183 Senator Hanson was played a recording of her saying that Muslims will "blend into a society until the numbers grow and then they will actually then impose their will on the people, or get hold of governments. And this is what their tactic is." She accepted that she believed what she said at the time that she said it, but she said that she did not know whether she still believed it. That is an evasive answer. Later she accepted that she still held that belief. (See T143:17-29; T145:9-20.)
184 Senator Hanson was played a recording in which she had sought to justify a blanket ban on Muslim immigration with reference to the internment "in the 1950s" (sic) of Germans and Japanese in Australia because they could not be trusted as to where their loyalties lay. When pressed on whether she considered her own analogy to be apt, Senator Hanson did not accept the analogy and said that the circumstances were completely different, yet she did not disavow a blanket Muslim immigration ban. She repeatedly deflected by saying that such a policy was not in her party's policy booklet, but accepted that such a ban was her own personal opinion and then later disagreed with the proposition that she genuinely believed that Muslim immigration should never have been allowed. She also sought to distance herself from such a policy, which she was shown to have publicly supported on numerous occasions, by saying that she had not advocated for it in the Parliament. (See T144:45-149:27; T173:19-20.)
185 Senator Hanson repeatedly said that she does not recall previously having said things that she would be expected to recall. For example:
- (1) She said that she could not recall whether she had publicly made the claim that Muslims had been celebrating the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks in the streets in Australia (T147:20-39).
- (2) She said that she could not recall starting the hashtag #PrayForMuslimBan (T148:24).
- (3) She said that she could not recall making public statements that advocated for a full Muslim ban on immigration, saying that "it's about fundamentalists, extremists" even though she had not made that qualification in her public statements (T139:6; T149:21-22).
- (4) Despite having been played recordings proving it, she said that she does not know whether she had previously said and believes that there are Muslims infiltrating government in Australia (T150:37-40).
