November 25, 2025 • 17 mins
Senator Fatima Payman remembers the first time Pauline Hanson pulled her burqa stunt in 2017. She was visiting her Dad in hospital and was told to 'piss off back where she came from'.
She tells us how stunts like we saw this week in the senate, have real world implications how there needs to be more accountability in politics and the importance of supporting marginalised communities, particularly in the face of rising Islamophobia.
But while she's dealing with the fallout from Hanson's burqa stunt 2.0, she also loves how the Australian community has rallied around her in support, the ultimate in 'mateship.'
And in headlines today, A luxury wilderness resort that took a direct hit from tropical cyclone Fina has been partially destroyed, but two caretakers sheltering in an underground bunker escaped unharmed; The coroner has heard how a young, inexperienced ground crew member gave the thumbs up for takeoff less than a minute before a 2023 fatal mid air helicopter collision; French police have arrested four more people in connection to the Louvre jewel heist last month; Just weeks after denying rumours that she had died, Hollywood royalty Bridgette Bardot has been rushed to hospital in France
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to a Mumma mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mummamy's twice daily news podcast,
The Quickie. On Monday, Senator Pauline Hanson pulled out and
brushed off a stunt that she'd first pulled in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I intend to ask Senator Hanson to remove herself from
the chamber and remove the clothing and come back dressed
appropriately or risk suspension. She entered the Senate wearing a
burker not long after her bill to banned women from
wearing it in public spaces was unsuccessful. Hanson was suspended
(00:45):
from the Senate as a result. While some say we
should ignore the stunt and not give it the air
hands and was hoping to achieve, others say the impacts
it has on the Muslim community in Australia meansic cannot
be ignored.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Before we get into that, here's the latest from the
Quoikie newsroom, Wednesday, November twenty six. A luxury wilderness resort
that took a direct hit from tropical cyclone Fear has
been partially destroyed, but two caretakers who were sheltering in
an underground bunker escaped unharmed. The cyclone, which rampaged across
the Northern Territory all but flattened the Berkeley River Lodge
as across the Western Australian Coast on Monday night as
(01:20):
a Category three system. The Department of Fire and Emergency
Services says they'll evacuate the caretakers, who are among only
four people in the cyclone warning area when it crossed
the coast when it's safe to do so. FIENA has
since been downgraded from a category one system to a
tropical low as at tracks southwest through Wway's north on
Tuesday afternoon WA time. It was located around one hundred
(01:42):
and fifteen kilometers northwest of the town of Windham. A
severe weather warning has been issued in the region for
heavy rainfall, flash flooding and large tides and waves. Wind
gusts of up to eighty five kilometers an hour and
six hourly rainfall totals of up to two hundred millimeters
a possible In the NT, where power was cut to
about seventeen thousand homes and properties. Eighty five percent of
(02:04):
customers have been reaginn and work continues to restore the
remaining three thousand that remain without it. The Anti government
has also announced it will make a two hundred and
fifty dollars disaster recovery hardship payment available to those impacted
by the cyclone. Meanwhile, a catastrophe has also been declared
after dangerous superstorms swept the country's east coast, leaving thousands
(02:25):
without power and inundating insurers with damage claims. Severe thunderstorms
hammered northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland on Monday,
dropping giant baseball signed hail in the worst affected areas.
The Insurance Council of Australia received more than sixteen thousand
claims across more than one hundred and forty postcodes on Tuesday,
with a damage bill yet to be tallied. The coroner
(02:47):
has heard how a young, inexperienced ground crew member gave
the thumbs up for takeoff less than a minute before
a twenty twenty three fatal mid air helicopter collision. Four
people died when two helicopters collided outside the SeaWorld theme
park on the Gold Coast. Grace Hickey, testifying that she
was previously employed by the company that operated the tourist Joyflights,
(03:07):
Her responsibilities included ticket sales and fitting passengers with life
jackets and seat belts when they entered the helicopters. Miss
Hiki had no prior work experience at a helipad, but
had a certificate in aviation ground handling. She was told
to give a whole signal if there were boats nearby,
all the companies on helicopters or those from other companies.
She told the court that on this day she didn't
(03:29):
see anything, so she thumbed up it was good to go.
