The Australian Senate raised its voice today, giving support to a censure motion on racist senator Fraser Anning.
Last month Anning made comments linking Muslim migration to the Christchurch terror attack – just hours after news first broke of the incident.
On Wednesday, Anning had the opportunity to apologise for his comments. He did not. Instead, Australia’s politicians spent over an hour dunking on a man who sat in his chair, dripping with performative surprise.
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It’s not often that you come in to work and get called pathetic by all of your colleagues, but that’s precisely what Anning experienced at 11:30am.
The Independent senator’s extreme Islamophobic and anti-immigration views were widely criticised by members from all parties, with Penny Wong, Richard Di Natale, Derryn Hinch, and Mehreen Faruqi saying Anning did not deserve to sit in parliament.
Wong, who did not use Anning’s name, called the senator’s comments “pathetic” and “shameful.”
A shameful and pathetic attempt by a bloke who has never been elected to get attention by exploiting diversity as a fault line for political advantage. He doesn’t speak for the Senate. He doesn’t speak for this nation. He doesn’t represent Australian values. We must repudiate those who seek to spread intolerance and hate and in doing so undermine immigrant values.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale called for a suspension of Anning – a motion that both Labor and the Coalition had previously rejected – as a censure, in his opinion, was not enough.
“We had an opportunity to censor him in his maiden speech when he invoked ‘final solution’,” Di Natale said. “That was rejected.”
“When you say that someone has the right to be a bigot the next step is to say they have a right to act on that bigotry.”
And while most in the Senate chastised Anning, fellow conservative senator Cory Bernardi defended him, angry about the definition of “hate speech” and that the Greens had called Anning a “creepy old white man.”
Bernardi opposed the motion to censor Anning, despite saying he found his comments to be political opportunism at its worst, because of what he perceived as an attack on free speech.
“I also know there are many people who actually support what Senator Anning said, and that’s the beauty of this country – we’re allowed to disagree,” he said.
One Nation abstained from the vote. Pauline Hanson was not present during the motion because she was unwell.
Instead, WA One Nation senator Peter Georgiou visibly shook and stammered his way through a prepared statement that ironically played towards the NRA-endorsed media training much of the Australian public witnessed One Nation officials receiving (attack, shame, attack).
Finally, Anning stood up to address the Senate – hitting every far-right bingo space you can think of.
Anning called the motion “left wing intolerance,” said he “simply told the truth“, called the Eggboy altercation a “physical attack” amounting to “political violence“, and equated that egging with a bombing.
He called the censure motion “virtue signalling” and cited other international terror attacks, and he wrapped it all up by denouncing diversity.
Smiling, he left the chamber as Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young called him a disgrace:
You are a disgrace. Don’t smile at me. Don’t smile at the rest of us. People lost their lives and you think it’s a joke. You think it’s a joke. What an absolute disgrace.
The motion to censor Fraser Anning was passed on voices – there was no “no” recorded in dissent.
Later on Wednesday afternoon Greens leader Di Natale will attempt to move a motion to have Anning suspended. Destined to fail, with no major party support, Anning will continue as an independent senator until the May election.
Many, if not most, expect him to be gone after that.
