On the wrong side of history

While race and religion have a long and complicated history in Australian politics, Senator Fraser Anning’s maiden speech was so clumsily racist that all politicians could unite in condemning it. Unfortunately, the debate is far from over.

Anning, who came to parliament last year for One Nation then defected to Bob Katter’s Australia Party, crossed the line most clearly with his proposal for a ‘‘final solution’’ to the immigration problem, by which he meant a vote on reintroducing the White Australia Policy.

Yet while Anning’s Holocaust language has provoked round condemnation, even from his former party leader Pauline Hanson, the issues stirred up by his speech remain alive in the context of the coming election. His deranged and factually incorrect attacks on Muslims as terrorist, welfare bludgers or his nightmare of a Judeo-Christian heritage swamped by foreigners, are popular in some sections of the media and among many MPs.

The good news is that Anning is losing. When Hanson gave a similar maiden speech in 1996 Australia was still close to the homogeneous angloChristian society Anning imagines. Australia has changed. The share of the population that is Australian-born has shrunk from three-quarters to two-thirds.

Diversity is a fact. Anning is on the wrong side of history.