SENATOR HANSON’S SPEECH ON FULL FACE COVERING IN PUBLIC

SENATOR HANSON’S SPEECH ON FULL FACE COVERING IN PUBLIC

FULL SPEECH VIDEO

FULL TEXT: SENATOR HANSON’S PREPARED REMARKS
I rise to speak to the Notice of Motion, standing in my name, which concerns some of the matters I raised in my proposed amendment to the Criminal Code Amendment (Prohibition of Full Face Coverings in Public Places) Bill 2017.
I call on the Government to ban full face coverings in public places.
The central issue in this motion, before the Senate, is the right of others to see a face.
No one should be permitted to hide behind a veil of secrecy while there is a security concern.
No one should be able to receive taxpayer funded support when their identity cannot be confirmed with facial recognition.
Our law recognises some cases where the right to see an individual’s face is more important than the right of another, to keep their face hidden. These situations include, when a person is committing an unlawful act or giving evidence to a court.
In the UK they are now debating whether a patient in a public hospital has the right to see the face of a treating nurse or doctor.
In Canada they have decided that a woman in a burka can take the oath of citizenship.
Mr President, in June this year men disguised in burkas entered the Iranian Parliament Building and detonated a number of suicide devices killing 12 people and wounding 35 others. This is not the first case of this kind and it will not be the last.
These terrorists had no fear of any earthly law, they consider themselves martyrs and bound for heaven, taking as many lives as they could. Our laws are outdated and we need new ones like a ban on full face coverings.
While it is an offence in most States of Australia to be disguised with unlawful intent it is self -evident that the two years in goal is not a deterrent for a suicide bomber. What a joke.
We need laws to stop terrorism before it happens and the ability of others to see a face is an important part of assessing risk.
As you wander down the corridors of any major airport you will see security cameras. These cameras relay information to security experts who need facial recognition to identify terrorists or criminals.
Full face coverings, like a niqab or burka, take away a valuable source of information from counter terrorism experts.
Full face coverings deny us all the right to be as safe as we can be in public places.
The number one job of any government is to keep its citizens safe and that is why a number of Islamic Countries have banned full face coverings including Malaysia, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, and the Congo.
If the burka was a religious requirement then it would not have been banned in public places in Islamic Countries. The fact is wearing a burka is not a religious requirement.
Non-Islamic countries like Switzerland, Norway, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, China and Russia have also banned full face coverings.
Again law makers believe a ban improves public safety and enables social cohesion.
Australians don’t like double standards. How can you justify the banning of a helmet or balaclavas but not a burqa when entering a bank.
Australia is a Christian country built on Judea-Christian values. But many Muslims see Christmas as a threat to Islam because it celebrates a falsehood and so we are progressively seeing the celebration of Christmas in public spaces withdrawn. It’s a case of a small minority telling the majority how to live.
Development applications for Halal housing estates have been rejected to date but it is only a matter of time before Muslims will have the numbers to get these estates approved.
There is no place in Australia for migrants who want to come here and change the foundation stones of our way of life. My message to those who want to live under Sharia Law is to migrate to an Islamic Country but don’t come here to Australia.
In 2014 Roy Morgan[1] asked Australians whether or not the burqa should be banned in public places? Seventy percent of Liberal Voters wanted the burqa banned and 44% of Labor voters agreed. Overall 55% of those questioned wanted the Burqa banned but still there is no support for the proposal in this Parliament.
Labor and Liberal Senators fear losing the Muslim vote and this was never more evident than today with their reaction my wearing the Burqa.
Senator Cameron was visibly overcome after my Senator’s Statement last week. You will need to do much better than call me a racist. What you need to do Senator Cameron is prove me wrong with facts from reliable sources.
I will say it again, Muslims determine the electoral outcomes in up to 15 Lower House Seats.
The Muslim vote will continue to increase in importance because of the high birth rates in Australian Muslim communities. The number of Muslims in Australia doubled in the decade from 2006 to 2016 through immigration and high numbers of children born to Muslim families.
If we do not draw a line in the sand against immigration from Islamic Countries the influence of Muslims in this country will continue to grow and Australia will continue down the path of Islamisation.
We need to learn from other countries. We need to ban further Islamic immigration for at least five years so that we can have the debate on the impact of Islam on our country.
It has been reported that fears over terrorism have caused Sydney to fall from the top 10 in key listings of the world’s most liveable cities published by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Mr President, Lebanon was once a safe place for Christians in the Middle East but that was long ago. Today the majority of Christians live north of Beirut and the Muslims to the South and East and to the North borders.
No one knows how many Muslims and Christians there are in Lebanon because the last Census was conducted in 1932. Since that time it has been considered too sensitive to know the actual numbers of Muslims and Christians.
What we do know is that in 1932 the Christians outnumbered Muslims and now Muslims outnumber Christians. Christians in Lebanon are threatened from Sunni and Shiite radical Islam. Christians are in real danger and could face the same fate as other minorities in the Middle East who have needed to leave to survive.
It is a disgrace the Labor Party has been silent on the plight of Christians in Lebanon, but outspoken in its support for a Palestinian State run by Muslim terrorists.
It’s a disgrace Senator Cameron, that it is your party and that you pander to the Muslim vote.
Australians expect everyone who migrates here to be an active citizen and to work to make Australia a better place.
Many Muslims want to adopt our values and way of life but to gain my trust they need to call out radical Muslims with extreme views. If they are not willing to work to keep their fellow Australians safe then in my view they should live in an Islamic Country.
Mr President I want to return to the need for a general ban on the Islamic veil and the burqa in public spaces.
Has anyone ever considered the plight of women forced to wear the burka who cannot speak up?
