Queensland crossbench senator Fraser Anning has laid out a radical immigration agenda, calling for a “final solution” plebiscite on which migrants come to Australia.
The Katter’s Australia Party upper house MP called for an end to Muslim immigration and a program that favours “European Christian” values.
In his maiden speech to parliament on Tuesday, he claimed a majority of Australian Muslims live on welfare and do not work.
Fraser Anning and Bob Katter in June.
“While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims,” Senator Anning said.
“So why would anyone want to bring more of them here?”
He called for the government to ban all welfare payments to migrants in the first five years of living in Australia, labelling many asylum seekers as “welfare seekers”.
Senator Anning also wants a plebiscite on who comes to the country to allow people to decide whether they want “wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world”.
“The final solution to the immigration problem is of course a popular vote,” he said.
The final solution to the immigration problem is of course a popular vote
Fraser Anning
The newly minted senator has been slammed for his comments, with the Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane calling it “disturbing”.
“This is a deeply disturbing intervention. The use of such language risks inciting the most serious kind of hatred and violence against Muslims,” he said.
“Anyone who knows a thing about history will have felt a shiver up their spine upon learning of Fraser Anning’s words.”
Race Discrimination Commissioner Dr Tim Soutphommasane.
AAP
Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said the use of the term ‘final solution”, which has been historically associated with the Nazi plan in World War II for killing millions of Jews, was “utterly unacceptable”.
“You don’t use that term. That is an unacceptable use of the term,” he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.
“It has connotations and meanings to history which it are deeply offensive to right-thinking people, not only in Australia but across the world.”
While vice president of the Islamic Council of Victoria Adel Salman told SBS News the speech will “live in infamy”.
“His use of the description ‘final solution’, surely he knows that has a very, very sinister connotation to it and for him to actually use that in a speech – in any forum – is quite hard to understand,” Mr Salman said.
He said the words constituted hate speech and may embolden others with “extreme” views.
“I would like to think that his speech will receive nothing but condemnation, complete condemnation.”
Senator Anning also said Australia was entitled to insist migrants were predominantly of the “historic European Christian composition”.
“Ethno-cultural diversity – which is known to undermine social cohesion – has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs,” the Queensland senator said.
“In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner-urban areas, has become the norm.”
Senator Anning called for a cultural counter-revolution to restore traditional values and redefine national identity.
He said anyone persuaded to advocate the “false claim” there was an infinite number of genders had surrendered their political soul.
“To describe the so-called safe schools and gender fluidity garbage being peddled in schools as cultural Marxism is not a throwaway line, but a literal truth,” Senator Anning said.
The 68-year-old outlined plans to boost agriculture through re-establishing rural state banks and re-establishment of marketing of farm goods through grower co-operatives.
Other issues he noted were countering the growing threat of China, slashing government spending, building coal-fired power plants and taking back culture from left-wing extremists.
Senator Anning said Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland premier was the state’s “golden age”.
