36 Facts About Fraser Anning

William Fraser Anning was born on 14 October 1949 and is an Australian former politician who was a senator for Queensland from November 2017 to June 2019.

Fraser Anning generated controversy for his statements shortly after the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, in which he blamed the attacks on "the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate".

Fraser Anning was elected to the Senate after a special recount was triggered by the removal of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts.

Fraser Anning chose not to join One Nation in the Senate, sitting instead as an independent until June 2018, when he joined Katter's Australian Party as its first senator.

Fraser Anning was expelled by KAP in October 2018 for his views on race and immigration.

Fraser Anning failed to get re-elected to the Senate in the 2019 federal election, when standing under his own party's banner.

Fraser Anning's companions have included convicted criminals such as Neil Erikson and members of the militant white supremacist group True Blue Crew, whose members and supporters have been linked to right-wing terrorism.

Fraser Anning was sought by creditors over unpaid debts in late 2019, and declared bankrupt on 16 March 2020.

Fraser Anning grew up in north-west Queensland on Wetherby Station, one of the Fraser Anning family's pastoral properties near the town of Richmond.

Fraser Anning is a direct descendant of Charles Cumming Stone Anning, a pastoral squatter who immigrated to the Australian colonies in the mid-19th century to acquire landholdings.

Frank Hann, another pastoralist in the region who regularly participated in extrajudicial punitive raids on Aboriginals, described in his diary in 1874 that he saw "Fraser Anning [coming] back from hunting blacks".

Fraser Anning opposes same-sex marriage and was one of twelve senators who voted against the Marriage Amendment Act 2017, which made same-sex marriage legal in Australia.

In 2017, when Cory Bernardi moved a motion opposing Medicare funding of gender-selective abortion, Fraser Anning was one of ten senators who voted for the motion, which was defeated with 36 votes against.

On 22 March 2018, Fraser Anning announced that he would support the Turnbull Government's proposed company tax cuts.

Fraser Anning introduced a private members' bill calling for less stringent import laws for mace, pepper spray and tasers, to "allow women to defend themselves".

In 2018, Fraser Anning described the perpetrators of attacks on South African farms as "subhuman", claiming that a state-orchestrated "genocide" was underway in South Africa.

Fraser Anning stated in a Senate speech that he believed Safe Schools was "sexually deviant propaganda" and undermined "the white family".

On 5 January 2019, Fraser Anning attended a far-right rally in Melbourne led by far-right extremist Blair Cottrell, founder of the United Patriots Front.

In May 2019, Fraser Anning was criticised for a series of anti-Muslim Facebook posts, including one which co-opted an image of a Muslim family taken in 2005 when their 19-month-old daughter Rahma went missing from their Sydney Home, along with the words "If you want a Muslim for a neighbour, just vote Labor".

Zack Newton, an electoral officer on Senator Fraser Anning's staff, was reported by the ABC as saying in early April 2019 that it was "Amusing to think I went from shitposting at home and now I'm shitposting in parliament, but here I am lmao".

Fraser Anning was third on the One Nation senate ticket in Queensland at the 2016 federal election.

Fraser Anning gained just 19 below-the-line first-preference votes under the optional preferential voting system.

Later on the same day, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson issued a media release saying that Fraser Anning had "abandoned" the party to sit as an independent "until something else comes along".

On 15 January 2018, Fraser Anning advised the Senate President that he would henceforth sit as an independent, and a month later he formed a voting bloc with Bernardi and Leyonhjelm.

On 4 June 2018 Fraser Anning joined Katter's Australian Party, becoming the party's first senator.

On 14 August 2018 Fraser Anning delivered his maiden speech to the Senate.

Fraser Anning went on to criticise the Safe Schools Coalition of Australia, as "gender fluidity garbage" and "cultural Marxism".

Fraser Anning condemned what he described as the abuse of the external affairs power of the Australian constitution, and spoke in support of a fundamental right of civilians to own firearms, and the Bradfield Scheme irrigation proposal.

Fraser Anning's comments were condemned across the Parliament, including by the Labor Party, the Liberals, the Nationals, the Greens, Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the Centre Alliance, among other crossbenchers in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

However, Fraser Anning was expelled from Katter's Australia Party two months later for distinguishing between "European" and "Non-European" migration in legislation, as this was viewed by the party as bigotry against Sikhs and Pacific Islanders.

Fraser Anning was sharply criticised for his comments following the Christchurch mosque shootings, which occurred in New Zealand on 15 March 2019, during which 51 Muslim worshippers were killed.

Connolly was then tackled by several of Fraser Anning's supporters, including United Patriots Front leader Neil Erikson, one of whom held Connolly in a choke hold until police arrived and took the teenager away.

Fraser Anning said he would "be announcing candidates across most lower house seats" and "running a Senate team in every state" for the 2019 election.

On 26 April 2019, during the 2019 Federal Election campaign, Fraser Anning used the site of the 2005 Cronulla race riots in Sydney to announce his party's candidates for New South Wales.

Fraser Anning was continuing to post on a Facebook page named Fraser Anning-Former Senator.

Fraser Anning is a Catholic, but not a regular churchgoer.