About twenty five seconds after pilot Ashley Jenkinson took off
having been given the thumbs up from Miss Hickey, his
aircraft collided with another SeaWorld helicopter. His aircraft fell from
about forty meters above the water before crashing on a
sandbar and rolling onto its roof. Mister Jenkinson died, as
(03:50):
well as passengers British newlyweds Ronald and Diane Hughes and
Sidney mother Vanessa Tadros. The pilot of the second helicopter,
Michael James, managed an emergency landing on the same sandbar.
Misshiki broke down in tears as she left the stand
after giving evidence, saying spent a lot of time blaming
herself for the crash. French police have arrested four more
(04:10):
people in connection to the Louver jewel heist last month.
The suspects are two men aged thirty eight and thirty
nine and two women aged thirty one and forty. Police
have yet to release the details on how they suspect
these people played a role in the brazen daylight robbery.
On October nineteen four Thiegues made off with jewels worth
Australian one hundred and fifty eight million dollars, raising doubts
(04:31):
over the security of the world's most visited museum. So far,
no trace has been found of the stolen jewels, which
included diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie Louise,
jewels tied to nineteenth century Queens Marie, Emilie and Hortense,
and Empress Eugenie's pearl and diamond tiara. Just weeks after
denying rumours that she died, Hollywood Royalty Bridget Bardot has
(04:54):
been rushed to hospital in France. The ninety one year
old had recently been dealing with an undisclosed medical issue,
undergoing surgery back in October, but she was later discharged
to continue her recovery back at her home in sae Entrepey.
Now French publications are reporting she's been rushed back to
hospital and has spent the last ten days receiving treatment.
The actress had recently been forced to release a statement
(05:15):
after an influencer known as Aquababe posted she had confirmation
of the icon's death, writing she had confirmation that her
coffin had been ordered, but I wrote, I don't know
who the idiot is who started this fake news about
my disappearance, but know that I'm doing well and I
have no plan on taking my bow. A word to
the wise, That's what's happening in the world today. Next,
(05:35):
Pauline Hanson strikes again, but this time there are women
in Parliament willing to hold her accountable.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
She is disrespecting of faith. She is disrespecting the Muslims
out there, Muslim Australians. It's absolutely unconstitutional. This needs to
be dealt with immediately before we proceed. This is a
racist senator displaying.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Hop on that Senator Faruz, and it is.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You in the chest.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
That what we should not do in this place. Whatever
views we may have on policy is to be this
disrespectful of the Chamber and of people of faith, whatever
our own beliefs may be. The sort of disrespect that
you are engaging in now is not worthy of a
member of the Australian Senate and it should not be
allowed to stand.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That was the response from Senators Fatima Payman, Marine Feruki
and Penny Wong after Pauline Hanson entered the Senate this
week dressed in a burker. She had just been refused
permission to introduce a private member's bill to ban face
coverings and the burker in public. She walked in wearing
the covering, sat down at her seat, and then refused
to remove it. The Senate was suspended for ninety minutes
(06:52):
while they dealt with it, and Senator Hanson herself was
eventually suspended for the rest of the day.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Hanson framed it as a protest, calling the wearing of
the garment she called oppressive to draw attention to her
push for a nationwide burker due to her belief that
it's a national security risk. Pauline Hanson was officially censured
by the Senate and suspended for seven days, prompted by
a motion raised by Senator Penny Wong. Hanson stood and
called for a division of the motion, before standing up
(07:19):
and saying, cancel the division. The people will judge me.
She spoke on the censure, saying that she'd been denied
the right to have her voice, that the Senate chose
to shut her and the Australian people down by not
allowing her to move her bill on the floor the
day before. She eventually left the chamber, with some in
the public gallery applauding her exit. But if you're of
a certain age, you're probably feeling a bit like you've
(07:41):
seen this all before. And you're right. Hanson pulled this
exact same stunt back in August twenty seventeen, and she
made headlines for it then as she is now. But
last time there were no Muslim MPs or senators. This
time it's different. We caught up with Senator Fatima Payman yesterday,
less than twenty four hours after Senator Hanson's stunt. Senator,
(08:04):
were you aware when this happened that Pauline Hanson had
done this kind of thing before.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, Actually, back in twenty seventeen, I remember going to
the hospital where my dad was diagnosed with leukemia, and
I was visiting him and everyone's giving me weird stairs
and glares, and I'm getting whispers and somebody even said
something like, piss off back to where you came from.
