A racially motivated attack on an Indigenous woman in Perth is a “clear link between the politics of hate, and acts of hate,” Senator Lidia Thorpe has said.
West Australian police are hunting for a man who allegedly attacked a woman using a makeshift flamethrower while bearing a swastika painted on his forehead.
Police say the 40-year-old woman and her teenager daughter were approached by the man in the Perth suburb of Gosnells on Saturday night.
They told police he yelled racial obscenities at the woman before attempting to burn her with the makeshift flamethrower made up of a deodorant can and a lighter.
The woman sustained minor injuries.
WA Police say the man is described as fair-skinned, about 40 years old and 175cm tall.
On Twitter, Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe said the attack was the “inevitable outcome” of politicians and prominent public figures “encouraging and amplifying” the “politics of hate.”
Labor MP and Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney described the incident as another example of a “disconcerting trend” in right-wing extremism and white supremacy in Australia.
