Excerpt:
Comments by a Liberal senator linking terror raids with a campaign to ban the burqa have been described as "stupid and ignorant" and designed to "feed prejudice".
As news broke of the mass counter-terrorism operation across Sydney and Brisbane, in which 15 people were arrested and one charged, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi took to Twitter to rail against the burqa as a "shroud of oppression".
Senator Bernardi has been a long-time critic of the burqa, arguing that it is a "symbol of female oppression and Islamic culture", carries security and identification risks and is "un-Australian".