A judge has ruled that Pauline Hanson engaged in racial discrimination when she tweeted at Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to go “back to Pakistan”.
Justice Angus Stewart on Friday found the One Nation leader’s tweet to be unlawful, portrayed Faruqi as a “second-class citizen” who “took advantage” of Australia and as a migrant to the country “should be grateful for what she has and keep quiet”, which he declared to be “exclusionary”.
Stewart also found Hanson’s comment that Faruqi should “piss off back to Pakistan” was a “variant of the slogan ‘go back to from where you came from’” which he said was an “evident racist trope” and a “strong form of racism”. He added that Hanson’s tweet, given her profile, likely “empowered others” to make similar or worse comments.
An emotional Faruqi hugged her legal team in tears after the judgment was handed down in the federal court in Sydney, finding that Hanson’s tweet had breached Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Hanson will need to delete the tweet and pay Faruqi’s costs for the proceedings.
Stewart rejected Hanson’s arguments, including that Faruqi’s tweet on the queen’s passing justified her response, and that it did not fall within the fair comment exemption because it was a “angry, personal attack.”
Stewart said: “The court has concluded that the tweet was reasonably likely in all the circumstances to have been profoundly and seriously offensive, insulting, humiliating and intimidating to a significant number of members of the identified groups and to the reasonable targeted person in the position of Senator Faruqi.
“Based on frequent public statements made by Senator Hanson over nearly three decades, the court has found that Senator Hanson has a tendency to make negative, derogatory, discriminating or hateful statements in relation to about or against groups of people relevantly identified as persons of colour, migrants to Australia and Muslims, and to do so because of those characteristic.”
He said that under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the post was unlawful in that “ it was reasonably likely in all the circumstances to offend and humiliate and intimidate the applicant and groups of people, namely people of colour who are migrants to Australia or are Australians of relatively recent migrant heritage And Muslims who are people of colour in Australia.”
The case stems from an interaction the pair had on X, then called Twitter, on 9 September 2022, shortly after Queen Elizabeth II died, with the judgment setting out details of the interaction.
Faruqi greeted the news by tweeting: “Condolences to those who knew the Queen. I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples. We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic.”
Hanson tweeted in response: “Your attitude appalls and sigusts me. When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan - PH”.
