On 24 November, Pauline Hanson, a long-serving far-right Australian senator and leader of the far-right anti-immigration One Nation party, wore a burqa in the Australian Senate. This is the second time that Hanson has used the burqa as a political prop, attempting to pass a bill which would ban face coverings in public, with the last incident occurring in 2017. Her recent repeat has led to widespread condemnation from other lawmakers, who called her actions “disgraceful”, “racist”, and “a middle finger to people of faith”.
Hanson has a history of campaigning against the burqa, citing national security risks and her belief that women who wear the garment are “oppressed”. When asked to provide data regarding how many national security incidents she was aware of relating to face coverings, like the burqa, Hanson was unable to name a single safety incident linked to the burqa and replied, “I can’t answer you that question,”.
She has argued that, given that other places require the removal of face coverings, all public spaces in Australia, including Parliament, should apply the same rules. In 2017, when she first wore the burqa, she also stated that “the majority of Australians want to see the burqa banned”, and her second stunt has only served to intensify public debate regarding race relations in Australia.
Reactions After the Incident
Hanson wore the burqa in protest of the Senate’s refusal to consider her bill, which proposes to ban the garment and other full-face coverings in public spaces. The stunt was met with widespread outrage and condemnation across the political spectrum, as the act was not seen as a genuine expression of a viewpoint, but rather as a calculated provocation designed to marginalise a minority group and push a divisive, anti-Islam agenda.
As a result, parliamentary proceedings were disrupted, and proceedings were suspended for a significant period when Hanson refused to both remove the garment when requested or to leave the chamber instead. Hanson refused to apologise when requested to and instead used her five minutes to defend her actions. The Senate voted 55 to 5 to suspend Hanson for seven sitting days, and explicitly mentioned that this decision was because of her action, which was done with the intent to “vilify and mock people on the basis of their religion”. The motion condemned Hanson for disrespecting the Senate by ignoring and refusing rulings when asked to remove the burqa, which forced the temporary shutdown of the Senate.
There has been strong pushback against Hanson’s actions from across the political aisle and within the Muslim community. Senators also reacted, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong calling the move “hateful and shallow pageantry” and “not worthy of a member of the Australian Senate”.
When Hanson first wore a burqa in the Senate in 2017, there were no female Muslim Senators. This year, when Hanson wore the burqa for a second time, there were two female Muslim Senators: Mehreen Faruqi and Fatima Payman, both present during the incident.
Both Senators have since spoken out. Senator Faruqi, who was previously told by Hanson in a social media post to “piss off back to Pakistan” (a comment ruled as racial discrimination by a judge last year), called the act “blatant racism and Islamophobia”. Hanson is currently appealing this aforementioned court ruling by citing free speech and ‘political context’.
Senator Payman called the stunt “disgraceful” and accused Hanson of “disrespecting the Muslims out there, the Muslim Australians”. She also described the stunt as “abhorrent and disrespectful to the chamber and the public”.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has also spoken out, stating that Hanson’s act is part of a pattern of behaviour that vilifies minorities. Since the incident, now occurring for a second time, civil society groups and politicians have urged the Australian Parliament to address the “structural and systemic racism that pervades [Australia]”. This plea follows the launch of a national anti-racism framework by the Australian Human Rights Commission and ongoing scrutiny of Australia’s human rights record.
By highlighting deep divisions within Australian society, the incident has brought about discussions regarding racism to the forefront of Australian political discourse.
Why Was Hanson Wearing the Burqa Controversial?
Senator Pauline Hanson has a decades-long public record of statements and actions that have been condemned as racist and Islamophobic. Apart from her burqa stunts and “piss off back to Pakistan” tweets, Hanson’s other notable controversial public statements include her 1996 maiden speech to Parliament, where she warned of an “Asian invasion”. In 2016, she had further stated that Australia was being “swamped” by Muslims. Since her return to Parliament in 2014, after being forced out of her party, One Nation, Hanson has directed her focus to Muslim immigration. She has called for a halt on Muslim immigration, a ban on the burqa, and an “inquiry into Islam”. She has argued that the Islamic faith is a “culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own”.
Hanson has campaigned for a halt on the construction of mosques and Islamic faith schools. Her party, One Nation’s platform, calls for a Royal Commission into Islam, a ban on Islamic head-coverings, and for surveillance cameras to be installed in all Mosques and Islamic schools.
Regarding Hanson wearing the burqa in 2017, critics, including Penny Wong stated that wearing a religious dress as a sincere act of faith or for cultural reasons is one thing. Using that religious attire as a political prop in a stunt to vilify a religious minority, however, is a very different thing – and one that is inappropriate for a member of parliament to resort to. In doing this twice, Hanson has been accused of mocking other people’s sincere acts of faith.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has argued that Hanson “has been parading prejudice as protest for decades”. In her speech to Parliament, Wong said “After what occurred yesterday, someone I’m close to this morning spoke about a conversation with her seven-year-old daughter last night and her daughter asked, ‘Mummy, do all Christians hate Muslims?’ That summarised where we find ourselves and we see it again,”. At this point in Wong’s speech, Senator Ralph Babet was heard calling out “I do”. This was heard and reported by numerous people in the Senate and sources ranged from across the political spectrum. The words “I do” from Babet can also be made out faintly on video recordings of the Senate debate.
