A conservative Jewish group in Australia on Monday lauded a lawmaker who got a weeklong suspension from parliament for wearing a burqa there to protest her failure to introduce a bill to ban the Muslim clothing item.
“Thank you for always standing with our community,” the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) wrote on X, addressing Senator Pauline Hanson of the right-wing One Nation Party.
After other lawmakers blocked her from introducing the bill on Monday, Hanson left the session and returned wearing a black burqa over her knee-length dress. Her stockinged legs and high heels were visible as she walked over to her seat, provoking angry reactions from some of her colleagues and amused ones from others.
The AJA’s post on X featured a picture of the group’s CEO, Robert Gregory, and its political affairs director, Teneille Murray, posing with Hanson in her office as she held the burqa. “Just met with the first woman kicked out of an Australian government building for wearing a burqa,” the AJA said about the photo.
In November 2023, Hanson, who is a vocal advocate of Israel’s right to defend itself and against antisemitism, wore a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, during a speech in parliament in which she condemned the Jew-hatred that fueled the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, and its manifestations abroad against Jewish communities. She later wore to parliament a scarf emblazoned with the Israeli flag.
Reposting the picture of Hanson wearing a tallit, AJA wrote on X in a separate post Monday: “Which did she wear better, the Tallit or the Burka? Any surprise at which one got her suspended?”
The Executive Council of Australian Jews did not reply in time for publication to a JNS query on the matter. Several prominent Australian Jews, including Dr. Alex Wodak, condemned Hanson’s use of the burqa.
“How pathetic of Pauline Hanson to wear a burka in Senate today! Just attention-seeking behaviour. Repeat of her 2017 stunt. Australia has lots of serious problems, but women wearing burkas isn’t one of them,” wrote Wodak, a well-known public health expert and the former director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, on the BlueSky social network.
Hanson wore the full Islamic dress in 2017 during a Q&A session, in which she called for the dress to be banned in Australia from all public spaces.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who serves as leader of the government in the Senate, on Tuesday moved a motion to censure Hanson, claiming she “has been parading prejudice as protest for decades.” As a result, Hanson received a weeklong ban from parliament.
AJA defended Hanson on X from Wong’s allegations.
“Imagine if the Albanese Government dedicated the same effort they spend attacking Pauline Hanson toward actually standing with the Australian Jewish community in the face of surging antisemitism. Penny Wong has damaged social cohesion in this country far more than Pauline ever could,” an AJA spokesperson wrote under the group’s official account.
