Commonsense prevails, eventually, with backdown on Parliament's burqa ban
The decision by Parliament's presiding officers to reverse course on a move to segregate women wearing a burqa or niqab was inevitable.
The segregation plan, announced by Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and Senate President Stephen Parry earlier this month, was effectively dead from the moment Fairfax Media broke the story that Prime Minister Tony Abbott thought it was a mistake and wanted it dropped.
All that remained was for the presiding officers to engineer an uncomfortable political climb down that would allow them to maintain some face. It is the presiding officers and not the Prime Minister, after all, who are responsible for the management of the Parliament.
The segregation plan achieved next to nothing.
But the question many people will still be asking themselves, however, is how did this draconian measure - which surely has no place in pluralist, multicultural Australia - get put in place at all?
Monday's Senate estimates hearings have shed some light on that question. Appearing before the Finance and Public Administration committee, Senator Parry confirmed the decision was taken after advice had been received that up to ten men were planning on entering the Parliament, wearing the facial coverings, and planned to disrupt question time.
The usher of the Black Rod, Rachel Callinan, said that after she became aware of a film crew out the front of Parliament House waiting to film people who were allegedly planning a protest, she advised the Senate President.
That led to a series of meetings on the day the segregation plan was issued that culminated in a meeting held in Mrs Bishop's office with Senator Parry, Ms Callinan, political staff and officials from the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) and the House's serjeant-at-arms. The DPS proposed two measures at that meeting but not the burqa ban which, nevertheless, emerged and was put in place.
As Senator Parry said on Monday, the decision was an interim one that was going to be reviewed. He did not expect people wearing a burqa or niqab would have been seated with children in the glassed off public galleries and the move was a response to what was, at the time, considered credible advice.
And in days leading up to the decision, debate over a ban had escalated when Fairfax Media revealed that the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Peta Credlin - one of the most influential figures in the Abbott government - had privately expressed sympathy for such a move to burqa-ban supporter, Nationals MP George Christensen.
That prompted Mr Abbott to state he found the garment confronting - though he added Australia was a free country - and, perhaps, sent mixed signals to the presiding officers.
It's still hard to understand how commonsense did not prevail sooner.
The net effect of the segregation plan, in place for less than one sitting day, was to alienate members of a significant community that Mr Abbott has explicitly stated he wants to be part of "Team Australia" in the fight against extremism.
Thankfully, it has now been replaced by a more sensible plan that will see anyone trying to enter Parliament wearing a burqa have to temporarily remove the covering to allow DPS staff to identify them.
The longer term and more intangible cost of the ruling, which should be measured in terms of the damage done to the relationship between government and Australia's large and diverse Muslim community, will be rather more difficult to quantify.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/commonsense-prevails-eventually-with-backdo...
