Judge rules against Pauline Hanson
A judge has ruled that Pauline Hanson's comment to a Muslin senator constitutes "strong racism".
Justice Angus Stewart found that the One Nation leader engaged in "seriously offensive" and intimidating behaviour when told Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to "piss off back to Pakistan".
Hanson made the comments on X, formally Twitter, in September 2022, with Justice Stewart finding that the outburst breached the Racial Discrimination Act.
The post was racist, nativist and anti-Muslim, the judge said, explaining, "It is a strong form of racism."
Hanson's post was in response to one from Faruqi on the day Queen Elizabeth died, as the Greens deputy leader wrote she could not mourn the passing of the leader of a "racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples".
Hanson's claim that she did not know her Greens rival was a Muslim when she sent the tweet was rejected by the court.
The One Nation leader also argued that she merely engaged in political discourse by pointing out hypocrisy from the Greens deputy in criticising the monarchy while benefiting from moving to and living in Australia, which was quickly shot down by the judge.
"Her tweet was an angry personal attack on Senator Faruqi," Justice Stewart said.
Hanson has been ordered to delete the tweet within seven days and to pay the Greens deputy leader's legal costs of running the lawsuit.
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