Australia Votes Out Far-Right Lawmaker Egged By Teen

Fraser Anning was booted from Parliament months after he claimed the New Zealand mosque shootings were the fault of Muslims.
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Fraser Anning ― the far-right Australian lawmaker who became an internet sensation after being egged by a teenager ― has been booted out of Parliament.

On Saturday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australian Broadcasting Corp. election expert Antony Green made the call, announcing that the Queensland senator “goes back to where he came from ... he won’t be in the Parliament.”

Though the results of Australian’s elections are still being finalized, it appears Anning won’t be back in his seat once his term ends on June 30.

Anning became known outside Australia in March, when 17-year-old Will Connolly of Melbourne struck him in the head with a raw egg after the politician blamed Muslim immigrants for the New Zealand mosque massacres in which an alleged white supremacist gunman killed 51 people.

The day the attacks unfolded, Anning, who has expressed Islamophobia in the past, sparked backlash when he released a statement declaring, “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.”

The following day, Connolly egged him during a live TV interview, prompting Anning to swing around and hit the teen in retaliation.

Footage of the incident went viral online as Twitter users praised Connolly as a “hero,” crowning him “Egg Boy.” A GoFundMe page was then launched to pay any of his potential legal fees, which he vowed to instead donate to the shooting victims.

Less than two weeks after the egging, Connolly broke his silence in an interview with Australia’s Network 10, acknowledging that “what I did was not the right thing to do,” but adding that “this egg has united people and, you know, money had been raised, tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for those victims.”

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