Culture

A Group Of Australian Muslims Are Doing A Huge Fact Check Of Pauline Hanson’s Policies

"Facts over fear."

by Meg Watson  18 July 2016

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As it was recently revealed the majority of One Nation policies are ripped straight from Wikipedia in the same way you did your Year 9 English essays, it’s hardly surprising they’re facing a fair bit of scrutiny. In the past week party leader Pauline Hanson claims she’s had to personally defend her hateful views on Islam to the Prime Minister, and footage of her being publicly denounced by Indigenous leader Murrandoo Yanner as “lacking in moral fibre” and “intellectually dishonest” has gone viral.

Now, a group of Australian Muslims are taking up the cause — though they’re being very deliberate in launching the criticisms at her politics rather than her personality.

Launching this morning, Fact Check One Nation is a website dedicated to interrogating the claims made by Hanson’s far-right political party. It’s run by 11 predominantly Muslim volunteers who are described as “ordinary mums, dads, academics, social workers, lawyers, sales staff, educators, teachers [and] everyday Australians all concerned about the veracity of many of the claims and policy proposal put forward by One Nation”. Their mission isn’t to silence Hanson at all costs — in fact they explicitly state she has the “legitimate right to represent her party in the Senate” — it’s to make sure the serious flaws in her policy are fully exposed.

“In a free and open democracy people are entitled to their opinions, however, politicians who occupy positions of power and responsibility must rise above divisive, inflammatory, baseless and unconstitutional rhetoric,” the website reads. “Fact Check One Nation is about moving past the political rhetoric and divisiveness.”

Citing Hanson’s preoccupation with Islam, the site has kicked off with a nine-point deconstruction of policies such as Muslim immigration, banning burqas, halal certification and other points listed as federal issues on the One Nation website. They’ll move onto other policies from here.

“We want to respond with facts to counter the fear,” lawyer, writer, and site contributor Mariam Veiszadeh told Junkee. “I believe that the best way to tackle the misinformation and xenophobia is by throwing the truth at it. Facts over fear.”

“One Nation, exploiting populist concerns, received the biggest Senate vote after the major parties and the Greens so their supporter base needs to be engaged and not ignored. Ignorance and misinformation can be dissipated with facts.”

Though Veiszadeh has faced horrific racial abuse when participating in online political debate in the past, she says the response so far has been incredible.

That positivity might not hold out once some One Nation supporters get their hands on it, but the site could prove itself an incredibly important resource nonetheless.

Here are the breakdowns of the examined policies to date (many of which are plainly in breach of the Australian Constitution):

Royal Commission into defining Islam as a religion or political ideology

Stopping Muslim migration and refugees

Banning the burqa

Banning burqas in driver license photos

Installing surveillance cameras in mosques 

Temporarily closing mosques

Formal opposition to Sharia Law

Investigating Muslim citizens’ welfare payments 

Banning Halal certification

A referendum to allow religious persecution

Banning the Qu’ran in Parliament

Penalties for female genital mutilation

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You can read more here or, if you’d like to be involved in the project, get in touch here.