended from the Senate after wearing a burqa.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s statement after being suspended from the Senate was resolute: “Does it really worry me? No. It will be the people that will judge me.”

Hanson has always pushed the envelope and never shied away from the tough stuff.

Case in point, the Senator’s decision to don a burqa in the Senate chamber after her attempt to introduce a bill to ban it, and other full-face coverings in public places, was rejected.

As outrage and offence drove the headlines, I wondered if any politicians outside of One Nation were prepared to say: “We value the way we treat our women in this country.”

I observed with great interest to see if anyone was prepared to defend our way of life and “commitment to the rule of law, those laws being paramount and overriding any other inconsistent religious or secular ‘laws’ and equality of opportunity for all regardless of race, sex or gender”.

But they didn’t.

Instead, they all twisted themselves inside and out and double-backflipped on to the podium of virtue where they could showcase their tolerance for clothing that human rights activist Yasmine Mohammed described as suppressing “your humanity entirely” in her book Unveiled: How the West Empowers Radical Muslims.

“It’s like a portable sensory deprivation chamber and you are no longer connected to humanity.”

Pauline Hanson in the Australian Senate this week.

That the burqa has somehow been rebranded as a symbol of freedom by a caste of Australian politicos who routinely sound their trumpets over women’s rights and equality has been truly confounding.

But the self-declared feminists were nowhere to be found and it’s precisely the point that Mohammed, who left the Muslim faith after years of oppression, makes: “We accept and willingly support the subjugation of our sisters to the East, even though we would never accept that for ourselves or our sisters in the West. Here, we demand that women be able to ‘free the nipple’, but we support those in the East who demand that women cover their head.”

I did also wonder how independent senator Tammy Tyrrell, who previously said “there should be safe, equitable and affordable access to reproductive healthcare for everyone who lives in Australia” would feel about recent news the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan ordered female patients, caretakers and staff to wear a burqa to enter public health facilities in the western city of Herat?

Fatima Payman was outraged at Hanson’s stunt.

Senators Mehreen Faruqi and Afghanistan-born Fatima Payman remained in character, calling Hanson a “racist” – except that Islam isn’t a race.

Faruqi also claimed ahead of Hanson’s censure motion that “this parliament drips now in racism”.

That Faruqi would attempt to defend the imposition of burqa-wearing after growing up in Pakistan under military rule and religious laws, which she said “took away the rights of women and minority groups”, just doesn’t make sense.

Then again, perhaps it’s easier to claim “Islamophobia!” than to digest that Muslim women are being jailed, beaten and killed in Iran and Saudi Arabia for not covering their hair.

Or what about the women in Afghanistan, who after being liberated from the Taliban in 2002, took to the streets to burn their burqas, only to have over 20 years of progress for women and girls’ rights erased after the oppressive regime returned to power in 2021?

The biggest surprise of all was Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who rarely puts a foot wrong.

Senator Pauline Hanson in the Senate Courtyard at Parliament House in Canberra with Senator Sean Bell Picture: David Beach

Canavan slammed Hanson’s actions as “disrespectful” to Muslim Australians.

“I don’t support you ridiculing people who have certain multicultural dress standards. It is inappropriate,” he told ABC TV.

One Nation chief of staff James Ashby politely reminded Canavan that he’d supported George Christensen’s 2017 burqa ban motion with a social media post.

But it’s not the truth the Coalition are after right now. It’s the numbers they keep haemorrhaging to One Nation – hence the Pauline pile-on.

There’s also a great sense of irony attached to Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s comments about Hanson’s act, suggesting it “cheapens the parliament”.

Blacklisting debate or discussion on this issue does little for democracy or the women suffering.

Better yet, as Yasmine Mohammed writes, “the Muslim world has been shielded from criticism for so long. How will progress ever happen if criticism is considered bigotry?”

Alas, it was of little significance to the 55 senators who voted yes to censure Hanson, that more than 24 countries, including Islamic countries, made the decision to ban the burqa with the goal of social cohesion and assimilation in mind.

To these politicians, scoring votes is more important than speaking up for the rights of women and defending the values of this nation.