Hanson pulled this after her latest ‘ban the burqa’ motion failed. She had been talking about bringing it back for a while (it was expected last sitting but she was in Mar-a-Lago speaking at a conservative conference and so it landed this week.
Slade Brockman was in the president’s chair and didn’t seem to know what to do when Hanson entered the senate in the garment. He originally allowed it saying that religious dress was allowed under senate precedent and didn’t appear to grasp the seriousness of the stunt, attempting to shut down senators who complained about Hanson’s behaviour. It wasn’t until the more senior members of the Labor senate team, including president Sue Lines and Penny Wong returned that action was taken.

Payman explained what happened:

Pauline Hanson did not appreciate her – the introduction of the bill that she wanted to put up to ban the burqa, which was refused by the Senate and I think government did not handle it well because the President – President Sue Lines was nowhere to be seen. It was a stunt Pauline Hanson has previously pulled, so the fact that the government were found asleep at the wheel was just not OK and definitely not suitable of a government that claims to care about multiculturalism and a safe work environment. There wasn’t just me but so many other senators felt unsafe and disrespected by such behaviour. The government definitely needs to do a lot more when it comes to upholding the principles of the Senate but also to ensure that this sort of behaviour didn’t get the attention that Pauline Hanson was craving.

…She should have been removed from the chamber earlier. As soon as she entered the chamber with the burqa on, using it as a prop and an abhorrent stunt, the President should have entered the chamber and made the ruling because the precedent was set back in 2017 and I remember when this stunt was taking place. My dad was in hospital for leukaemia and I remember going in and getting weird stares and remarks thrown at me. I was wondering what was going on. This is an old trick that Pauline Hanson has pulled out of the bag. It is disrespectful and un-Australian and the government should have handled it better.