Fellow senator defends Anning’s right to attend St Kilda rally, by Richard Ferguson.

Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm has defended crossbench colleague Fraser Anning, declaring the independent senator is not “anti-Semitic or a Nazi”, and backed his right to charge taxpayers for his flights to and from Saturday’s far-right protests.

The support for the Queensland independent came as senior politicians, including Tony Abbott, continued to line up to condemn his attendance at a neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne.

Earlier this week, Scott Morrison labelled Senator Anning a ­“repeat offender” when it came to racism, while Bill Shorten said the Queensland independent was “siding with neo-Nazis”.

Fraser Anning

Senator Leyonhjelm, who will run in the NSW state election in March, said calling Senator Anning “anti-Semitic” would be a distortion.

“I’m no champion of Fraser but he’s not anti-Semitic or a Nazi. He’s a big supporter of Israel. I think Nazis are supposed to be anti-Semitic,” he said. …

“If you want to find anti-Semitism in the Senate, look at the Greens and the Left of the Labor Party who support the BDS movement, who are pushing Labor to recognise Palestine.”

I don’t recall Greens politicians ever being asked to pay back public money they spent traveling to “environmental” events. There’s some very selective application of principle going on here.

hat-tip Stephen Neil