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Australia’s race discrimination commissioner has called on Pauline Hanson to apologise for inflammatory comments about Australian Muslims, amid backlash to comments denounced by others as “reprehensible”.
Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said Hanson was targeting Muslims with her increasingly inflammatory comments, joining condemnation from across the political spectrum.
“I hesitate to respond to remarks like these because doing so risks giving further oxygen to sentiments that should have no place in our public debate,” he said.
“But comments that single out and diminish any community have real and lasting impacts.
“Australia’s Muslim communities - like all our communities - deserve to feel safe, respected and included. Public figures have a responsibility to elevate our national conversation, not inflame tensions, divide us or undermine the dignity of others.”
Hanson was on Sky News on Monday night, discussing the thwarted attempts by Australian women and children stuck in Syria to return home.
She accused the group of hating westerners, saying: “You say, ‘Well, there’s good Muslims out there.’ How can you tell me there are good Muslims?” she said.
Sivaraman said Hanson should withdraw the remarks and apologise.
Outspoken Nationals senator Matt Canavan said in response that Hanson was unfit to lead a political party.
Speaking on Channel 9 on Wednesday morning, Canavan called remarks by his fellow Queensland senator “totally un-Australian”.
“This statement from Pauline was divisive, inflammatory,” he said. “Totally un-Australian, for someone to say that of all those Australians who are Muslim, there’s no good people among them.
“Clearly, I think she went too far, and now she won’t apologise because she doesn’t do that,” Canavan said.
“She’s not fit to lead a major political party with these types of ill-disciplined statements that she won’t correct that insult hundreds of thousands of Australians.”
On ABC radio, Hanson walked back some of the comments on Wednesdayoffering a conditional apology if she “offended anyone out there that doesn’t believe in sharia law, or multiple marriages, or wants to bring ISIS brides in, or people from Gaza that believe in a caliphate”.
But she said: “I am not going to apologise … I will have my say now before it’s too late.”
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, called Hanson’s comments a “racist intervention”.
“I want to make it clear that New South Wales is full of wonderful, great Australians of Muslim faith who care about our country, are a big part of its future and have contributed enormously to our place and standing today.”
Bilal El-Hayek, the mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown council, which includes the Lakemba Mosque, told 2GB radio Hanson was making “another attempt to be divisive and inflame a situation”.
“At the moment, when we need to come together, it’s a shame to see people playing politics,” he said.
“In reality, in Canterbury-Bankstown, we’re a multicultural, multi-faith community. We all get along, no matter your background, no matter your faith.”
Asked about the comments on Tuesday, new opposition leader Angus Taylor defended the Muslim community but did not criticise Hanson directly.
“I know many good Muslims,” he said. “They’re in my electorate. I’ve got many.”
Asked if Hanson was guilty of racism on Tuesday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told ABC radio she always promoted “division.”
“Pauline Hanson is someone who never comes up with any solutions, just identifies and promotes grievance,” he said.
“It certainly is prejudice. And it is division that doesn’t provide any solutions. All that it does is pit Australian against Australian.”
Hanson is challenging a court finding that she engaged in racial discrimination toward the Greens senator, Mehreen Faruqi, when the party’s deputy leader criticised the British Empire at following Queen Elizabeth’s death.
“When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country,” Hanson wrote on social media. “It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.”
Addressing media outside court after the win, Faruqi said the finding sent “a strong message to racists that they will be held accountable” and made clear that “hate speech is not free speech”.
Hanson has previously been criticised for demeaning Muslims when she wore a burqa in the Senate chamber last year. She was suspended from the chamber for seven days.
Her firebrand 1996 maiden speech supercharged race as an issue in federal politics, when she claimed Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians”.