I was in a taxi recently with a taxi driver who had been born a Muslim but was no longer a follower. He recognised me and he told me to keep up the good work because Australia was now a safe place for him but he feared the islamization of Australia.
Many migrants have come here to avoid living under Islam and are deeply worried by the Islamisation of Australia and the failure of Parliamentarians to take action.
Genital mutilation and cutting is illegal in Australia but still the practice continues and at least 60 children have ended up at Westmead Children’s hospital as a result of savage injuries in the name of Islam.
The meaning of the Islamic veil, niqab or burqa has varied over time but what has never changed is the way the wearer is separated from everyone else. This separation is a barrier to the formation of relationships so necessary to integrate into the Australian way of life.
More and more taxpayer money is being spent to keep us safe from home grown Islamic terrorism. We pay for security at airports, hospitals and in public buildings and we put the lives of the police and others in danger because of thousands of radicalised Australian Muslims.
I don’t know the cost of keeping Australia safe from extreme and violent Muslims and invite the Government to publish those figures annually.
The threat from radicalised Australian Muslims was recognised in a recent decision by the NSW Land and Environment Court where the court agreed with the submission made by Waverly Council that the building of a new Synagogue could attract the attention of Muslim terrorists.
The Jewish people are no threat to religious freedom in this country or any other freedom and there have been no plots by Australian Jews to take the rights of others away but they pay the price for radicalised Australian Muslims.
Any further outdated immigration policies which support Islamic Immigration can only drive up the cost of providing safety against Muslims, money that could otherwise have spent building schools and hospitals.
If you want taxpayer dollars to go to nation building activities then support a One Nations immigration policy which wants to see immigration levels return to the long term average of between 70,000 and 100,000 people a year.
Banning full face coverings in public places is a low cost safety measure for the taxpayer and its one step that should be taken because that is what the majority of Australians want.
The case for a general ban of all full face coverings in all public places rests on the need for social cohesion, the ability to identify and confirm eligibility in a variety of situations and for public safety.
Social cohesion rests very largely on the relationships we form as we go about our daily lives. These relationships are built slowly over time one by one and these relationships act like the glue that keeps society peacefully together. We have migrants from over 250 countries in Australia and we value those relationships.
Sydney is the largest immigrant city in the world, with some 60% of people born overseas while 75% of Australians claim a heritage other than Australian, but still we cannot take social- cohesion for granted.
Our social -cohesion is founded on seeing another’s face, on a common language- English, and a willingness to integrate into an Australian way of life.
Australia is a true democracy based on gender equality and freedom of expression where everyone is equal under the law. Most Australians like it that way, but not radical Muslims. Radical Muslims want Sharia Law where women are not treated equally to men and homosexuals are not tolerated.
The Muslim world has yet to learn that secularism avoids religious conflict and when you look at the Middle East you can see the conflict created by Islam.
In Australia, the ability to see a face is essential to communication and the formation of relationships on which our society is founded. Non-verbal communication is essential to understanding the content of verbal communication.
Section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth from making any laws which prohibit the free exercise of any religion but the courts have made it clear there are limits to that freedom when conduct is inconsistent with the maintenance of civil government.
Let me say it again wearing a niqab or a burqa is not a religious requirement.
Courts around the world have decided that an individual’s right to wear religious face coverings in public are secondary to the rights and freedoms of others.
A New Zealand District Court[2] held two women from Afghanistan would have to remove their full face veils to give evidence.
It was argued that the barrister needed to see their faces to be able to understand their evidence. The Court found it was not necessary to decide whether a full face covering was or was not a religious requirement because in all cases the human right to freedom of religion was secondary to the human right to justice.
In late 2016, Judge Balla in the Sydney District Court was faced with a similar problem. She decided not to hear evidence from Moutia Elzahed, the second wife of Islamic State recruiter Hamdi Alqudsi, because she would not reveal her face.
Hamdi Alqudsi’s other wife Carnita Mathews was imprisoned for falsely accusing a police officer of trying to remove her veil, but bad luck for her the incident was caught on a car camera and the footage showed she lied. It also showed she could not be properly identified behind the veil and the conviction was overturned on appeal.
Is this parliament willing to do anything, anything at all to support the police and the courts to work smoothly or are Senators satisfied to do nothing and let 3% of Australians decide whether or not someone wearing a full face covering can waste taxpayer’s money and precious police and court resources.
The argument about full face coverings and human rights has been lost. The European Human Rights Court in 2014 held, 15 to 2, that a ban on full face coverings did not violate human rights.
This is the problem with full face coverings whether they are Islamic veils or burqas, a mask or any other covering like bandages. Full face coverings isolate people on both sides of the covering, denying important non-verbal information to set the context of the verbal communication.
We have immigrants form over 250 countries, many of them from non- English speaking backgrounds how do we expect people to integrate into the Australian way of life when faces are covered?
It is clear that Muslims particularly those with extremist views have chosen to live separately from other Australians, in a way no other religious group has done in Australia. The 2016 Census shows us that no other religious group is so strongly concentrated, so alienated from other Australians.
In closing I want to say that everyone has the right to their own religious beliefs but it is only Islam that threatens our way of life. The members in this parliament agreed to spend 16 million dollars to upgrade security here because of the threat from radical Islam. Why don’t senators show some leadership and ban the burka in public places.
It is outrageous that we allow hate preachers to be here but women like Ayaan Hirsi Ali are unsafe in our country.

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