New Delhi, Nov. 27 -- After Pauline Hanson is suspended from Parliament for wearing a burqa in protest, her decades-long pattern of targeting Muslims, migrants and Indigenous people collides with court findings of racial discrimination and alarming reports that Islamophobic incidents in Australia have skyrocketed since 2023.

On 24 November 2025 the chamber of the Australian Senate transformed into something scarcely fitting for a national legislature. Pauline Hanson, leader of One Nation, entered the upper house garbed in a full-face burqa. Her motive was manifest: to protest the Senate's refusal to grant her leave to introduce a proposed bill banning full-face coverings in public. Her gesture was deliberate, theatrical, provocative-but ...