Someone called me towelhead, and I was just like, what
(08:30):
is going on? And later that evening I saw the
news and I was like, oh, wow, okay, so this
had taken place in the Senate Chamber today, But never
had I imagined that Pauline Hanson would pull the same
trick out of the bag and do it again. Sort
of eight years later. I thought we'd moved past that,
but unfortunately, Yeah, it was quite disturbing, very disrespectful, and
(08:54):
you can imagine if this was done in any other workplace,
it would be quite confronting and HIV will be immediately
on top of making sure that it's a safe ENVIRNL
for everyone. It was just a horrible experience.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So you can attend from personal experience that stunts like
this have real world consequences for people.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Absolutely has a ripple effect. Wouldn't be surprised if there's
reports of young girls being attacked, or the rise of Islamophobia,
any form of phobia against another group of people should
never be tolerated, should never be something that we want
for our Australian way of life, and it's contradictory to
(09:38):
our Australian values. Like you know, we've got to have
that respect for each other. We can agree to disagree
in the chamber and that's the beauty of our democracy.
But it doesn't mean you ridiculo someone's religious garment or
use it as a stunt to whdge a divide in society.
It's just unbefitting of a senator.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
There's quite a few photos and video footage of the
moment doing the rounds on social media at the moment.
In quite a lot of them, you can be seen
in the background and I can see your face and
I'm torn between recognizing someone who's about to burst into
tears or someone who's about to scream with rage. It
felt like you were somewhere in between there. Would that
(10:20):
be accurate? Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Just simply disappointed and annoyed that this is how we're
spending our precious time in the Senate Chamber. I'm supposed
to be there representing the people of Western Australia. I'm
supposed to be debating on legislation, moving motions, holding the
government to account, not looking at this senator or a
(10:44):
colleague who wants to garner attention for her own political reasons,
the fact that she'd been partying in the US for
Halloween with Donald Trump and her billionaire friends, and then
she comes back and she does this sort of a
stunt and it's just disrespectful. It's like, it's unparliamentary. Australians
(11:05):
deserved better than this. We as senators need to do
justice to our roles, our responsibilities to the Australian people.
It's very concerning when senators make stunts like this and
perform really abhorrent acts, because then it emboldens the trolls
(11:25):
out there who will then NonStop call my office and
it's my staff, my underresourced office that will have to
then deal with that, and it's just not fair. It's
not a safe environment, it's not good for their mental health.
And look, I get it. As politicians where public facing figures,
women in public office get that. Sexism totally get it.
(11:47):
Women of color in office get that hatred. I get it.
Women of faith background or someone like me who wears
the hitjarb we get a bit worse. There are various
degrees of how harsh the hatred, the sexism, the some phobia,
the discrimination sort of grows exponentially as you have greater
(12:13):
intersectionality of your identity that you're expressing. Why are you
hating on the fact that I am a senator or
Western Australia just trying to do my job, you know,
for simply existing. They have an issue with that.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I want to get your take on this because there
are two different camps about how we should respond to
something like what Pauline Hanson did. And there is one
distinct camp, which is like, she did this for attention.
It made her headlines the first time she did it,
and so she knows that she does it again, it's
also going to get headlines, which is what she's ultimately
looking for in this situation. Then there are others, and
(12:48):
you know, several of your colleagues have spoken up since
the event and have said that this is something we
cannot ignore and we need to call it out in
the moment. Both of those sides make logical sense, but
they can't exist at the same time. What's your take
on that. Do we call it out? Do we ignore it?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I think we call it out to ensure that there's
timely action taken and that we send a strong message
to the general public to say this sort of behavior
is not accepted. It's not accepted acceptable in your workplaces,
it's not acceptable in our workplace here in Parliament House.
But I do agree that there's got to be a
(13:26):
fine balance of how much oxygen you give an attention
seeker like this. It's not prolonging that attention that she's seeking.
So if the government had acted swiftly after her motion
to introduce the bill to ban the burker was rejected
by the Senate, we have seen her pull stunts before.
(13:47):
The Government should have been ready and prepared for her
to pull another stunt. They should have been in the chamber.
