A Satirical Political Dialogue

By Urban Wronski

Date: November 24, 2025

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SETTING: The Australian Senate. Two figures stand observing the chaos.

CLARKE: John, I’m looking at the Senate proceedings from this morning. Pauline Hanson wore a burqa into the chamber and it took 90 minutes to get her out.

DAWE: Right.

CLARKE: She refused to remove it. The Senate had to suspend proceedings entirely. Democracy basically stopped functioning because a 71-year-old woman was having a fashion moment.

DAWE: Mmm.

CLARKE: And here’s the thing, John. Her argument is that she wore it to highlight how oppressive the garment is.

DAWE: Aha.

CLARKE: By… wearing it as a costume.

DAWE: I see.

CLARKE: So the logic here is that if we want to understand how oppressive something is, the best approach is to mock it?

DAWE: In parliament.

CLARKE: While dressed like you’re about to go to a themed party.

DAWE: A themed party at the Parliament House gift shop.

CLARKE: She was wearing a floral dress underneath it. The outfit was basically “Muslim woman meets suburban RSA cocktail night.”

DAWE: Mmm. So what was the bill she was trying to introduce?

CLARKE: A bill to ban the burqa in public.

DAWE: Right. And she got denied.

CLARKE: She got denied. So her response was to prove why they were right to deny her by then doing exactly the thing she was proposing to ban – but as a prank.

DAWE: That’s circular logic.

CLARKE: It’s more than circular, John. It’s the reasoning of a person who’s been thinking about this for eight years.

DAWE: What do you mean?

CLARKE: She did the exact same stunt in 2017.

DAWE: No.

CLARKE: Literally the exact same stunt. Same burqa. Same chamber. Same “look how oppressive this is by wearing it to mock the people who wear it.”

DAWE: So what changed?

CLARKE: Her polling numbers went up.

DAWE: Ah.

CLARKE: One Nation’s now at 18 percent. They’ve doubled their Senate seats. So apparently… the strategy is working.

DAWE: The strategy being?

CLARKE: Wear a burqa to parliament, refuse to leave, shut down the Senate for 90 minutes, and let Muslim senators tell you you’re a racist on the record.

DAWE: That’s the growth strategy?

CLARKE: That’s the growth strategy. There are senators in the chamber saying “this is blatant racism.” There’s a Muslim woman named Mehreen Faruqi telling her “a dress code might be a choice of senators but racism should not be.” And Hanson’s Facebook post is basically “if you don’t want to ban it, stop making me do this.”

DAWE: She’s blaming parliament for her own behaviour.

CLARKE: She’s arguing that parliament forcing her to respect Muslim Australians is why she has to mock them in public. It’s like saying “if you won’t let me slap you, you’re making me hit you.”

DAWE: Did anyone defend her?

CLARKE: Matt Canavan from the Nationals said it was “disrespectful,” “attention-seeking,” and “cheapens parliament.” He left the chamber.

DAWE: So even the Coalition went home.

CLARKE: She had bipartisan abandonment. Penny Wong moved a suspension motion. The Greens called her racist. The independents called her racist. And her response was to stay in the burqa and refuse to leave until they literally suspended parliament.

DAWE: What did her supporters say?

CLARKE: Well, that’s the thing. Her supporters said this is exactly the kind of thing they like about her. She’s fighting the establishment. She’s taking on parliament. She’s standing up for “her beliefs.”

DAWE: By mocking Muslim women’s clothing choices.

CLARKE: By mocking Muslim women’s religious and cultural identity, yes, as a form of political theatre.

DAWE: And this is polling at 18 percent.

CLARKE: Polling at 18 percent.

DAWE: So the lesson here is…

CLARKE: The lesson here is that if you want attention in Australian politics, you don’t need policy. You don’t need ideas. You don’t need a solution to housing or cost of living or any of the things Australians actually care about.

DAWE: You need a costume.

CLARKE: You need a costume and the willingness to make Muslim senators uncomfortable on camera while arguing it’s about their own oppression.

DAWE: And you need to do it twice, eight years apart, just to make sure it really works.

CLARKE: Eight years apart. In between which, nothing changed except her polling numbers.

DAWE: And the Senate lost 90 minutes of productive time.

CLARKE: 90 minutes that could have been spent on literally anything else. Energy policy. Cost of living reform. Infrastructure. Aged care. Climate policy.

DAWE: But instead was spent watching a 71-year-old woman in a burqa refuse to follow the rules of parliament.

CLARKE: While arguing that what she’s really concerned about is… respect for parliament.

