Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has taken action against Pauline Hanson‘s disgustingly racist tweet about her heritage and referred it to the human rights commission. As she damn well should!
Mehreen Faruqi addressed Hanson’s traumatising comment telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan” on Wednesday.
“Many migrants let me know how triggered they felt,” she told the Senate.
“It never gets easier to deal with racist attacks.
“It is insulting, and it is humiliating.”
in a heated Senate debate, Pauline Hanson has refused to retract tweets she made to Mehreen Faruqi suggesting her to return to Pakistan
After Hanson gives one final incendiary line to finish her speech, Greens senator Jordon Steele-John yells across the chamber “you scumbag”
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) September 27, 2022
Faruqi said Pauline Hanson crossed the line with her tweet — this wasn’t debate, this was straight up racism and it is harmful and alienating AF
“I and everyone like me … have every right to participate in public debate,” she said.
“I will not be silenced, especially on the topic of the British monarch and monarchy.
“The truth about the empire must be told. I have the right to talk about this history without being racially vilified.”
Faruqi revealed her family had also been targeted with hate. Some trolls even called up her husband’s workplace to racially vilify him.
Minister Penny Wong, who was born in Malaysia, called Hanson’s comments “appalling” and likened it to the racism she faced when she first came to Australia.
“It is triggering each time you hear it,” she said.
“I think they’re appalling, and they’re comments that have been levelled at me countless times since I arrived in this country, and I remember getting them as a kid in the schoolyard,” Wong said.
“Can I say to senator Faruqi, we on this side do understand your grievance at the comment and we understand why you are calling out such behaviour, and I pick up something that senator Faruqi said in her contribution about how triggering this is.”
Penny Wong, in the Senate today speaking about Pauline Hanson’s racist tweet suggesting to Mehreen Faruqi that she ‘piss off back to Pakistan’….
“How long do you have to be here and how much do you have to love this country before you’re accepted.”
— Aaron Smith (@Aaronsmith333) September 27, 2022
Wong then said Hanson’s comments were an “attack on democracy because fundamentally what it is saying is you are not equal”.
Exactly! Australia is a country built on the backs of migrants, and so migrants have every right to be involved in the governing of this country.
Senator Hanson defended herself and claimed she didn’t refer to Senator Faruqi’s race. Despite literally referring to Pakistan in her tweet. For fuck’s sake.
She then claimed Mehreen Faruqi was committing “reverse racism” against her. Which, by the way, isn’t a real thing. Apparently calling out vile racism is worse than committing it, amirite!
ICYMI, after Queen Elizabeth’s death Faruqi tweeted that while she sympathised with those who knew her, she could not mourn a coloniser. Honestly, the tweet was more measured than royalists deserve, but Mehreen Faruqi is classy like that.
Pauline Hanson is not.
Condolences to those who knew the Queen.
I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.
We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic.
— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) September 9, 2022
In response to Faruqi’s tweet, Pauline Hanson wrote: “Piss off back to Pakistan.” Yep. She straight up told her coworker to go back to her own country, and faced no consequences too.
The Greens tabled a motion calling on the Senate to censure the One Nation leader for racist, “anti-migrant” comments, which Faruqi referred to as the “bare minimum” that could be done.
“We’ve got to name and shame racism and the perpetrators of racism,” Faruqi told the Senate on Tuesday.
“It is a symbolic but important step that everyone in this place can take to make clear that we condemn racism in all its forms, shapes and sizes.”
Racism must be identified and called out every time, and people who spew such hate must face serious consequences. That’s why I moved to censure Senator Hanson in the Senate today. pic.twitter.com/HBiJBeY11h
— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) September 27, 2022
Labor and the Coalition later amended the censure in the Senate to instead call for respectful debate. Remember that anytime Labor pretends they’re pro-migrant, by the way.
Faruqi said the amendment let Hanson off “scot-free” and she’s fkn right.
Imagine if a coworker of yours said this in your professional workplace. HR would be involved, they would either be forced to attend cultural sensitivity training or be fired. They certainly would be made to apologise.
Why don’t people of colour get the same protection from racial vilification in Parliament? I mean, these are literally the leaders of our country.
But hey, I guess that says a lot about this country and its treatment of us non-white people, huh?
