Senator calls for ‘final solution’ to Australia’s ‘immigration problem’ in controversial maiden speech

An Australian cross-bench senator has invoked the term “the final solution” in an inflammatory speech calling for a plebiscite asking voters whether they want to end all immigration by Muslims and non-English-speaking people “from the third world”.

Fraser Anning, formerly of the far-right Pauline Hanson One Nation party, and now a member of the Katter’s Australia party, used his maiden speech in the Senate to call for “a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English-speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly whether they want any Muslims”.

He also invoked the White Australia Policy, suggesting Australians may want “to return to the predominately European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus”. The White Australia Policy, as it became known, restricted non-European immigration and ran from 1901 until it began to be dismantled in the late 1960s.

He said neither the former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, nor any subsequent government, had asked Australians what kind of immigration they wanted.

“What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here.”

Anning declared on Tuesday the reasons “for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident”.