Senate votes to suspend Thorpe for a day over her paper-throwing rant

The Senate has erupted in an angry argument over racism after independent senator Fatima Payman accused One Nation leader Pauline Hanson of spreading hatred, while Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe was suspended from the chamber for a day for throwing papers at Hanson in fury.

Senate President Sue Lines sanctioned Thorpe on Wednesday night by formally “naming” her for her disorderly conduct, leading Foreign Minister Penny Wong to move that Thorpe be suspended from the upper house on Thursday, the final sitting day.

“All Australians have a right to be safe at work,” Wong said, drawing a parallel between threatening behaviour in the senate and any other workplace to justify the rare sanction.

Labor and the Coalition backed the motion, while the Greens voted against. Hanson and her One Nation colleague Malcolm Roberts voted for the suspension, as well as United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet and independents Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock. Payman was not in the chamber.

Opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham said he was pleased the Senate had “finally drawn a line in the sand” on the “reprehensible” conduct of Thorpe.

Payman earlier in the day launched a furious attack on Hanson after the One Nation leader sought to table documents that questioned Payman’s eligibility to sit in parliament because she was born in Afghanistan, forcing a vote on whether she had questions to answer over her citizenship.

Lidia Thorpe appears to throw papers towards Pauline Hanson, with Fatima Payman (back left) seated behind them.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“You’re not just vindictive, mean, nasty. You bring disgrace to the human race,” Payman told Hanson in the Senate. “I kept on giving you the benefit of the doubt, Senator Hanson, despite your repetitive attempts to be racist to anyone who does not look like you.”

Thorpe backed Payman and called Hanson a “convicted racist” as the former Greens senator appeared to throw papers at the One Nation leader in a dramatic confrontation.

The fury came at the end of several days of growing tension in the Senate after Thorpe offended Indigenous senators on both sides of the chamber by calling them “native police” – a remark that suggested they supported government policies that harmed First Australian people.

Thorpe was forced to withdraw the “native police” remark in the Senate soon afterwards, but she repeated it outside the chamber and risked formal sanctions for disrupting the upper house. Leading senators on all sides met on Wednesday night to discuss whether Thorpe’s behaviour was putting personal safety at risk.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe leaves the Senate chamber on Wednesday morning.Credit: AAP

Hanson asked for Payman to withdraw her remarks on Wednesday morning because it is a breach of the standing orders of the Senate for those in the chamber to call each other racist.

“I want these comments about calling me a racist withdrawn,” Hanson said, without responding further to Payman’s comments.

The argument triggered a vote on whether to allow Hanson to table the documents, forcing the major parties to choose sides on the crossbench dispute. The first document was a letter from Hanson to the president of the Senate, Sue Lines, setting out her concerns about Payman’s eligibility to be in the Senate. The second was a letter from Lines declining to take steps that might remove the West Australian senator.

While Payman agreed to withdraw calling Hanson a racist, she let fly with another personal attack against the One Nation leader, who wore a burqa into the Senate in 2017, angering Muslim Australians who saw this as offensive.

“I will withdraw, but you know what? Senator Hanson, how do you live with yourself?” Payman said.

“Senator Hanson, with so much violent hatred, how do you live through your days spreading hatred? How do you go to sleep? How do you look your neighbours in the eye, knowing that you come to this place and spreading the vile hatred, the vile comments that you make? It’s disgraceful. It’s disgusting.”

Liberal frontbencher Anne Ruston stepped in to calm the debate by saying Hanson had followed the proper process in the upper house, indicating the Coalition would support her if a vote were called.

Labor, the Coalition and independent senator Jacqui Lambie voted to allow Hanson to table the documents, which claimed Payman had not done enough to renounce her Afghan citizenship to be in parliament. The Greens and Thorpe sided with Payman, who quit the Labor Party in July and now sits as an independent.

A furious Payman while Hanson speaks about Payman’s eligibility to be in parliament.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

But when the key question about Payman’s citizenship was put to the Senate, the major parties combined with most crossbenchers to reject Hanson’s claims. The Senate sided with Payman by 35 to three votes.

Payman moved before the last election to renounce her Afghan citizenship but was thwarted by the Taliban’s takeover, raising obstacles to the usual process to meet the citizenship requirements in section 44 of the Constitution.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who manages the government’s business in the chamber, argued that all senators had the right to table documents – and she blamed the Greens for trying to block Hanson’s move and forcing a “destructive” debate.

“That does not mean in any way we support what Senator Hanson has been corresponding with the president and the Senate, but she does have a right to table information relating to that,” Gallagher said.

Hanson moved to intensify the argument by revealing she would appeal against a Federal Court ruling against her last month when Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said the One Nation leader had vilified her under Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.

“I think the ruling has raised alarm among many Australians that their freedom of speech, the freedom to say what they’re thinking, is constantly under threat,” Hanson said.

But the remark against Faruqi – “piss off back to Pakistan” – infuriated many senators and was mentioned by Payman on Wednesday as proof that Hanson was a racist.

Thorpe said Hanson’s claim against Payman over her citizenship was a racist move.

“Who wants a treaty, who wants peace in this country? We do. It’s the racists that are dividing us and creating hate on the streets,” Thorpe said.

“And if anyone needs to be deported, it needs to be Senator Hanson.”

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