Mainstream Australia is grieving, not politicking

On Friday, the unbearable tragedy of the Christchurch terror attack was hours old when Queensland senator Fraser Anning sought to blame the Muslim victims for the atrocity. “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place,” he wrote. It is pointless to parse such idiocy or to even try to fathom the bog of excrement from which such hatred gurgles into the national conversation from time to time. Anning may or may not be the most odious person to sit in an Australian parliament; it’s a highly contested field. But he certainly represents a minuscule, niche and fringe constituency whose obsessions are repugnant to all Australians.

At the double dissolution election in 2016, Anning secured 19 votes from the people of Queensland; of 122 senate candidates in that state, 120 received more votes than he did. How did the former publican slip into the Senate? Senator Anning was third on the ticket of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, which won two spots in Queensland. He was elevated to the Senate in November 2017 after the person ahead of him on the ticket, Malcolm Roberts, was ruled ineligible because of his British citizenship. Once in Canberra, Senator Anning jilted One Nation, sat as an independent, and joined Katter’s Australian Party for a while. In his first speech, Senator Anning spoke about the “final solution”, the term used by the Nazi regime for its program of exterminating Jewish people during World War II. He now spends his time, and taxpayers’ funds, attending rallies of white supremacist groups.

Senator Anning has been banished by the nation’s political leaders. Scott Morrison said the full force of the law should apply to the senator after an altercation with a teenager in Melbourne. Bill Shorten denounced the “keyboard warriors” and right-wing political extremists for creating a “swampland of hatred”. The major parties will unite in censuring Senator Anning’s “inflammatory and divisive” comments when parliament resumes in a fortnight. Senate leaders Mathias Cormann and Penny Wong have prepared a motion that calls on all Australians to “stand against hate and to publicly, and always, condemn actions and comments designed to incite fear and distrust”.

With wounds raw and dozens of victims still in hospital, two nations are hoping for a peaceful moment to grieve and reflect on the massacre in Christchurch. We know Senator Anning is a desperate outlaw and an opportunistic bottom-feeder and that Pauline Hanson — given she wants to draw support from the same well of grievance — has declined to join in the Senate’s censure of a man whose rhetoric she once likened to Goebbels’. Yet others, too, have heedlessly rushed into the fray for their spotlight moment of political nark and incendiary slogan bombing. Over the weekend, Greens MPs accused Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, Sky News and News Corp, publisher of this newspaper, for fostering Islamophobia. Mr Dutton was denounced because of his comments about Lebanese migrants and the Coalition’s tough border protection policies. NSW Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said Mr Dutton had “contributed to creating an atmosphere where hate is allowed to actually incubate in our society”. Unwisely, for it does not reduce the temperature, Mr Dutton shot back that the Greens were acting like the disgraced Queenslander. But his essential point stands: Left and Right extremists are using the latest tragedy for base politicking

Hating and blaming more broadly from the vantage of “Portlandia”, Oregon for Guardian Australia, Jason Wilson drew a straight line from Tampa to Christchurch, with the 28-year-old Australian mass murderer growing up “in a period when racism, xenophobia and a hostility to Muslims in particular, were quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture”. In this telling, centre-right politicians such as John Howard, our largest selling newspapers and suburban Australians are deeply racist and Muslims here live in fear or are second-class citizens.

The “political ratbags” as Janet Albrechtsen politely labelled them in our pages yesterday, have swiftly swung into crisis mode. See a crisis, strike a dangerous pose. “It is sinister when smart people engage in blame games for political purposes,” she wrote of the media hypocrites and partisan chancers at large in the culture. What’s going on here is an ugly attempt to paint as mainstream what is happening on the fringes; then, after a pull on the handbrake, the incendiarists try to represent legitimate debates about immigration, integration and Islamist extremism as dangerous discussions that must be shut down. This rabble is trying to infiltrate the mainstream, but sensible Australians can detect this poison from miles away.

In coming weeks and months there will be time to search for explanations about the roots of extremist rage. Former NSW Police deputy commissioner Nick Kaldas argues our law enforcement and intelligence bodies must change tack and dedicate more resources to monitoring right-wing groups. In trying to stem radicalisation, there will inevitably be curbs placed on digital platforms. None of this will be helped by the ill-thought rants of combatants who are not acting in the national interest but are appealing to their own angry mobs. The Prime Minister yesterday spoke about the danger of “mindless tribalism”.

“Hate, blame and contempt are the staples of tribalism. It is consuming modern debate,” Mr Morrison observed of the takeover of legitimate policy issues by fanatics to promote separatist and exclusive agendas. In the shadow of 50 Muslims slaughtered and the possibility of violent reprisals, this is no time for tribalism, division and rancour. Rather, it is a rare moment to pursue unity, healing and compassion. We must always strive to uphold the values of liberal democracy, while taking steps to protect our precious way of life.