They should have immediately suspended. There was a precedent set
back in twenty seventeen, so there was no room for
debate of like what do we do with her? You know,
this is an unusual situation. They should have just acted immediately.
Had it sorted, there would be no need to suspend
(14:10):
the Senate for two hours and it would be like,
you know, nothing to see this trick. The stunt has
been pulled before. We're just going to move on with
our day because we're not going to give it oxygen.
But instead, Pauline Hansen got her shots. She prolonged the
ruling to come from the President of the Senate, Sue Lines.
She got her shots, she got the attention she wanted,
(14:33):
and now everyone's talking about her. So I guess there
is a fine balance where you call the behavior out,
but you also make sure that your solution focused and
you're wanting to make sure that any scenario like this
in the future is mitigated and hopefully the government is
a lot quicker to act rather than just yeah, fallen
(14:55):
asleep at the wheel.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Just finally, Senator, I wanted to ask you your advice
on how to best support the Muslim community at a
time when something like this and where and you've said
that in the past, it just amps up the trolls
and the negative attention that people in your community are
already dealing with on a daily basis. Anyway, how do
we best support people through that?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Thank you for the question, and you know, amidst all
the trolls and the emails and the awful phone calls,
we do have the support and I want to thank
everyone out there. The decent, incredible Australians who are holding
onto our values and demonstrating makeship. And it's beautiful to
see so many messages of support on my social media,
(15:40):
through email or phone calls. So I think just checking
in on your neighbors, on your friends, not being a
passive bystander. If anything, you know you're out in public
and you see something take place, please step in. It's
not always natural for someone to defend themselves. People going
to fight or flight mode and they freeze sometimes, so
(16:03):
it's being a good ma keeping an eye out on
other citizens. Majority of Australians are incredible human beings and
they don't want to see the sort of behavior take
place in our Senate or in any other workplace. They
are sick and tired of Pauline Hanson and her stunts.
So what Pauline did yesterday is not reflective of majority
(16:27):
of Australians. So that gives me hope, and I know
that not all is doom and gloom to everyone out
there who wants to help out. Yeah, just be as
supportive as you can and keep doing the amazing, amazing
work that everyone's doing in this space. We have a
lot more in common than different and we need to
uphold those Australian values of fairness and justice and matship
(16:51):
and I have hope that we will continue growing as
a society.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thanks for taking the time to feed your mind with
us today. Remember if there is a new story like
us to cover in more depth, then give us the
heads up by email The Quickie at mmamea dot com
dot au. And if you've got a second, rate and
review us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks a bunch.
The Quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy and Group
Executive Producer Alaria Brophy, with audio production by lou Hill.
(17:20):
Momma MEA acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on
You're listening to a Mumma mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mummamy's twice daily news podcast,
The Quickie. On Monday, Senator Pauline Hanson pulled out and
brushed off a stunt that she'd first pulled in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I intend to ask Senator Hanson to remove herself from
the chamber and remove the clothing and come back dressed
appropriately or risk suspension. She entered the Senate wearing a
burker not long after her bill to banned women from
wearing it in public spaces was unsuccessful. Hanson was suspended
(00:45):
from the Senate as a result. While some say we
should ignore the stunt and not give it the air
hands and was hoping to achieve, others say the impacts
it has on the Muslim community in Australia meansic cannot
be ignored.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Before we get into that, here's the latest from the
Quoikie newsroom, Wednesday, November twenty six. A luxury wilderness resort
that took a direct hit from tropical cyclone Fear has
been partially destroyed, but two caretakers who were sheltering in
an underground bunker escaped unharmed. The cyclone, which rampaged across
the Northern Territory all but flattened the Berkeley River Lodge
as across the Western Australian Coast on Monday night as
(01:20):
a Category three system. The Department of Fire and Emergency
Services says they'll evacuate the caretakers, who are among only
four people in the cyclone warning area when it crossed
the coast when it's safe to do so. FIENA has
since been downgraded from a category one system to a
tropical low as at tracks southwest through Wway's north on
Tuesday afternoon WA time. It was located around one hundred
(01:42):
and fifteen kilometers northwest of the town of Windham. A
severe weather warning has been issued in the region for
heavy rainfall, flash flooding and large tides and waves. Wind
gusts of up to eighty five kilometers an hour and
six hourly rainfall totals of up to two hundred millimeters
a possible In the NT, where power was cut to
about seventeen thousand homes and properties. Eighty five percent of
(02:04):
customers have been reaginn and work continues to restore the
remaining three thousand that remain without it. The Anti government
has also announced it will make a two hundred and
fifty dollars disaster recovery hardship payment available to those impacted
by the cyclone. Meanwhile, a catastrophe has also been declared
after dangerous superstorms swept the country's east coast, leaving thousands
(02:25):
without power and inundating insurers with damage claims. Severe thunderstorms
hammered northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland on Monday,
dropping giant baseball signed hail in the worst affected areas.
