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William Fraser Anning (born 14 October 1949) is an Australian former politician who was a senator for Queensland from November 2017 to June 2019. Anning is known for holding far-right, nativist, and Islamophobia views,far-right views:
anti-immigration views:
Anning was elected to the Senate after a special recount was triggered by the removal of One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. 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 (KAP) as its first senator. Anning was expelled by KAP in October 2018 for his views on race and immigration. Anning sat again as an independent, until registration of Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party was granted in April 2019. He failed to get re-elected to the Senate in the 2019 federal election, when standing under his own party's banner.
White Rose Society and ABC News have detailed the white supremacist links of some of Anning's closest advisers. His 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.
Anning was sought by creditors over unpaid debts in late 2019, and declared bankrupt on 16 March 2020.
Fraser Anning's grandfather Francis "Frank" Albert Anning spent much of his time at Reedy Springs but also bought into further properties such as Wollogorang, Savannah Station and Compton Downs. One of Frank's sons was W. H. (Harry) Anning who took up the Wetherby property and whose wife gave birth to Fraser Anning in October 1949.
On 22 March 2018, Anning announced that he would support the Turnbull Government's proposed company tax cuts.
Anning introduced a private members' bill calling for less stringent import laws for mace, pepper spray and tasers, to "allow women to defend themselves". It was supported by David Leyonhjelm, Peter Georgiou, Cory Bernardi and Brian Burston, but rejected by both major parties and the Greens.
In 2018, Anning described the perpetrators of attacks on South African farms as "subhuman", also claiming that a state-orchestrated "genocide" was underway in South Africa.
Anning stated in a Senate speech that he believed Safe Schools was "sexually deviant propaganda" and undermined "the white family". He criticised the curriculum as "gender fluidity garbage".
On 5 January 2019, Anning attended a far-right rally in Melbourne led by far-right extremist Blair Cottrell, founder of the United Patriots Front.
In January 2019, he began the process with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to register a new political party, called "Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party" with a registered abbreviation of "The Conservative Nationals". After the proposal to register that abbreviation was withdrawn, the AEC granted formal registration on 2 April 2019.
In May 2019, 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". Rahma has never been found.
Zack Newton, an electoral officer on Senator 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".
Anning was third on the One Nation senate ticket in Queensland at the 2016 federal election. He gained just 19 below-the-line first-preference votes under the optional preferential voting system. Due to its high statewide count, One Nation elected two senators in Queensland at the 2016 election – party leader Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts. In October 2017, during the parliamentary eligibility crisis, the Court of Disputed Returns ruled Roberts was ineligible to be elected to the Senate due to his failure to renounce his British citizenship. The following month, on 10 November, Anning was declared elected in place of Roberts following a special recount. Prior to his elevation to the Senate, he was facing bankruptcy legal action due to money owed to the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. This could have made him ineligible to sit in parliament, but the case was withdrawn.
Upon his swearing in to the Senate on 13 November 2017, Anning was vouched for (a parliamentary custom indicating that the new member is who he claims to be) by two crossbenchers from other parties: Cory Bernardi (Australian Conservatives) and David Leyonhjelm (Liberal Democrats). Later on the same day, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson issued a media release saying that Anning had "abandoned" the party to sit as an independent "until something else comes along". Anning responded that "she Hanson made my position pretty much untenable with her conditions." On 16 November, it was reported that neither Anning nor Hanson had formally made their intentions clear to the Senate chamber regarding his party status, and he therefore remained a One Nation senator in the eyes of the Senate. It was also unclear whether Hanson intended to expel Anning solely from the parliamentary group or the wider organisational party as well. On 15 January 2018, 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 Anning joined Katter's Australian Party, becoming the party's first senator.
His speech included a reference to a "final solution"—the phrase used by the Nazi Party to refer to the preparation and execution of the Holocaust, when he said "The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote." Anning claimed that his comments were taken out of context, that he had used the phrase to introduce the last of six policies he proposed about immigration. His 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. He refused to apologise for his comments. Pauline Hanson said she was appalled by Anning's comments and described them as "straight from Joseph Goebbels' handbook". However, Anning's party leader Bob Katter described it as "a magnificent speech, solid gold" and said he "1000 percent supports" Anning.
However, 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.
Anning's party expulsion came after Queensland Labor premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk cut the party's parliamentary staff numbers.
On 16 March, Anning was Egging on the back of his head by 17-year-old William "Egg Boy" Connolly while speaking to media and his supporters in an industrial warehouse/event space in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin. Anning subsequently slapped Connolly twice in the face. Connolly was then tackled by several of 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. Connolly was taken into custody by police, but was released without charge, while they launched an investigation into the violence.Egg boy:
On the day following the incident, Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison criticised Anning, arguing that "the full force of the law" should be applied to the senator. A fundraiser was started to support Connolly's legal fees and "to buy more eggs", claiming to have raised over $10,000 in under 24 hours. Connolly said he would give the money raised to the victims' families. The money was held by a law firm acting without fee and on 27 May, Connolly announced that a total of $99,922 had been donated to two funds providing for the victims of the Christchurch shooting.
The police announced the completion of their investigation three weeks after the incident, saying that Anning would not be charged as his actions had been in self-defence, and that Connolly had received an official caution. However, a man who allegedly kicked Connolly several times while he was held down was charged with assault.
On 26 April 2019, during the 2019 Federal Election campaign, Anning used the site of the 2005 Cronulla race riots in Sydney to announce his party's candidates for New South Wales. A 19-year-old supporter of Anning was arrested and charged with assault and intimidation after being involved in an altercation with members of the media immediately after the announcement, allegedly punching a photographer and abusing a journalist. Video footage shows the young man repeatedly punching the photographer, who sustained injury. The assailant was a member of the militant white supremacist group True Blue Crew, which has been linked to terrorism.
Adrian David Cheok was a candidate for the Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party, receiving 0.79% of the vote in the Adelaide division of Boothby. Boothby, SA , Tally Room 2019, Australian Electoral Commission. Anning lost his Senate seat in the 2019 election.
The party was deregistered on 23 September 2020.
In November 2020, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) brought legal action against Anning, seeking a penalty of up to $26,640 for allegedly failing to lodge required financial returns for the 2018-19 financial year. On 16 February 2021, the AEC dropped the case because they were unable to locate Anning in Australia despite several attempts to contact him, with the AEC believing him to be overseas.
In 2021, Adrian David Cheok published a biography of Fraser Anning.
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