Outrage in Australia over politician's "final solution" remarks

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"We as a nation are entitled to insist that those who are allowed to come here predominantly reflect the historic European-Christian composition of Australian society," the Katter’s Australian Party upper house MP said.

The party is a tiny minority at federal parliamentary level, with one member each in the federal House of Representatives and in the Senate, and three members in the Queensland state parliament.

Wikipedia describes the party’s positions as right-wing populism, Australian nationalism, social conservatism, economic nationalism, agrarianism and protectionism, and its social position as right-wing to far-right.

At its website the party states that “Australia needs to increase its population to achieve acceptable levels of economic, scientific, strategic and personal development. Government must develop immigration and birth rate policies consistent with these principles. In addition, the population growth needs to be distributed widely throughout Australia and especially into northern Australia.”

Fraser Anning, formerly of the far-right Pauline Hanson One Nation party, and now a member of the Katter’s Australia party, used his maiden speech in the Senate to call for “a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly whether they want any Muslims”.

Across party lines, including even the ultra-nationalist, Pailine Hanson, Anning’s comments were widely condemned.

Anning had also invoked the former White Australia policy, suggesting Australians may want “to return to the predominately European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus”. The White Australia policy, which restricted non-European immigration, ran from 1901 until it began to be dismantled in the late 1960s.

Yet Senators shook hands with Anning after his speech – see video.

Anning did a round of interviews claiming the use of the term “final solution” – used by the Nazi regime to describe a genocidal policy of exterminating Jewish people – was inadvertent but refused to apologise because he claimed the outrage was solely coming from political opponents.

But while he was roundly condemned in Canberra, Anning’s running mate, Bob Katter, backed the senator. “His speech was absolutely magnificent. It is everything that this country should be doing,” Katter told reporters in Cairns.

Anning claimed the speech had been taken “completely out of context” and his remarks had “nothing to do with” the Nazi party’s Final Solution.

Australia’s outgoing race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, has recently declared that “race politics is back” in Australia.

Opposition Labor has called for a parliamentary racial code of ethics to help counter the rise of rightwing nationalism and the One Nation party.

A trade union leader, Luke Hilakari demanded that Anning quit his Senate seat and offers a site for joining the protest.

“The mighty union movement is comprised of workers from all walks of life, united across race and religion. We’re a movement built on respect, care and unbreakable solidarity. We welcome everyone except Nazis,” he writes.

“Nazis on the news, Nazis organising speaking tours, Nazis hiding in suburban gyms, Nazi hate speech in the Senate. They can f--k right off.”

“If you stoke division in our community to distract us while you destroy our jobs, defund our schools and hospitals and hand the wealth we create over to big business, be prepared for a big fight. We’re not stupid, and we see what you’re doing.”