Politician calls for return to White Australia policy
SYDNEY — An Australian politician was widely condemned Wednesday after demanding "a final solution" to immigration and calling for a return to the White Australia policy that favored "European Christians."
Fraser Anning stunned lawmakers during his maiden speech to the senate when he invoked the infamous Nazi phrase used under Adolf Hitler in reference to annihilating Jewish people from Europe.
He also sparked widespread anger by urging a ban on Muslim migrants and defending the race-based White Australia immigration policy that was in place for seven decades from 1901.
"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," Anning told the upper house late Tuesday.
"Those who come here need to assimilate and integrate."
He added that "ethnocultural diversity ... has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs."
"In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer innerurban areas, has become the norm."
Anning, who represents Queensland for Katter's Australian Party, called for immigrant numbers to be slashed, and for a ban on Muslims, justifying his call by saying they had "consistently shown to be the least able to assimilate and integrate."
"While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims, so why would anyone want to bring more of them here?"
He added: "The final solution to the immigration problem is of course a popular vote."
Immigration remains a hot button issue in Australia, amid concern about jobs and overcrowding in major cities.