Australia’s Senate was suspended for more than an hour on Monday after a far-right senator entered the chamber wearing a burqa, sparking widespread outrage.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who has long campaigned for a national ban on burqas, was barred from the chamber for the remainder of the day after she repeatedly refused to take off the Muslim face covering.
Ms Hanson was condemned by all parties in the Senate over her action, reminiscent of a similar stunt carried out in 2017 when she caused a procedural dispute that delayed the final sitting week of the year, ABC News reported.
Senate president Sue Lines ordered her to leave, but Ms Hanson refused, prompting Ms Lines to suspend proceedings, a measure that has been used only rarely. The chamber reconvened at about 5.50pm without Ms Hanson present.
On social media, Ms Hanson accused her colleagues of hypocrisy for preventing her from putting forward her bill. She said she wore the burqa to highlight what she described as security risks and the mistreatment of women, arguing that parliament had failed to address the issue. Ms Hanson was unable to name a single safety incident linked to the burqa.
“If the parliament won’t ban it, I will display this oppressive, radical, non-religious head garb that risks our national security and the ill treatment of women on the floor of our parliament so that every Australian knows what’s at stake,” she wrote.
The independent senator Fatima Payman, the first woman in Australia’s federal parliament to wear a hijab, criticised Ms Hanson’s actions, describing the stunt as “abhorrent and disrespectful to the chamber and the public”.
“For her to wear the burqa, walk in, and just not listen to the procedures or the ruling that was given before her is typical of her trying to stay relevant,” she told ABC Radio. “The fact that this is the last week of sitting for 2025 and the Senate is suspended... where are the priorities of the government and Pauline Hanson?”
“This is a racist senator, displaying blatant racism,” said Mehreen Faruqi, a Muslim senator from New South Wales.
National Party MP Barnaby Joyce, who has left open the possibility of joining One Nation, said elected representatives were free to make political statements so long as they did not involve violence, but he did not comment directly on Ms Hanson’s sanction.
Earlier in the day, Aftab Malik, the special envoy to counter Islamophobia, said Ms Hanson’s argument that the burqa posed a national security threat was “frustrating” and risked fuelling hostility toward Muslim women.
“This will deepen existing safety risks for Australian Muslim women who choose to wear the headscarf, the hijab, or the full face and body covering, the burqa,” he said. “They already face harassment, threats of rape, and violence, not because of what they have done, but because of what they wear. All women should be free to choose what they wear or do not wear.”
Ms Hanson previously wore a burqa in the Senate in 2017 during an earlier attempt by One Nation to introduce a national ban. She defended the stunt, claiming “it was proving a point … it was lack of security”.
She has also sparked controversy over indigenous issues, once declaring: “There’s no definition to an Aboriginal,” and calling for “a big debate on this”.
In her 1996 maiden speech to parliament, she warned that Australia was at risk of being “swamped by Asians.”
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