3 hours Ago By David Crowe
Independent senator Fatima Payman has launched a furious attack on fellow senator Pauline Hanson by accusing the One Nation leader of racism, halting Senate business for the debate and bringing Labor and the Coalition together to try to stop the crossbench dispute. Hanson was seeking to table documents in the Senate on Wednesday morning questioning Payman’s eligibility to be an MP when the West Australian independent and the Greens moved to stop her, igniting an acrimonious debate and forcing a vote that led Labor and the Coalition to side with Hanson. “You’re not just vindictive, mean, nasty.
You bring disgrace to the human race,” Payman told Hanson in the Senate. “I kept on giving you the benefit of the doubt, Senator Hanson, despite your repetitive attempts to be racist to anyone who does not look like you. Victorian independent senator Lidia Thorpe backed Payman and called Hanson a “racist” as she appeared to throw throw papers at the One Nation leader in an extraordinary moment of direct confrontation between crossbench senators.
Hanson asked for Payman to be asked to withdraw her remarks because it is in breach of the standing orders of the Senate for those in the chamber to call each other racist.“I want these comments about calling me a racist withdrawn,” Hanson said, without responding further to Payman’s comments. The argument triggered a vote on whether to allow Hanson to table the documents, forcing the major parties to decide where they stood on the crossbench dispute.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe throws papers towards One Nation senator Pauline Hanson, as independent senator Fatima Payman watches on. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Hanson won the vote to allow her to table the documents after Labor, the Coalition and independent senator Jacqui Lambie gave her support to do so. The Greens and Thorpe sided with Payman, who quit the Labor Party in July and now sits as an independent.
But when Payman agreed to withdraw calling Hanson a racist, she let fly with another personal attack against the One Nation leader, who infamously wore a burqa into the Senate in 2017, angering Muslim Australians who saw this as offensive. “I will withdraw, but you know what? Senator Hanson, how do you live with yourself?” Payman said. “Senator Hanson, with so much violent hatred, how do you live through your days spreading hatred? How do you go to sleep? How do you look your neighbours in the eye, knowing that you come to this place and spreading the vile hatred, the vile comments that you make? It’s disgraceful.
It’s disgusting.” Liberal frontbencher Anne Ruston stepped in to calm the debate by saying Hanson had followed the proper process in the upper house, indicating the Coalition would support her if the matter came to a vote. A furious Senator Fatima Payman watches as Senator Pauline Hanson speaks about the WA senator’s eligibility to be in Parliament.
Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who manages the government’s business in the chamber, also backed Hanson on the grounds that it was fair to give all senators the right to table documents under the standard process. “The point is Senator Hanson approached people in this chamber a couple of days ago, which is the traditional way and the customary practice in this place,” Gallagher said. The finance minister said Hanson had notified the Senate president, Labor Senator Sue Lines, about her intentions and it was wrong for the Greens to try to block the move, blaming them for triggering the angry argument.
“That does not mean in any way we support what Senator Hanson has been corresponding with the president and the Senate, but she does have a right to table information relating to that,” Gallagher said. “By the Greens denying leave, you have provided for a 30 minute, you know, very destructive debate in this place that didn’t need to happen.” Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis.
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