Don’t bother trying to act surprised, but Pauline Hanson‘s maiden address for her entry into the Senate was a complete goddamn shitshow of racism, xenophobia and largely made up facts.
She basically did a find-and-replace on her maiden speech in 1996, simply swapping out “asians” for “Muslims” – because she has to keep with the times, y’know?
Highlights include Hanson offering to shuttle immigrants who don’t perfectly assimilate to her idea of Australia to the airport so that they can “can go back to where they came from” (actual quote), and the Greens walking out of the chamber during her nightmare trainwreck of a speech.
Together, our MPs have left Senator Pauline Hanson’s 1st speech because we’ll call out racism wherever it occurs, including Parliament.
— Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale) September 14, 2016
The Greens posted a video shortly after the walkout, with leader Richard Di Natale explaining why they did what they did:
“We’ve got an obligation to call out hate speech, to call out racism, to call out bigotry, whenever we see it. We stand with all of those Australians who feel the sting of Senator Hanson’s words tonight.“Families like mine 50 years ago experienced those hurtful comments and know the pain that those words cause.”
Di Natale goes on to say there’s no room for racism in Australia:
“We’re a rich, generous multicultural nation. We stand with the millions of Australians who know that were better than that.”
Frankly: fuck yeah. I’m sick to death of this idea that we have to treat this respectfully – treating racism and bigotry with calm tolerance only sends a message that it doesn’t bother us that much, we need to make it clear that Australia isn’t like that.
Have a watch:
Source and photo: Facebook.
