Australia came into being as a remote prison colony in the far Pacific ocean after Britain lost a war - and with that its American territories on the other side of the Atlantic. How that evolved into the nation that is Australia today is a matter of immigration. People from all over the world chose to come and live in this new country because they were fleeing religious intolerance, oppressive government, military conscription or just the sheer grinding poverty that the political system elsewhere inflicted on the masses.
This week a new Senator rose to make his maiden speech and we were horrified to hear a call for the return of the white Australia policy and a total ban on Muslims being allowed to emigrate to Australia. It was a speech full of bigotry and hate, and it contained a reference to a " final solution " which was code for Hitler's imposition of the " Holocaust " death of Jews in Europe.
Fraser Anning is a Senator because of a peculiarity of the Australian electoral system. He was third on the One Nation ticket at the 2016 election - and got just nineteen votes. When Senator Malcolm Roberts was disqualified because of the nationality dispute, Anning was next in line to take the seat, but he walked away from Pauline Hanson's One Nation and joined Bob Katter's Australia party, becoming its lone Senator.
The parliament - and the nation - was so shocked at the vitriol inflicted on our way of life by a person who has gained the right to sit in the Senate. It induced the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition to discard the usual hostility of politics and to shake hands on the floor of the house to unmistakably signal their rejection of Anning's message.
Anning is a rebel rouser and it says a lot about Bob Katter's politics that he has been welcomed into the Australia party. Some Australians do have disquiet about Muslim immigration to Australia because of terrorist cells but the vast majority are good citizens and their religion is not a threat to this country any more than the mix of religions that now call Australia home.
Bob Katter's Australia party now owns Fraser Anning and it will be interesting to see how the vote performs at the next election. Katter has always been a maverick and it is possible his following will provide support for both but if Anning continues these diatribes the rest of Australia will simply tune out. The shock value of a racist ideologue will quickly fade.
What does seem certain is that we need to have another look at our electoral system. When someone gets to win a seat in the Senate and partake of both the generous salary and the other perks of office - and have a say on what legislation becomes law in this country - by winning just nineteen votes in a country of twenty-five million people then the system needs review.
We have only to look at Europe to see the disintegration of effective government by a plethora of minor parties holding the balance of power and thwarting effective government to see that creeping into play here. When we go to the polls it is essential that we elect a government and give it the tools to effectively govern. If they don't perform to our satisfaction, the next time around we simply replace them !
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