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Politicians Take Aim At Pauline Hanson Over Calls For Easter Bunny Boycott

Federal and State MPs aren't happy.
Hanson wants Australia to boycott Cadbury Easter eggs.
Facebook/Pauline Hanson
Hanson wants Australia to boycott Cadbury Easter eggs.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Labor Party MP Tony Burke have criticised One Nation senator Pauline Hanson for her calls for an Easter boycott on "halal certified" Cadbury chocolate products.

Hanson took to Facebook on Tuesday to call on Australians to avoid buying Cadbury chocolate products over the Easter holiday for having halal certification, instead throwing her support behind Lindt and Darrell Lea manufacturers.

In a post to his own Facebook page on Wednesday, Andrews slammed the move, saying Hanson "seems to hate other religions more than she loves her own country."

"Why else would you call for a boycott on a company that has been manufacturing in Australia for close to 100 years?" the post said.

"Pauline Hanson hates this little thing so much that she's decided to try and sabotage the jobs of 1100 Cadbury workers in Victoria and Tasmania.

"And this is the same person who has been going around calling other people 'un-Australian' for decades? She should look in the mirror."

And Andrews wasn't the only politician to express anger over her Cadbury boycott call.

Federal Labor Party MP Tony Burke also crticised Hanson in a Facebook post, asking her to "please explain" how halal certification can be considered "an attack on the true Christian meaning of Easter" when the story of the Easter bunny also exists.

"Easter is really important to me and I don't understand at all how a label on a piece of chocolate is meant to get in the way of Easter," Burke said in the post.

In the video posted on Tuesday, Hanson holds up examples of Cadbury, Lindt and Darrell Lea Easter egg chocolate products and suggests Australians "go and buy some non-halal Easter eggs and chocolate."

On Channel Ten's The Project on Tuesday night, Waleed Aly, also threw a dampener on Hanson's calls by eating a non-halal certified Lindt chocolate bunny to show it didn't compromise his Islamic faith.

"[The bunny] is entirely halal, it's all vegetarian, it's fine. It's halal," Aly said before taking a bite out of the chocolate live-on-air.

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