The Insurance Council of Australia received more than sixteen thousand
claims across more than one hundred and forty postcodes on Tuesday,
with a damage bill yet to be tallied. The coroner
(02:47):
has heard how a young, inexperienced ground crew member gave
the thumbs up for takeoff less than a minute before
a twenty twenty three fatal mid air helicopter collision. Four
people died when two helicopters collided outside the SeaWorld theme
park on the Gold Coast. Grace Hickey, testifying that she
was previously employed by the company that operated the tourist Joyflights,
(03:07):
Her responsibilities included ticket sales and fitting passengers with life
jackets and seat belts when they entered the helicopters. Miss
Hiki had no prior work experience at a helipad, but
had a certificate in aviation ground handling. She was told
to give a whole signal if there were boats nearby,
all the companies on helicopters or those from other companies.
She told the court that on this day she didn't
(03:29):
see anything, so she thumbed up it was good to go.
About twenty five seconds after pilot Ashley Jenkinson took off
having been given the thumbs up from Miss Hickey, his
aircraft collided with another SeaWorld helicopter. His aircraft fell from
about forty meters above the water before crashing on a
sandbar and rolling onto its roof. Mister Jenkinson died, as
(03:50):
well as passengers British newlyweds Ronald and Diane Hughes and
Sidney mother Vanessa Tadros. The pilot of the second helicopter,
Michael James, managed an emergency landing on the same sandbar.
Misshiki broke down in tears as she left the stand
after giving evidence, saying spent a lot of time blaming
herself for the crash. French police have arrested four more
(04:10):
people in connection to the Louver jewel heist last month.
The suspects are two men aged thirty eight and thirty
nine and two women aged thirty one and forty. Police
have yet to release the details on how they suspect
these people played a role in the brazen daylight robbery.
On October nineteen four Thiegues made off with jewels worth
Australian one hundred and fifty eight million dollars, raising doubts
(04:31):
over the security of the world's most visited museum. So far,
no trace has been found of the stolen jewels, which
included diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie Louise,
jewels tied to nineteenth century Queens Marie, Emilie and Hortense,
and Empress Eugenie's pearl and diamond tiara. Just weeks after
denying rumours that she died, Hollywood Royalty Bridget Bardot has
(04:54):
been rushed to hospital in France. The ninety one year
old had recently been dealing with an undisclosed medical issue,
undergoing surgery back in October, but she was later discharged
to continue her recovery back at her home in sae Entrepey.
Now French publications are reporting she's been rushed back to
hospital and has spent the last ten days receiving treatment.
The actress had recently been forced to release a statement
(05:15):
after an influencer known as Aquababe posted she had confirmation
of the icon's death, writing she had confirmation that her
coffin had been ordered, but I wrote, I don't know
who the idiot is who started this fake news about
my disappearance, but know that I'm doing well and I
have no plan on taking my bow. A word to
the wise, That's what's happening in the world today. Next,
(05:35):
Pauline Hanson strikes again, but this time there are women
in Parliament willing to hold her accountable.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
She is disrespecting of faith. She is disrespecting the Muslims
out there, Muslim Australians. It's absolutely unconstitutional. This needs to
be dealt with immediately before we proceed. This is a
racist senator displaying.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Hop on that Senator Faruz, and it is.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You in the chest.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
That what we should not do in this place. Whatever
views we may have on policy is to be this
disrespectful of the Chamber and of people of faith, whatever
our own beliefs may be. The sort of disrespect that
you are engaging in now is not worthy of a
member of the Australian Senate and it should not be
allowed to stand.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That was the response from Senators Fatima Payman, Marine Feruki
and Penny Wong after Pauline Hanson entered the Senate this
week dressed in a burker. She had just been refused
permission to introduce a private member's bill to ban face
coverings and the burker in public. She walked in wearing
the covering, sat down at her seat, and then refused
to remove it. The Senate was suspended for ninety minutes
(06:52):
while they dealt with it, and Senator Hanson herself was
eventually suspended for the rest of the day.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Hanson framed it as a protest, calling the wearing of
the garment she called oppressive to draw attention to her
push for a nationwide burker due to her belief that
it's a national security risk. Pauline Hanson was officially censured
by the Senate and suspended for seven days, prompted by
a motion raised by Senator Penny Wong. Hanson stood and
called for a division of the motion, before standing up
(07:19):
and saying, cancel the division. The people will judge me.
