A nine-year-old Australian schoolgirl has been targeted for condemnation by prominent rightwing politicians after she refused to stand during a rendition of the national anthem, arguing that it airbrushes Indigenous peoples from the country’s history.
Harper Nielsen’s parents said they were proud of her for the protest, which earned her a detention – and reportedly the threat of suspension from school.
But the child was attacked by politicians, including her state senator, Pauline Hanson, the leader of the rightwing One Nation party.
“Take her out of school,” Hanson said in a video posted on Facebook, in which she also labelled her a “brat”. She attacked the nine-year-old’s parents, saying: “I tell you what, I’d give her a kick up the backside.”
Her choice of language was echoed by Jarrod Bleijie, a shadow minister in the Queensland parliament and a member of the centre-right Liberal National party. The politician claimed the child’s parents were “using her as a political pawn”, called her protest “silly” and demanded that she “stand and sing proudly your national anthem”.
He posted on Twitter: “Refusing to stand disrespects our country and our veterans. Suspension should follow if she continues to act like a brat.”
Nielsen told local media the Australian anthem marginalised a whole section of the nation’s population. “When it says Advance Australia Fair, it means advance the white people. And, when it says ‘we are young’, it completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us for 50,000 years,” she told 9NEWS.
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