Hanson’s supporters continue to argue that her views are not racist, but instead a fight for “one Australia, where every citizen stands equal under the law”. Supporters believe that Hanson is being targeted by labels to shut down debates regarding the issues that she brings forth. For her supporters, who believe that Australia has lost its national identity due to multiculturalism, Hanson is viewed as a champion who doesn’t ignore their concerns regarding issues of immigration and national identity.
Despite such claims, Hanson’s party One Nation has also been at the centre of controversy. A 2022 report by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism cited the party’s “track record on anti-multiculturalism, white nationalism, and Covid-19 conspiracy theories”, and listed One Nation as one of the 20 established and emerging hate groups in Australia.
Furthermore, Aftab Malik, the Special Envoy to Counter Islamophobia (who released a report titled “A National Response to Islamophobia: A Strategic Framework for Inclusion, Safety and Prosperity,” which includes 54 recommendations for the government) has warned that Hanson’s statements and actions fuel hostility, and deepen the existing safety risks for Muslim women who are targets of harassment and violence due to their choice of clothing.
Aftab Malik further stated in a social media statement that “[These Muslim women] already face harassment, threats of rape, and violence, not because what they have done, but because of what they wear,” and that “Veiled Muslim women have long been easy targets for bigotry and intolerance against Muslims. A proposed burqa ban will further stigmatise them as outsiders and embolden harassment and abuse. All women should be free to choose what they wear or do not wear.”
Australia is a nation where only 3.2% of the population identify as Muslim and an even smaller fraction wear a full face covering.
Similarities to the UK
The Australian incident echoes past controversies in the United Kingdom, and the dynamics and divisions in Australia share many similarities with recent anti-immigration and racial tensions in the UK. This includes sensitivities concerning the politics of Muslim women’s attire. In both Australia and the UK, Muslim women’s attire (hijab, niqab and burqa) stand at the forefront of public and political discourse. Despite the absence of evidence linking face coverings to safety incidents, these garments are often cited alongside security concerns, and supporters of bans argue that these garments oppose national values.
In June 2025, during the Prime Minister’s Questions, Reform MP Sarah Pochin asked whether the government would follow the practice of other European nations like France and Denmark and ban the burqa. She cited public safety, and later defended her position by calling the garment “profoundly misogynistic” and an “offensive” symbol of “patriarchal control” that hinders integration into British society. Sarah Pochin was also accused of racism earlier this year over her comment that it “drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”. Reform MP Lee Anderson and Former Reform MP Rupert Lowe both backed the burqa ban, and described the burqa as a “political symbol” of an “unpleasant worldview”. Critics have since argued that Reform UK and others proposing such bans, are engaging in “dog whistle politics”.
A myriad of research, including from both Australia and the UK, have found that targets of anti-Islamic sentiment tend to be individuals who visibly display markers of “Muslimness” through attire or physical features, disproportionately including visibly Muslim women. In Australia, hate crimes against Muslims have doubled in the past two years alone. In the UK, hate crimes against Muslims have also spiked over the years, and have been particularly encouraged due to comments made by politicians.
Most notably, in 2018, then-backbench MP Boris Johnson described Muslim women wearing the full-face veil (niqab or burqa) as resembling “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”. He further described the garments as “oppressive” and “ridiculous”. In just one week after these comments were published, there was a 375% increase in reported anti-Muslim incidents in the UK, and many reports found that the language used by Johnson was repeated in street abuse. Boris Johnson then famously went on to become the British Prime Minister in 2019.
When Sarah Johnson was asked whether her brother’s comments went too far, she stated that “they didn’t go far enough”. Degrading language referring to Muslim women’s attire was also used by Hanson when in a social media post, referred to the burqa as a “head garb” .
This year, both Australian and UK politicians proposed burqa bans. Yet in the UK, these discussions surrounding Muslim women and control over their attire dates back to even two decades ago, when then-Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, wrote that he asked Muslim women who came to his constituency surgery to remove their face veils (niqab) during meetings because he felt “uncomfortable” talking to someone whose face he could not see. He referred to the face veil as “a visible statement of separation and of difference”. While Straw later apologised for the public offence his comments caused, Johnson refused to apologise to British Muslim women when asked to do so by then Prime Minister Theresa May. This was despite having put these women’s wellbeing and public safety at risk with his comments.
The Australian Senate’s reaction to Hanson’s stunt was condemned by political figures and human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, as Islamophobic and racist. However, the issues of Islamophobia, the political exploitation of religion, and the everyday experiences of discrimination that Muslims face in both the UK and Australia persists and reveals that Islamophobia can no longer hide behind policy. Hanson wore the burqa in protest of the Senate’s refusal to consider her bill, which proposes to ban the garment and other full-face coverings in public spaces. The stunt was met with widespread outrage and condemnation across the political spectrum, as the act was not seen as a genuine expression of a viewpoint, but rather as a calculated provocation designed to marginalise a minority group and push a divisive, anti-Islam agenda.