She spoke on the censure, saying that she'd been denied
the right to have her voice, that the Senate chose
to shut her and the Australian people down by not
allowing her to move her bill on the floor the
day before. She eventually left the chamber, with some in
the public gallery applauding her exit. But if you're of
a certain age, you're probably feeling a bit like you've
(07:41):
seen this all before. And you're right. Hanson pulled this
exact same stunt back in August twenty seventeen, and she
made headlines for it then as she is now. But
last time there were no Muslim MPs or senators. This
time it's different. We caught up with Senator Fatima Payman yesterday,
less than twenty four hours after Senator Hanson's stunt. Senator,
(08:04):
were you aware when this happened that Pauline Hanson had
done this kind of thing before.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, Actually, back in twenty seventeen, I remember going to
the hospital where my dad was diagnosed with leukemia, and
I was visiting him and everyone's giving me weird stairs
and glares, and I'm getting whispers and somebody even said
something like, piss off back to where you came from.
Someone called me towelhead, and I was just like, what
(08:30):
is going on? And later that evening I saw the
news and I was like, oh, wow, okay, so this
had taken place in the Senate Chamber today, But never
had I imagined that Pauline Hanson would pull the same
trick out of the bag and do it again. Sort
of eight years later. I thought we'd moved past that,
but unfortunately, Yeah, it was quite disturbing, very disrespectful, and
(08:54):
you can imagine if this was done in any other workplace,
it would be quite confronting and HIV will be immediately
on top of making sure that it's a safe ENVIRNL
for everyone. It was just a horrible experience.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So you can attend from personal experience that stunts like
this have real world consequences for people.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Absolutely has a ripple effect. Wouldn't be surprised if there's
reports of young girls being attacked, or the rise of Islamophobia,
any form of phobia against another group of people should
never be tolerated, should never be something that we want
for our Australian way of life, and it's contradictory to
(09:38):
our Australian values. Like you know, we've got to have
that respect for each other. We can agree to disagree
in the chamber and that's the beauty of our democracy.
But it doesn't mean you ridiculo someone's religious garment or
use it as a stunt to whdge a divide in society.
It's just unbefitting of a senator.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
There's quite a few photos and video footage of the
moment doing the rounds on social media at the moment.
In quite a lot of them, you can be seen
in the background and I can see your face and
I'm torn between recognizing someone who's about to burst into
tears or someone who's about to scream with rage. It
felt like you were somewhere in between there. Would that
(10:20):
be accurate? Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Just simply disappointed and annoyed that this is how we're
spending our precious time in the Senate Chamber. I'm supposed
to be there representing the people of Western Australia. I'm
supposed to be debating on legislation, moving motions, holding the
government to account, not looking at this senator or a
(10:44):
colleague who wants to garner attention for her own political reasons,
the fact that she'd been partying in the US for
Halloween with Donald Trump and her billionaire friends, and then
she comes back and she does this sort of a
stunt and it's just disrespectful. It's like, it's unparliamentary. Australians
(11:05):
deserved better than this. We as senators need to do
justice to our roles, our responsibilities to the Australian people.
It's very concerning when senators make stunts like this and
perform really abhorrent acts, because then it emboldens the trolls
(11:25):
out there who will then NonStop call my office and
it's my staff, my underresourced office that will have to
then deal with that, and it's just not fair. It's
not a safe environment, it's not good for their mental health.
And look, I get it. As politicians where public facing figures,
women in public office get that. Sexism totally get it.
(11:47):
Women of color in office get that hatred. I get it.
