In his first speech to Parliament, Senator Fraser Anning, a member of Katter's Australian Party, made a number of disputed claims including that "a majority of Muslims in Australia of working age do not work and live on welfare". Senator Anning has previously used Twitter to campaign against those migrants and asylum seekers he claims come to Australia "for a life of permanent handouts". RMIT ABC Fact Check investigated the senator's maiden speech claim that the majority of working-age Muslims do not work and instead live on welfare, and found that his claim is half-baked. The majority of working-age Muslims, that is more than half of Muslims aged 15-64, are not working. The exact figure is 51.3 per cent. But whether these Muslims are also living on welfare payments cannot be established because the Government does not collect information on religion in social security statistics. The Australian Bureau of Statistics does not collect this data either. Most newly arrived skilled migrants must wait two years before becoming eligible for welfare payments. And some people who are not working, such as those whose spouse is employed, are not eligible for government benefits in most cases.
Verdict: half-baked