A candidate for Australia’s anti-immigration One Nation party dropped out of the election race on Saturday after a blundering interview in which she referred to Islam as a country.
Stephanie Banister, 27, had been campaigning for just 48 hours when she gave the interview to the Seven Network which quickly went viral online and saw her labelled “Australia’s Sarah Palin”, who was pilloried for her gaffes as US vice-presidential candidate in 2008.
“I don’t oppose Islam as a country, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia,” Banister said in Wednesday’s taping.
She went on to say only two per cent of Australians follow “haram” - actually meaning the Koran - and muddied matters further by voicing her support for kosher foods for Jewish people.
“Jews aren’t under haram. They have their own religion which follows Jesus Christ,” she said of Judaism, which in fact sees Jesus as an ordinary man and not the messiah.
Banister on Saturday withdrew her candidacy for the September 7 election, which she was contesting for anti-immigration firebrand Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party in Queensland.
Party leader Jim Savage denied that Banister had been dropped and said she continued to have the “full support of the One Nation executive”.