Politics

Turnbull and Shorten unite to condemn controversial Fraser Anning speech

In a rare form of unity, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have joined forces to condemn comments made by Fraser Anning. Source: Nine News

While politicians are usually at each other’s heads during parliament, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, opposition leader Bill Shorten and all sides of politics have united to condemn comments made by senator Fraser Anning during a speech he gave on Tuesday evening.

Fraser Anning, who is a member of Katter’s Australia party and former member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, used his first speech in parliament to call for Australia to return to a “European Christian” immigration system. He also used the term “the final solution” during his speech, a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the mass killing of Jewish people.

Shortly after the comments were made, both Turnbull and Shorten, as well as an array of other politicians, took to Twitter to condemn them.

Read more: Katter senator condemned for using Nazi term in speech about muslim immigration

“The disgraceful and divisive comments by Senator Anning yesterday were a low point for our parliament,” Shorten said.

Meanwhile, the PM said racism has no place in Australia.

“Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world built on a foundation of mutual respect,” he tweeted. “We reject and condemn racism in any form.”

In a powerful stance on Wednesday, Shorten and Turnbull shook hands across the table, as they agreed that it was important to call out racism.

“We need to stand up for what we are. A free society, united by democratic values that do not distinguish between race, religion colour, or cultural background,” Turnbull said. “We should condemn, as we have, racism and discrimination of the kind so regrettably, so shamefully expressed by senator Anning.”

Shorten said parliament couldn’t remain silent when it comes to racism.

“We have to call it out and we must condemn it,” he said. “It is time for the parliament to once again draw a line, to say, no more racism, no more crossing the street, no more turning a blind eye.”

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson also spoke out about Anning’s comments.

“Today I spoke out against the maiden speech of Fraser Anning including his comments calling for a ‘final solution’ to Australia’s immigration problem,” she said on Facebook. “I have always said Australia is a multi-racial nation and that you do not have to be white to be Australian.”

She also explained that One Nation’s immigration and population policies give no regard to race. Instead, she said, they’re developed to address issues surrounding rapid population growth, social cohesion in communities and underdeveloped infrastructure in cities and regional communities.

Meanwhile, Bob Katter is standing by Anning’s comments, saying he supports them “absolutely 1,000 per cent”.

“I support everything he said,” Katter told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

In a post on the Katter’s Australian Party page, the party said Anning was “under attack for speaking the truth” and that he needed support so he could “fulfil his promise to reduce immigration levels and take back Australia from the extremists”.

Anning called for a plebiscite to allow Australians to decide whether they want non-English speaking immigrants from the third-world and whether they want Muslims to enter the country. He also said Australia should return to the predominately European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus and made horrific claims about Muslim Australians.  In the past, a White Australia policy restricted non-European immigration in Australia from 1901 to the late ‘60s.

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