Pauline Hanson speech: by walking out, the Greens gave the senator exactly what she craves

 

• Tony Wright

   
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• Twenty years ago, it was Asians.
  Now, without blushing, Pauline Hanson stands in the Senate and declares "we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims".
• This seems, among other things, premature.
  The 2011 census - the last to issue its findings - showed Muslims made up 2.2 per cent of Australia's population, or 476,291 people.

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  • Hanson delivers fiery maiden speech
  There were more Australians professing they were Buddhists.
  Members of the Greens stood and stalked out at Senator Hanson's diatribe about Muslims and their plans for taking over the nation.Hanson figured that was dandy. She smiled. And so she might, for the Greens' public dudgeon demonstrated they were taking her seriously, thus granting her power she had not earned.
  Hanson, in giving her first Senate speech, was introduced on Wednesday evening by one of her fellow One Nation Senators, Malcolm Roberts.

  

  Senator Hanson's speech prompted a walkout in the Senate. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

  Senator Roberts gave his first speech 24 hours previously. It was a stream of conspiracy theory and paranoid nonsense. His assertion that global warming could not occur was particularly arresting.
  "It is basic," Roberts declared. "The sun warms the earth's surface. The surface, by contact, warms the moving, circulating atmosphere. That means the atmosphere cools the surface. How then can the atmosphere warm it? It cannot. That is why their computer models are wrong."
  Now, Roberts' party leader claims, Australia is in danger of being swamped by Muslims.
  The truth is, Australia is in danger of being swamped by mindlessness if the likes of Hanson and Roberts are to be treated seriously.

  
  

  Their fellow senators don't need to give them the satisfaction of walking out on them. The Senate is a place of debate.
  Better to wear them down with argument. And facts. Here's a fact. One Nation got 593,000 votes at the election. That's almost 120,000 more than Australia's entire population of Muslims.
  So who should fear whom?
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• http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/pauline-hanson-speech-by-walking-out-the-greens-gave-the-senator-exactly-what-she-craves-20160914-grge5h.html