The Senate has condemned a speech by Katter's Australia Party senator Fraser Anning in which he praised the White Australia Policy and called for a "final solution" on immigration policy.
The motion, put by Labor's leader in the Senate Penny Wong, passed without need for a vote after senators from all parties condemned Anning's first speech in the Senate on Tuesday in which he called for a ban on Muslim immigration.
Wong, a migrant herself, called on the Senate to demonstrate the multicultural values of Australia.
.@SenatorWong's 🔥 🔥 🔥 reaction to Fraser Anning's "final solution" speech.
"Think of what might be happening in some of the schoolyards in Australia today, because those of us who have been on the receiving end of racism know what it feels like and know that what leaders say matters," she said.
"Because to be prejudiced against a group, the first thing you have to do is diminish them, is to say that they are somehow less and not deserving of the empathy you would want for yourself and your family."
Anning was elected to the Senate after One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts was found to be ineligible to be elected due to his dual citizenship.
Anning left One Nation before being sworn in to the Senate after it became clear that the party's leader Pauline Hanson was not happy Anning was hiring former staffers of Roberts, including Richard Howard.
Hanson condemned Anning's speech in the Senate on Wednesday, and said that Howard must have been behind it.
"I was appalled at his comments and his remarks," she said. "Fraser Anning, I can assure you, did not write that speech. He delivered it, but he is responsible for it.
"The speech was written by a Richard Howard, straight from Goebbels' handbook from Nazi Germany."
Hanson, who last year arrived in the Senate wearing a burqa to call for a ban of the religious garb, and said in the 1990s that Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Asians", said Australia is a multi-racial society.
"We are a multi-racial society. I have always advocated you do not have to be white to be Australian."
Then Hanson announced plans to introduce legislation for a plebiscite on immigration levels, essentially the same thing Anning had called for in his speech.
Justice Party senator Derryn Hinch said the speech was like "Pauline Hanson on steroids". Hinch, who was photographed shaking Anning's hand after the speech, said he had to wash afterwards.
"It was one of the most disgraceful, racist, homophobic, divisive, misogynistic, spiteful and hateful speeches I have ever heard anywhere in 50 years in journalism," he said. "I felt like I was trapped in a Ku Klux Klan rally.
"I want to apologise to the Senate and the Australian people that, after that vomitus poison last night, I then stupidly, recklessly and unthinkingly – I did think about it – followed Senate protocol and dutifully lined up here and shook this unworthy man's hand.
"I want to go on record and say I then went home and I washed my hand."
"After [Fraser Anning's] vomitous, poison last night, I then... followed Senate protocol and I dutifully lined up here and shook this unworthy man's hand. And I just want to go on record and say, I then went home and I washed my own." @HumanHeadline https://t.co/eMG0O3iPVE
The full line of senators who shook Anning's hand after his speech can be seen here.
Here's the footage of all the Senators who shook hands / hugged / kissed Fraser Anning after his "final solution" speech. https://t.co/GfIsaTU3vC
Several senators who immigrated to Australia, including finance minister Mathias Cormann, Labor senator Doug Cameron, and Liberal senator Lucy Gichuhi also condemned the speech.
Gichuhi, who migrated from Kenya almost 20 years ago, said she is constantly asked "where do you come from, originally?"
"Where do you come from, originally?" strong speech from @senatorlucy
The Greens failed to get a censure motion up against Anning, with Labor and the government both voting against it.
"If it’s hate speech outside the parliament, then it’s hate speech inside the parliament," Greens leader Richard Di Natale said.
Former NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi will join the Senate next week and become the first female Muslim senator.
See you soon, @fraser_anning ✊🏾 https://t.co/u83OpvhmO3
Down in the House of Representatives, the chamber was also debating a motion put up by opposition leader Bill Shorten along similar lines.
Shorten called for political parties to put candidates who advocate racism last on how-to-vote cards at elections.
.@billshortenmp: It is time for every serious parliamentarian and political party to show the courage to put candidates who advocate racism last. MORE: https://t.co/OaG8mGx35o #SkyLiveNow https://t.co/NVoKkRCqRy
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said Anning's comments demonising Muslims only served to help terrorists.
"The terrorists' argument, the Islamist terrorists' argument, to other Muslims is 'your country, Australia, is not your country'," he said. "'They don't want you. They hate you. You're not ever going to be really Australian. Join the war on our side'. So those who tried to demonise Muslims because of the crimes of a tiny minority are only helping the terrorists."
Anning earned praise from his party leader, Bob Katter, who held a press conference in Cairns to back Anning's position, stating that the Liberal Party should be ashamed for bringing in so many people from the Middle East, but not "persecuted minorities".
"They're not bringing in the Jews, the Christians, and the Sikhs," he said.
"The ALP and more particularly the LNP are bringing 630 000 people from overseas, from countries with no democracy, no rule of law, no egalitarian traditions, no Judeo-Christian background. 630 000 a year and they don’t go home," he said.
"You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to figure out that we as a race of people, we Australians, are being buried by a mass migration program to line the pockets of the rich and powerful in Sydney – who take our pay and undermine our pay and conditions."
Katter's figure of 630,000 seems to take into account people coming to Australia on a working holiday, or temporary visa. Australia's permanent migration intake is capped at under 200,000 per year.
Katter called on the "hard left" of both parties to rise up.
"I am sick and tired of the lily pad left and it’s about time the hard left stood up and booted those bastards out of the Labor movement," he said. "We don’t want them; they don’t represent traditional Labor values. Our party is in the position of representing traditional Labor values and traditional country party values."