Anning seeks his own party
FORMER Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party member Fraser Anning is seeking to create his own political party.
The Queensland senator is currently an independent after first defecting from One Nation and later being dumped by KAP for using the phrases “European” and “non- European” in a bill proposing a plebiscite on immigration to Australia.
With a federal election at the most six months away, Senator Anning said he had applied to register the “Fraser Anning Conservative Nationals” party with the Australian Electoral Commission.
“You have to be a member of a party to get above the line on the Senate voting ticket,” he said. “I have put in the registration forms, paid the fees, to form my own party.”
Senator Anning said it would be “tough” for him to get re- elected as he was not very well known.
“I’ve had quite a lot of people indicate their interest in running for me in the Senate and in some Lower House seats,” he said.
Senator Anning’s office is in Brisbane but he has been travelling around regional and remote Queensland between sitting weeks in Parliament.
“I am just listening to people,” he said. “And immi- gration is one of the main issues I am hearing about.”
Senator Anning has been widely condemned by his political opponents who say his comments about Muslims and other migrant groups are “racist”. Members of the LNP, Labor, Greens and One Nation criticised Senator Anning’s maiden speech in Parliament during which he called for an effective return to a White Australia and a “final solution” to the immigration problem through a popular vote.
“People are deluded if they think Islam is not at war with us,” he said. “They are infiltrating our institutions.”
Senator Anning said he believed the KAP kicked him out of the party because leader Bob Katter had “gone soft” on the issue of migration.
“He went from being 100 per cent behind what I said ( in my maiden speech) to against even though I had said nothing different on my Muslim immigration stance,” he said.