Queensland crossbench senator Fraser Anning has rejected criticism over using the phrase “final solution” in a speech about drastically reducing migration.
Labor and the Greens slammed the Katter's Australia Party senator after his maiden speech to Parliament on Tuesday, when he called for a plebiscite on which migrants can come to Australia.
"The final solution to the immigration problem is of course a popular vote," he said.
Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said the use of the term, which has been historically associated with the Nazi plan in World War II to kill millions of Jews, was utterly unacceptable.
“It has connotations and meanings to history which it are deeply offensive to right-thinking people, not only in Australia but across the world,” he told ABC Radio.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale said if Senator Anning had a shred of decency he would apologise, saying using the same language as Nazis was vile, racist and bigoted.
But Senator Anning hit back, arguing that left-wing politicians had taken him out of context to shut down debate on immigration.
“As I called for a plebiscite on the immigration mix, this baseless and ridiculous criticism is simply an effort to play the man and not the ball,” he said.
Senator Anning said it was ironic to be criticised by the same politicians who voted against his pro-Israel stances on funding the Palestinian Authority and moving Australia's embassy to Jerusalem.
In his speech, Senator Anning called for an end to Muslim immigration and a program that favours “European Christian” values.
He claimed most Australian Muslims are on welfare and do not work.
“While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims,” Senator Anning said.
“So why would anyone want to bring more of them here?”
The plebiscite would allow people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, he said.
Senator Anning said Australia was entitled to insist migrants were predominantly of European Christian composition.
He called for the government to ban all welfare payments to migrants in the first five years of living in Australia, labelling many asylum seekers welfare seekers.
“Ethno-cultural diversity – which is known to undermine social cohesion – has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs,” he said.
“In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner-urban areas, has become the norm.”
Other issues he noted were countering the growing threat of China, slashing government spending, building coal-fired power plants, supporting agriculture and taking back culture from left-wing extremists.
AAP
