One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts claims The Project host Waleed Aly fails to condemn terrorism

CLAIMS by a One Nation senator on The Project that Waleed Aly condoned terrorism left the panel so shocked they forgot who he was.

A PRESENTER on The Project became so outraged by a One Nation politician’s claim that host Waleed Aly supported terrorism that he forgot the senator’s name last night.

The Project panellists were gobsmacked when Malcolm Roberts, the right hand man of Pauline Hanson, appeared to suggest Muslims should be deported from Australia.

The climate sceptic senator, who has already made a name for himself demanding Australia making an Oz-exit from the “socialistic, monolithic” United Nations, was on the Channel 10 show to talk about new research that showed 49 per cent of Australians supported banning immigration by Muslims.

Peter Hellier asked the Queensland senator “how far does it go?” and related the question to his co-host Aly, who is an Australian-born Muslim of Egyptian heritage.

“Do we deport Muslims who are living here? Should the man who usually sits to my left, Waleed, be deported or relegated to breakfast TV in Syria? What are you suggesting?” Hellier said.

Rather than answering the question, Senator Roberts took aim at Aly, who was off sick.

“No, but it would be nice if Waleed actually condemned and didn’t condone Islamic terrorism,” Senator Roberts said.

“Wouldn’t that be a good start?”

The stunned panel left it to journalist Hamish Macdonald to answer.

“I don’t think anyone needs to say anything, but quite clearly (Aly) does (condemn terrorism),” Macdonald said.

Senator Roberts said host Waleed Aly ‘condoned’ terrorism.

Macdonald was so riled he forgot the politician’s name, signing off, “Senator … what’s his name? Thank you very much.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia would take in 18,750 refugees a year — a goal it had only expected to reach in 2018 — and a proportion of those would come from Central America.

Earlier, the pair had clashed over Senator Roberts’ claim, first raised by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, that Australia was being “swamped” by Muslims.

Macdonald asked the senator how fast the numbers of Muslims coming to Australia was rising.

Senator Roberts couldn’t reply, only saying that an adviser was looking into it.

“You don’t know that, but you think we’re being swamped?” Macdonald asked.

“Our culture is being swamped is what we’re discussing. And that’s certainly true,” the senator replied.

Macdonald asked the Senator if he knew what the fastest growing faith was in Australia, other than Christianity. He didn’t.

“Don’t you think you have an obligation to know that,” he asked.

“No I don’t think we need to know that, we need to focus on deciding whether Islam is a religion or an ideology and in our mind it’s an ideology (that) disrespects women,” said Senator Roberts.

“Just for the record, it’s Hinduism,” replied Macdonald.

In his maiden speech to Parliament earlier this month, Senator Roberts said the UN was destroying Australia’s sovereignty through deals such as “Agenda 21”, a non-binding agreement that surrounded sustainable development.

Guest host Hamish Macdonald.

“Australian values and way of life are also at risk from insidious institutions, such as the unelected swill that is the United Nations,” Senator Roberts said.

“Australia must leave the UN. We need an Oz-exit.”

In August he clashed with British physicist Professor Brian Cox on the ABC’s Q & A.

Prof Cox said: “The absolute, absolute consensus is that human action is leading to an increase in average temperatures. Absolute consensus. I know you may try to argue with that, but you can’t.”

Senator Roberts said he was unconvinced by climate change research and that, if he were in government, he would “want to see empirical data” that climate change was the result of human activity before sacking the country’s climate scientists.

This was despite Prof Cox holding up a series of graphs with the data showing that average temperatures had indeed risen.