The motion was defeated, but by a margin of just three: 28 senators voted in support, including deputy Nationals leader and Victorian Senator Bridget McKenzie, and other government senators (although the government backpedalled on Tuesday).

Read more: McKenzie supports Hanson’s ‘It’s OK to be white’ motion

The decision of these senators to vote in favour of such a motion was met with bewilderment and anger by many, but there were also others asking why it should not be said that it’s OK to be white.

Those taking issue with this motion do not suggest being white is intrinsically bad.

But “anti-white racism”, as Senator Hanson put it, does not and cannot exist in Australia.

Racism has been defined as prejudice plus power, and in this country, white people have never been persecuted for the colour of their skin – they have held the power.

In a parliament that is overwhelmingly white and hardly reflective of the ethnic make-up of Australia as a whole, the compulsion to reassure white people of their worth is absurd.

It becomes even more farcical given the very real and harmful racism Indigenous Australians and other people of colour continue to face in this country.

A 2015-16 Western Sydney University study found more than half of Indigenous respondents had experienced racism in everyday settings such as restaurants, shops, public transport and the street, with similar experiences reported by those who spoke a language other than English.

On top of that, the phrase “It’s OK to be white” has been used by white supremacists for years, and has been taken on by neo-Nazis and the alt-right.

Recent years have seen growing examination in the public sphere of race and power and the privileges afforded white people, but it is a mockery to equate critique of the position white people occupy to the actual injustices of oppression and racism.

- Natalie Croxon, journalist