Women of faith background or someone like me who wears
the hitjarb we get a bit worse. There are various
degrees of how harsh the hatred, the sexism, the some phobia,
the discrimination sort of grows exponentially as you have greater
(12:13):
intersectionality of your identity that you're expressing. Why are you
hating on the fact that I am a senator or
Western Australia just trying to do my job, you know,
for simply existing. They have an issue with that.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I want to get your take on this because there
are two different camps about how we should respond to
something like what Pauline Hanson did. And there is one
distinct camp, which is like, she did this for attention.
It made her headlines the first time she did it,
and so she knows that she does it again, it's
also going to get headlines, which is what she's ultimately
looking for in this situation. Then there are others, and
(12:48):
you know, several of your colleagues have spoken up since
the event and have said that this is something we
cannot ignore and we need to call it out in
the moment. Both of those sides make logical sense, but
they can't exist at the same time. What's your take
on that. Do we call it out? Do we ignore it?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I think we call it out to ensure that there's
timely action taken and that we send a strong message
to the general public to say this sort of behavior
is not accepted. It's not accepted acceptable in your workplaces,
it's not acceptable in our workplace here in Parliament House.
But I do agree that there's got to be a
(13:26):
fine balance of how much oxygen you give an attention
seeker like this. It's not prolonging that attention that she's seeking.
So if the government had acted swiftly after her motion
to introduce the bill to ban the burker was rejected
by the Senate, we have seen her pull stunts before.
(13:47):
The Government should have been ready and prepared for her
to pull another stunt. They should have been in the chamber.
They should have immediately suspended. There was a precedent set
back in twenty seventeen, so there was no room for
debate of like what do we do with her? You know,
this is an unusual situation. They should have just acted immediately.
Had it sorted, there would be no need to suspend
(14:10):
the Senate for two hours and it would be like,
you know, nothing to see this trick. The stunt has
been pulled before. We're just going to move on with
our day because we're not going to give it oxygen.
But instead, Pauline Hansen got her shots. She prolonged the
ruling to come from the President of the Senate, Sue Lines.
She got her shots, she got the attention she wanted,
(14:33):
and now everyone's talking about her. So I guess there
is a fine balance where you call the behavior out,
but you also make sure that your solution focused and
you're wanting to make sure that any scenario like this
in the future is mitigated and hopefully the government is
a lot quicker to act rather than just yeah, fallen
(14:55):
asleep at the wheel.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Just finally, Senator, I wanted to ask you your advice
on how to best support the Muslim community at a
time when something like this and where and you've said
that in the past, it just amps up the trolls
and the negative attention that people in your community are
already dealing with on a daily basis. Anyway, how do
we best support people through that?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Thank you for the question, and you know, amidst all
the trolls and the emails and the awful phone calls,
we do have the support and I want to thank
everyone out there. The decent, incredible Australians who are holding
onto our values and demonstrating makeship. And it's beautiful to
see so many messages of support on my social media,
(15:40):
through email or phone calls. So I think just checking
in on your neighbors, on your friends, not being a
passive bystander. If anything, you know you're out in public
and you see something take place, please step in. It's
not always natural for someone to defend themselves. People going
to fight or flight mode and they freeze sometimes, so
(16:03):
it's being a good ma keeping an eye out on
other citizens. Majority of Australians are incredible human beings and
they don't want to see the sort of behavior take
place in our Senate or in any other workplace. They
are sick and tired of Pauline Hanson and her stunts.
So what Pauline did yesterday is not reflective of majority
(16:27):
of Australians. So that gives me hope, and I know
that not all is doom and gloom to everyone out
there who wants to help out. Yeah, just be as
supportive as you can and keep doing the amazing, amazing
work that everyone's doing in this space. We have a
lot more in common than different and we need to
uphold those Australian values of fairness and justice and matship
(16:51):
and I have hope that we will continue growing as
a society.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thanks for taking the time to feed your mind with
us today. Remember if there is a new story like
us to cover in more depth, then give us the
heads up by email The Quickie at mmamea dot com
dot au. And if you've got a second, rate and
review us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks a bunch.
The Quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy and Group
Executive Producer Alaria Brophy, with audio production by lou Hill.
(17:20):
Momma MEA acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on
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