Culture

This Senator Is Sick Of One Nation’s Racist Bullshit

"They can piss off if they think I'm going to spend the next six years of my term focused on responding to their dog-whistling."

by Osman Faruqi  8 August 2016

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Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party might be one of the most powerful political parties in Australia as a result of the last election, but that hasn’t stopped them acting like conspiracy theorist trolls who got lost on the way to 4chan. A couple of weeks ago, during an episode of Q&A, the One Nation twitter account asked “Has @samdastyari relinquished his dual citizenship? If not, he should not be in Parliament under Section 44.”

The tweet is a reference to Section 44 of the Australian Constitution which prohibits dual-citizens from sitting in the federal parliament. Dastyari has been a senator since 2013 and no one, until now, has questioned his eligibility to sit in parliament. It’s hard to envisage any reason why One Nation chose to direct their accusation at Dastyari other than the fact he’s originally from Iran and was born into a Muslim family.

Last night Dastyari responded to the tweet on Facebook with a simple message: “Dear One Nation. You’re drunk. Log off.”

It’s pretty desperate stuff from One Nation, and an attempt to kick off the same wild “Birther conspiracies” that dogged US President Barack Obama throughout his entire term. It’s also incredibly dumb of the party to raise the question of eligibility when one of their own elected candidates from WA is likely to be ruled ineligible to sit in the Senate due to another part of Section 44. One Nation, in all their wisdom, preselected a convicted criminal who is currently awaiting sentencing in NSW. According to Section 44, he is unable to sit in parliament since the punishment for his crime is greater than one year in jail.

Dastyari is already sick of One Nation’s not so subtle racism. “They can piss off if they think I’m going to spend the next six years of my term focused on responding to their dog-whistling”, he told Junkee.