'Cya later racist': Australian far-right senator suspended over burqa stunt
Her fellow senators branded the move as "racist" and "unconstitutional" with calls for her to be "pulled up" on it
The leader of the far-right Australian One Nation party has been branded "racist" after she wore a burqa to the Senate during an attempt to ban face coverings.
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Controversial politician Pauline Hanson was blocked by Australian lawmakers from introducing a bill that would seek to ban the burqa and other face coverings.
Chaos erupted just a few minutes later, when the 71-year-old returned to the chamber wearing a black burqa.
Her fellow senators branded the move as "racist" and "unconstitutional" with calls for her to be "pulled up" on it.
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Independent senator Fatima Payman said: "She is disrespecting a faith, she is disrespecting the Muslims out there, Muslim Australians.
"It's absolutely unconstitutional. This needs to be dealt with immediately before we proceed."
Meanwhile, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi added: "This is a racist senator displaying blatant racism and Islamophobia, President, and someone should be pulling her up on that."
Ms Hanson has vowed to wear the burqa until it is banned in the latest move in her long-running campaign to see the item of clothing banned.
Senators voted to suspend her from the Senate and she was ordered to return when she had changed into "appropriate" clothing.
The Senate was suspended shortly after she was ordered to leave.
Ms Hanson took to social media to criticise her fellow senators and reiterate her calls for it to be banned.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: "I would say this to you … All of us in this place have a great privilege of coming into this chamber and we represent people of every faith, of all backgrounds, and we should do so decently.
"And what we should not do in this place is to be disrespectful of the chamber and of people of faiths."
This is not the first controversial stunt Ms Hanson has pulled during her political career.
She first wore the burqa in the Senate chambers in 2017 as part of her campaign to see it banned in Australia.
In 2018, she proposed an 'It's okay to be white' motion to acknowledge "anti-white racism and attacks on western civilisation".
She campaigned against a ban on climbing Uluru, a sacred Aboroginal site, by climbing the rock for a Channel Nine show in 2019.
"Today I wore a burqa into the Senate after One Nation's bill to ban the burqa and face coverings in public was blocked from even being introduced," Ms Hanson wrote on social media.
"The usual hypocrites had an absolute freak out.
"The fact is more than 20 countries around the world have banned the Burqa because they recognise it as a tool that oppresses women, poses a national security risk, encourages radical islam and threatens social cohesion.
"If these hypocrites don't want me to wear a burqa, they can always support my ban."