Australia backtracks on support for ‘racist’ motion

An embarrassed Australian government on Tuesday backtracked on a Senate motion it had supported that contained “racist” slogans, saying it was an “administrative error.’’

The motion declaring “it’s OK to be white” and condemning “anti-white racism” was put to the Senate on Monday by controversial anti-migration One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson.

Several senators from the Liberal-National coalition government, including six ministers, supported the motion to acknowledge what Hanson called “the deplorable rise of anti-white racism and attacks on Western civilisation.”

Attorney General Christian Porter, whose office directed government senators to support Hanson’s motion, said it had been an “administrative error.”

The motion was narrowly defeated 31 to 28 after it was condemned as racist by the opposition Labor and Green parties and several independents.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale told the Senate the slogan “it’s OK to be white’’ had a “long history in the white supremacist movement.”

Labor Senator Penny Wong said it was part of a long line of support for racists by the government.

“It’s a phrase created by right-wing extremist groups in the United States to help convert people to the cause of neo-Nazis and groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

“There is nothing innocent, nothing unknown, nothing hidden about this phrase,’’ Wong told the Senate.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison told newsmen it was “regrettable” his own senators had backed the motion, and ordered government senators to have another vote on the motion.

The Senate voted again and no government senators supported it.

In August, several government senators congratulated right-wing independent Senator Fraser Anning for a speech in which he called for a “final solution” to immigration.