One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been suspended from the Senate until the new year following her controversial burqa stunt inside parliament.
Hanson entered the upper house on Monday afternoon wearing the burqa shortly after failing to move a bill banning the Islamic covering from public places.
After refusing to apologise for the stunt, she was suspended from the Senate for seven days on Tuesday, with the current sitting week being the last for the year.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong moved the motion to suspend Hanson, who walked out of the Senate chamber before a vote could be held.
Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe heckled Hanson as she left the chamber. ‘See ya later racist!,’ she yelled.
‘Where is the apology?’ Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said, talking over the top of Hanson as she spoke.
It followed an earlier motion to censure Hanson, which passed with 55-to-five, opposed only by her party and United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet.
Censure motions, while largely symbolic, formally register parliamentary disapproval and are relatively rare.
Pauline Hanson (pictured) has been suspended from the Senate for seven days
The suspension comes a day after Pauline Hanson (pictured) wore a burqa on the Senate floor
In line with Senate procedure, Hanson was given five minutes to respond to the censure motion during which time she refused to back down on the move.
‘You denied me and the people of Australia to have that voice, you chose to shut that down,’ she said.
‘The parliamentarians that are here, you dare question me over my respect for this place?
‘The senators in this place have no respect for the Australian people when they have an elected member who wants to move something and represent them and have a say.’
Hanson spoke to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, dismissing the suspension as inconsequential.
‘I’m censured. Does it really worry me? No, it doesn’t,’ she said.
Asked why she pulled the stunt, Hanson said it was to highlight the hypocrisy surrounding her proposed burqa ban.
‘They denied me that right to ban the burqa, well, if you don’t want to ban the burqa, then I’ll go and put it on and that’s exactly what I did,’ she said.
Hanson is pictured leaving the Senate on Tuesday
‘They didn’t want to ban the burqa, yet, they denied me the right to wear it in the floor of parliament.
‘There is no dress code on the floor of parliament, yet I’m not allowed to wear it. So to me, it’s been hypocritical.’
Independent senator Fatima Payman, who quit Labor over its stance on Palestine, earlier claimed the behaviour left others feeling unsafe.
‘This is… an old trick that Pauline Hanson’s pulled out of the bag. Very disrespectful, very unAustralian,’ she told ABC News.
Asked what impact the stunt would have on Muslim women, Senator Payman, who wears a hijab, said it would most likely lead to schoolgirls and women wearing hijabs to be abused or assaulted.
‘There is bound to be people out on the streets, young schoolgirls, who are probably yelled at or abused or assaulted, and it is just the division we do not want to see in society.’
It’s the second time Senator Hanson has worn the burqa inside the parliament.
After first attempting the stunt in the upper house in 2017, Senator Hanson was slammed by then attorney-general George Brandis, who labelled it an ‘appalling thing to do’.
Speaking on the latest incident, Mr Brandis, a Liberal, labelled it ‘despicable’.
