An adviser to Fraser Anning has quit after the Queensland senator used the Nazi phrase “final solution” in a controversial speech on Muslim immigration.
Richard McGilvray resigned hours after the senator for Queensland delivered his first upper house speech on Tuesday night.
Mr McGilvray, who managed the senator’s legislative agenda and negotiations with stakeholders, said he could not condone the views expressed in the speech.
“His reference to ‘The Final Solution’ was not something I had seen, heard of, or discussed prior to his remarks last night,” Mr McGilvray posted on LinkedIn.
“As a consequence, within hours of Senator Anning’s speech, I resigned my position effective immediately.”
Despite copping criticism from all sides of politics as well as religious and migrant groups, Senator Anning has refused to apologise and does not regret anything he said in the speech.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the Katter’s Australian Party senator was wrong not to apologise after claiming he didn’t make the connection between “the final solution” and the Holocaust.
“If he says he’s made a mistake then apologises and people can make their own judgments about that,” Mr Dutton told Sydney radio 2GB.
“But to keep your hands in your pockets and hold the ground, I just think he’s making a mistake, but ultimately that’s a judgment for him.”
Senator Anning is continuing his call for a plebiscite on “European immigration” despite ferocious criticism of his praise for the White Australia policy.
His party leader Bob Katter backed him “1000 per cent” after the controversial speech, which was littered with false and deeply offensive remarks about Muslim Australians.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor leader Bill Shorten gave passionate speeches in parliament opposing Senator Anning on Wednesday.
Mr Turnbull said people who demonise Muslims because of the crimes of a tiny minority will only help terrorists.
“The days of the White Australia policy are long, long ago.”
Mr Shorten moved a unanimously-passed motion in parliament praising the Liberal-Country Party government led by Harold Holt for beginning the dismantling of the White Australia policy in 1966.
Senator Anning moved a motion in the upper house on Thursday calling on the government to hold a plebiscite to determine who is allowed to migrate to Australia.
“The Australian people need to have a say in who comes to this country and what our society will look like in the future,” he told parliament.
But after Labor and the Greens condemned the idea, the motion was defeated with Senator Anning the lone voice in support of his plebiscite.
Around 1942, Germany’s Nazi leadership established a plan called ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, which led to the genocide of more than six million Jews in occupied Europe.