DAWE: Right. So her solution to parliament blocking her bill…

CLARKE: Was to show parliament such disrespect that they had to suspend proceedings entirely.

DAWE: That’s not a solution.

CLARKE: No, but it’s a ratings booster. And in modern Australian politics, that’s apparently the only metric that matters.

DAWE: So she wins.

CLARKE: She wins. Muslim senators call her racist. The Senate gets shut down. Parliament looks ridiculous. She gets trending on Twitter. One Nation polling stays high.

DAWE: Everyone loses except her.

CLARKE: Everyone loses except her. And next time her bill gets blocked – because it will get blocked – we’ll probably do this again.

DAWE: In another eight years?

CLARKE: Why wait that long? She’s got the costume. Parliament’s already suspending proceedings. She’s got bipartisan agreement that it’s bad. The media coverage writes itself.

DAWE: She’s found the exploit.

CLARKE: She’s found the exploit in Australian democracy. The exploit is that racism paired with theatre and a refusal to leave gets you attention and polling points.

DAWE: And nobody knows how to shut it down.

CLARKE: Without either validating her – by suspending parliament and making it a scandal – or looking weak by just letting her sit there in a burqa until parliament adjourns naturally.

DAWE: So parliament loses either way.

CLARKE: Parliament loses either way. Democracy loses. Muslim Australians lose. The 90 minutes of productive legislation that could have happened loses.

DAWE: But Pauline Hanson’s polling stays at 18 percent.

CLARKE: Pauline Hanson’s polling stays at 18 percent and One Nation gets two more Senate seats.

DAWE: That’s the real policy outcome here.

CLARKE: That’s the real policy outcome. Not a burqa ban. Not a solution to anything. Just votes and attention and the proof that in 2025, the path to power in Australian politics is to be maximally disrespectful to minority groups while claiming you’re doing it for their own good.

DAWE: While dressed as them.

CLARKE: While dressed as them, yes. In parliament. For 90 minutes. Until democracy has to take a break.

DAWE: Mm. Well, at least she’s consistent.

CLARKE: Eight years consistent.

DAWE: Right. Well, good luck to everyone involved in trying to govern this country.

CLARKE: With that in parliament.

DAWE: With that in parliament.

[END SCENE]

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CONTEXT FOR READERS

What Actually Happened:

On November 24, 2025, Pauline Hanson wore a burqa into the Australian Senate after her bill to ban full-face coverings was rejected. When she refused to remove it, the Senate suspended proceedings for approximately 90 minutes.

The Responses:

• Mehreen Faruqi (Greens senator): “This is a racist senator, displaying blatant racism and Islamophobia”
• Fatima Payman (Independent senator): Called the stunt “disgraceful” and “disrespectful to Muslims”
• Penny Wong (Labor Senate leader): Moved a motion to suspend Hanson, calling her actions “not worthy of a member of the Australian Senate”
• Matt Canavan (Nationals senator): Left the chamber, calling it “disrespectful,” “attention-seeking,” and something that “cheapens parliament”
• Anne Aly (Multicultural Affairs Minister): Called the stunt “unacceptable” and noted it “makes people of colour feel less safe in this country”

The Polling:

One Nation received 6.4 percent of the primary vote in May 2025’s federal election. As of late November 2025, they’re polling at 15-18 percent, having doubled their Senate representation from two to four seats.

The History:

Hanson performed an identical stunt in 2017, wearing a burqa into the Senate chamber as a protest against the wearing of burqas. Nothing changed except that political commentators have been waiting eight years to see if she’d do it again. She did.

The Irony:

The only substantive critique came from within her own political coalition – Matt Canavan explicitly stated that while there are legitimate points about immigration and integration, this kind of mockery undermines the argument and “cheapens parliament.” In other words: even conservatives think this is going too far.

The Real Problem:

This is not a frivolous story about a silly politician. This is a story about a fundamental breakdown in how political incentives work in Australia. When an action that:

• Disrespects a religious and cultural minority
• Shuts down democratic processes
• Receives bipartisan condemnation
• Is mocked by mainstream media
• Produces identical results to an identical stunt from eight years ago

…still results in rising polling numbers, you have discovered that the system has found a new exploit.

And that exploit is: if you’re willing to be more disrespectful, more theatrical, and more willing to break norms than anyone else, you can turn that into electoral support.

That’s not politics. That’s performance. And when performance beats policy in attracting votes, democracy has a serious problem.

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Written by Urban Wronski

Published: November 24, 2025

For: Independent political commentary on Australian democracy, institutional decline, and the rise of anti-democratic theatre in electoral politics.

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