Australian politician egged after blaming New Zealand terror attack on Muslims to be publicly rebuked in senate

Fraser Anning could face charges, prime minister suggests, after senator punched 17-year-old who egged him following inflammatory remarks

Australia’s senate is to officially rebuke a senator who blamed the terrorist attack in New Zealand on Muslims and then punched a teenager who cracked an egg on the back of his head.

Furthermore, Australia’s prime minister suggested Queensland senator Fraser Anning should be charged over the egg incident.

A bipartisan motion led by the Australian senate leader Mathias Cormann, alongside senate opposition leader Penny Wong, said Mr Anning seeks “to attribute blame to victims of a horrific crime and to vilify people on the basis of religion, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people.”

The 17-year-old boy crunched the egg onto the back of Mr Anning’s scalp during a press conference after Mr Anning said the New Zealand terrorist attack in which 50 Muslims were killed was due to an “increasing Muslim presence” in the country.

After the egg was broken on his head, Mr Anning turned round and struck the teenager twice.

Footage of the incident then shows several supporters of Mr Anning’s tackle the boy to the ground and restrain him in a chokehold. One man is seen kicking the boy while he is on the ground.

On Sunday, the prime minister Scott Morrison told reporters: “The full force of the law should be applied to Senator Anning.”

Victoria Police has said it is investigating the actions of the senator and his supporters as well as those of the teenager.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said: “Having seen that footage I instructed that our people examine the whole of that footage with the relevance to whether any assault charges be laid [against] anyone in that footage that may have committed an offence, not only from that first egging incident, but then everything that followed on from that.”

One of those who tackled the boy was far-right activist Neil Erikson, who was controlling access to the building. During the scuffle to apprehend the boy, he shouted for reporters to be removed from the area.

“Get the journalists out of here ... If you don’t like, get out,” Erikson said, according to The Sun-Herald newspaper.

While the child was being held in a chokehold, one of Mr Anning’s supporters is heard telling him: “You are nothing but a weak human f***ing being, you f***ing prick.”

The teenager has won considerable support for egging the far-right senator.

A crowd-funding page set up to help pay for any legal fees he may face has raised almost 30,000 Australian dollars (£16,000).

The page initially said: “Money raised will go to EggBoi for: Legal fees. More eggs.”

But it was later updated to say the 17-year-old “is committed to sending a majority of the money to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack.”

In a video posted after the egging incident the boy urged people not to follow his example.

“Don’t egg politicians. You get tackled by 30 bogans at the same time,” he said in the video, using Australian slang for an unsophisticated person.

“I learnt the hard way,” he added.

Mr Anning caused outrage after the attack in which 50 Muslims were killed in two mosques, with a statement calling Islam “the religious equivalent of fascism”.

He said: “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.

“Let us be clear, while Muslims may have been the victims today, usually they are the perpetrators. World-wide, Muslims are killing people in the name of their faith on an industrial scale.”

He added: “The truth is that Islam is not like any other faith. It is the religious equivalent of fascism. And just because the followers of this savage belief were not the killers in this instance, does not make them blameless.”

A Change.org petition to remove him from parliament has accrued almost a million signatures and has made it the biggest and fastest-growing petition ever hosted on the platform.