Pauline Hanson’s cheap stunt was insulting and wrong

By parading a burqa onto the floor of the Senate, Pauline Hanson has descended to the level of cheap stunts to petition Attorney-General George Brandis to ban the garment from Australia.

Senator Brandis, in a response that was more emotional than you might have expected from a toughened, top-rank Queen’s Counsel barrister, denounced Hanson for her behaviour.

Brandis was right to stop this circus in its tracks. Yes, many Australians are concerned about how well some Muslims integrate in our society, especially in the light of recent terror plots.

But no, mockery and cheap publicity are not the way to make the argument. What next? Will pollies with a beef about the Catholic church come to Parliament dressed as the Pope?

Every Australian knows that Senator Hanson is not a Muslim. Nor is she a Jew or a Hindu. That’s why her attempt to use religious vesture to make her point was insulting and wrong.

Hanson is not the only politician to call for a so-called ‘burqa ban’. Some months ago, Senator Jacqui Lambie sought to outlaw Muslim face-coverings in the name of ‘security’.

None of these attempts to regulate the way women dress on Australian streets ought to succeed.

Outright bans may be popular in countries such as France. But there, the official policy of laicité means no form of religious vesture is acceptable in public — in an attempt to ensure total neutrality when it comes to religion.

Thankfully, Australia is not France. Far from driving expressions of cultural and religious diversity off our streets, Australians are rightly proud of our multicultural diversity.

Few of us are discomfited when we see people around us wearing the clothing or symbols they consider to be important for expressing their religious or cultural beliefs.

But, of course, we are all distressed by the culture of grievance and hatred that possessed the ‘dirty bomb’ airline plotters who sought to slaughter hundreds of innocents.

And the attacks of violent Islamist criminals, such as Numan Haider or Man Haron Monis, naturally sent shock waves through Australia’s easy-going and accepting society.

Indeed, the belief of such people that murder of innocent people is justified by the pursuit of some half-baked utopian dream is utterly at odds with the views of ordinary Australians.

However, debates about the burqa concern much more than the choices an individual makes about what to wear in open society. They also concern the right to express one’s religious beliefs.

But this doesn’t mean that all issues raised by the burqa have been resolved. The physical appearance of the burqa can, indeed, be unsettling for non-Muslim Australians.

And while it often raises concerns about what Muslim women who choose to wear the burqa think about the rest of us, banning the burqa is no way to address these concerns.

Senator Brandis was right to take a firm stand against Hanson’s stunt. Australians must remain free to dress as they please.

But he also needs to remind Muslims that if they choose to wear the burqa, they must ensure it remains a symbol of faith — and not a symbol of hatred and alienation.

Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and the author of The Tyranny of Tolerance