As political stunts go the appearance of an Australian far-right politician in the Canberra parliament wearing a burqa is hard to beat.

When Pauline Hanson, leader of the Islamophobic One Nation party walked in completely cover in black there were gasps from assembled legislators and one was heard to cry, “Oh, what on earth!”.

The speaker of the House of Representatives might have been tempted to order the racist politician from the chamber and will surely be seeking to find out how security had permitted Hanson to enter in this attire. But it was probably a good thing that this woman was allowed to stay and hear the reaction of virtually every other MP to her outrageous mockery of Islam. Indeed she had probably been hoping that she would be expelled, which would have allowed her to claim she had been victimized.

Instead after she had delivered a stumbling speech endeavoring to justify her conduct and calling for the burqa to be banned, she was exposed to withering criticism from all sides of the house.

The condemnation was led by the government’s Attorney General George Brandis. The Australian parliament is known for the scathing comments and rudeness that members dish out to each other. Yet however much anger and contempt he may have felt for Hanson’s wicked piece of theater, Brandis was notably moderate in his response, but that very moderation gave his words extra power.

He said that the racist politician’s actions had risked the more than half a million Muslims in Australia’s population. To ridicule this community, to mock its religious garments was an appalling conduct and he suggested she reflect on what she had done. He concluded by telling her that the government of Malcolm Turnbull in which he served had no intention of banning the burqa.

Hanson, who had sat awkwardly throughout Brandis’ dignified skewering of her insulting stunt and objectionable racist policies, then had to endure a rare demonstration of parliamentary unity when all opposition politicians joined government members in standing and applauding the attorney-general’s words.

There is an argument that the election of bigots like Hanson, Gert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France has the benefit of exposing the contorted, ugly face of intolerance for all the world to see. Their poisonous propaganda when exposed to public view in national legislatures can be seen for the disfiguring threat it poses to all decent and civilized values. Had Hanson been thrown out of the chamber in Canberra she would have carped on about her right of free speech. Perhaps she was so hesitant in delivering her bile-filled speech against the wearing of the burqa because she had not expected she would be given the opportunity to make it.

But there is one still very recent lesson from a Europe that prided itself on its sophistication and political maturity, which cannot be ignored. Hitler’s Nazi party came to power through the ballot box and in and out of parliament it made no secret of its hatred for Jews. Democracies wring their hands about the right of free speech and insist that even the most deplorable views deserve to be heard. But who would now deny that if there had been an undemocratic way to stop Hitler’s Nazis from seizing power and replacing democracy with dictatorship, it should have been taken?