Hanson 'sick of Muslims'
The Age (Melbourne)
August 16, 2007 – 9:48AM
Senate candidate Pauline Hanson has urged federal parliament to hold a moratorium on the number of Muslims entering Australia.
The right-wing former One Nation leader is seeking to register Pauline's United Australia Party in her bid for a political comeback by winning a Queensland senate seat in the upcoming federal election.
The 53-year-old former fish and chip shop owner, who won international notoriety during her brief spell as the independent MP for Oxley in the late 1990s, says she will targeting Muslims in her campaign.
“I want a moratorium put on the number of Muslims coming into Australia,” Ms Hanson told the Nine network.
“People have a right to be very concerned about this because of the terrorist attacks that have happened throughout the world.
“I'm sick of these people coming out here and saying that our girls are like the meat market and the bible that is urinated on … am I supposed to be tolerant?”
But Ms Hanson said she would have the support of Muslim women if they knew how oppressed they were.
“I think that if Muslim women realise how they have been treated I probably would get a lot of support,” she said.
“Maybe we should look at the female genital mutilation that happens to young girls in this country … if people want to live by these ways then go back to the Muslim countries.”
Ms Hanson said immigration was not her only concern and she would campaign on other issues such as the privatisation of water.
She said many of the issues raised in her maiden speech to parliament in September 1996 had been adopted by the Howard government.
“Don't just say I'm simplistic and I don't know what I'm talking about. They said the same about the Aboriginal issue but the prime minister actually abolished ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) and that was in my maiden speech.”
Ms Hanson believes her campaign is winning strong support among the people of Queensland.
“I wouldn't say I've got no chance … I've travelled around Queensland quite extensively over the past six months. There is tremendous support from people.”
“They are wanting someone else to vote for … so they are looking at me.”
Ms Hanson was elected to parliament as an independent MP for the Queensland seat of Oxley at the 1996 election after being disendorsed as a Liberal candidate because of her strong views on race and immigration.
She failed to win the neighbouring seat of Blair in 1998, a senate seat in 2004 and a position in the NSW upper house in 2003.
AAP
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